Sūrah 74 · Āyāt 49–56

al-Muddaththir 74:49–56 — "Why do they turn away? … He is worthy of fear and forgiveness"

What the passage says. The sūra closes by marvelling at the rejecters: fa-mā lahum ʿani l-tadhkira muʿriḍīn, "What is the matter with them that they turn away from the Reminder, as if they were frightened asses fleeing a lion?" (49–51). Worse, "each of them wants scrolls spread open" — a private revelation handed to each man (52). The rebuke: "Nay! Rather they do not fear the Hereafter" (53); "Nay! It is a reminder; so whoever wills, heeds it — but they will not heed unless God wills. He is worthy of being feared and worthy of forgiving" (54–56).

The theological reading. Al-Mīzān, Majmaʿ al-Bayān and al-Tibyān read the close as the sūra's conclusion drawn from all that preceded. On yuʾtā ṣuḥufan munashshara, all three see a demand born of arrogance — each disbeliever wanting his own heavenly Book rather than following a mortal Messenger — and al-Mīzān ties it to 6:124 ("we will not believe until we are given the like of what God's messengers were given") and "God knows best where to place His Message," carefully distinguishing it from 17:93 (which asks for one Book recited to all). On bal lā yakhāfūna l-ākhira, the three agree the demand is a pretext; the real cause of disbelief is that they do not fear the Hereafter. The sūra's last two verses draw al-Mīzān into his characteristic resolution of free will and decree: "whoever wills, heeds it" affirms genuine human choice, while "they will not heed unless God wills" affirms that the act, free in relation to man, is the object of God's creative will and so necessarily realized — and "He is worthy of fear and forgiveness" grounds both, since His being so requires a will effective and running through their deeds. Ṭabarsī and Ṭūsī close on the plain sense of the final verse, with Ṭabarsī's marfūʿ report (← Anas) and al-Mīzān's parallel narrations: God said, "I am worthy to be feared, that no god be set up with Me; and whoever fears to associate, I am worthy to forgive him."

The Imāmī reading (al-Qummī, al-Burhān). Tafsīr al-Qummī fixes al-tadhkira from which they turn as "the muwālāt of the Commander of the Faithful," and (with al-Mīzān) carries the Abū l-Jārūd narration on ṣuḥufan munashshara — the Banū Isrāʾīl "written-sins" request the Prophet declined for his community. al-Burhān's continuous [31–56] run (carried whole here) reads fa-mā lahum ʿani l-tadhkira muʿriḍīn as turning from "the walāya," ḥumur mustanfira as "the Murjiʾa fleeing the merit of Āl Muḥammad," ṣuḥufan munashshara as "each opponent wanting a book from heaven," lā yakhāfūna l-ākhira as "the dominion of the Qāʾim," and the closing huwa ahlu l-taqwā wa-ahlu l-maghfira as "al-taqwā is the Prophet and al-maghfira is the Commander of the Faithful" — all transmitted as-attributed, not endorsed. Both Imāmī sources and the prophetic narrations carried by al-Mīzān and Ṭabarsī converge on the verse's tawḥīd-and-mercy seal: God will not punish the people of His Oneness with the Fire.

Convergence and divergence. All six read the close as a culminating wonder at obstinacy and a final, tender summons: the Reminder stands, the choice is real yet under God's will, and God is at once to be feared and to be hoped in. They diverge only in register — the Arabic tafsīrs and al-Mīzān keep the universal-theological frame (the arrogant demand for private scrolls, the free-will/decree balance, the tawḥīd seal), while al-Qummī and al-Burhān read "the Reminder," "the asses fleeing," and the closing pair through the walāya and the Qāʾim. No source is silent on this passage.