Sūrah 98 · Āyāt 4–5

Division came only after the proof. On "those who were given the Book did not divide except after the clear proof had come to them," al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī agree that the People of the Book had been united in affirming the coming Prophet — "by what they found of his descriptions in their Books" — and split only once he actually came. al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān both extract a theological consequence: this refutes the Determinists (ahl al-jabr / al-mujbira) who claim "the unbelievers were created as unbelievers in their mothers' wombs," for God states that they did not differ before His evidence arrived; al-Ṭūsī carefully adds that the miracles were "an enablement (tamkīn), not a corrupting cause." Tafsīr al-Qummī, through ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm, compresses it: "when the Messenger brought them the Qurʾān they opposed him and split apart after him." Al-Mīzān widens the frame — "those who were given the Book" is broader than "the People of the Book," reaching all communities given a scripture (citing "only those who were given it differed over it, after the clear proofs had come" [2:213] and [3:19]).

"They were commanded only to worship God." The sources read verse 5 as naming the unchanging core of every revealed religion. al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī gloss mukhliṣīn lahu al-dīn as worship of God alone "with no other worship mixed in." On ḥunafāʾ, al-Ṭabarsī surveys the lexicon — "inclining away from all religions toward Islam," and, when ḥanīf is paired with Muslim, the sense of pilgrim (Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn Jubayr, Qatāda's "circumcision and the rites"). Al-Mīzān gives the most distinctive reading: ḥanf is "inclining away from the two extremes of excess and deficiency toward the very middle of moderation," so Islam is a ḥanīf religion of the mean; and "maintain the prayer and pay the zakāt" is "the particular after the general," the two pillars of "servile turning to God and the spending of wealth for God." Tafsīr al-Qummī glosses ḥunafāʾ tersely as "pure" (ṭāhirīn).

"That is the upright religion." al-Ṭabarsī reports two construals of dīn al-qayyima — "the religion of the upright Books already mentioned," and, from al-Khalīl (via al-Naḍr b. Shumayl), "the religion of those who stand (al-qāʾimīn) for God in monotheism." Al-Mīzān ties it to the fiṭra: this is "God's religion, one and the same," the upright religion of "so set your face to the religion as a ḥanīf — the fiṭra of God… that is the upright religion" [30:30]. The Enlightening Commentary draws the same conclusion in plain terms: pure monotheism, prayer and alms "are eternal and unchangeable in all religions," rooted "within the nature of all human beings." al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī close on two derived rulings both draw from the verse's stress on sincerity: a refutation of jabr ("He created the creation only to worship Him") and the obligation of intention (niyya) in ritual purification, "since sincerity is possible only through intention."

The esoteric register. Al-Burhān again preserves al-Bāqir's taʾwīl (via Sharaf al-Dīn al-Najafī): "sincerity" is faith in God, His Messenger and the Imams; "the prayer" is the Commander of the Faithful; and dīn al-qayyima is read as Fāṭima — with a parallel narration from Abū Baṣīr glossing it "the religion of the Qāʾim." These are recorded as transmitted interpretive reports, flagged for review, not as the plain legal sense the other sources expound.