Sūrah 77 · Āyāt 41–50

al-Mursalat 41–50 — The reward of the Godwary and the last question

The register turns: the Godwary are amid shades and springs and fruits as they desire, bidden Eat and drink with relish for what you used to do; thus do We reward the virtuous (41–44). Against them the deniers are dismissed, Eat and enjoy a little; you are guilty (46), rebuked for pride — when it is said to them, Bow down, they do not bow (48) — and left with the sura’s closing challenge: then in what discourse after it will they believe? (50). The refrain sounds for the ninth and tenth times.

al-Tabarsi, al-Tusi and al-Tabatabaʼi agree that the imperative eat and drink is one of permission and honour, haniʾ being pure benefit without later harm, and that the address to the deniers (eat and enjoy a little) is of the type ‘do as you will, it will not profit you’ (al-Mizan comparing Q 20:72; 41:40; 47:12). al-Tusi highlights the deliberate contrast (muqabala) with the disbelievers’ ‘shadow of three columns’. On irkaʿu (v.48) all three take rukuʿ primarily as the prayer: al-Tabarsi and al-Tabatabaʼi cite Muqatil that it was revealed of Thaqif, who refused to bow (the Prophet: ‘no good in a religion without bowing and prostration’), with the alternative (Ibn ʿAbbas) that it is the prostration demanded on the Day when they cannot comply (Q 68:42). al-Tabatabaʼi notes the chronological difficulty in the Thaqif occasion, since the sura is Meccan. All read the final verse as a despairing of their faith: whoever rejects the miraculous Qurʺn will be moved by no other word.

The Imami taʾwil concentrated here reads rukuʿ through walaya. al-Qummi glosses v.48 as ‘when it is said to them, take the Imam as guardian, they do not’, and v.41 as ‘shades of a light brighter than the sun’; al-Bahrani adds al-Baqir’s inner-sense reading (‘when it is said to the nasib, take ʿAli as guardian…’) and Ibn Shahrashub’s identification of ‘the Godwary’ with ʿAli, al-Hasan and al-Husayn. These are rendered as attributed and flagged for human review — and al-Tabatabaʼi, citing the very al-Qummi gloss, labels it jary (application), not tafsir. The Enlightening Commentary carries the plain reading throughout, closing with the Thaqif occasion and the counsel against pride and carnal desire. All six sources are present.