قُلْ إِنِّى نُهِيتُ أَنْ أَعْبُدَ ٱلَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ قُل لَّآ أَتَّبِعُ أَهْوَآءَكُمْ ۙ قَدْ ضَلَلْتُ إِذًۭا وَمَآ أَنَا۠ مِنَ ٱلْمُهْتَدِينَ
Say, ‘I have been forbidden to worship those whom you invoke besides Allah.’ Say, ‘I do not follow your desires, for then I will have gone astray, and I will not be among the [rightly] guided.’
قُلْ إِنِّى عَلَىٰ بَيِّنَةٍۢ مِّن رَّبِّى وَكَذَّبْتُم بِهِۦ ۚ مَا عِندِى مَا تَسْتَعْجِلُونَ بِهِۦٓ ۚ إِنِ ٱلْحُكْمُ إِلَّا لِلَّهِ ۖ يَقُصُّ ٱلْحَقَّ ۖ وَهُوَ خَيْرُ ٱلْفَٰصِلِينَ
Say, ‘Indeed I stand on a manifest proof from my Lord and you have denied it. What you seek to hasten is not up to me. Judgement belongs only to Allah; He expounds the truth and He is the best of judges.’
قُل لَّوْ أَنَّ عِندِى مَا تَسْتَعْجِلُونَ بِهِۦ لَقُضِىَ ٱلْأَمْرُ بَيْنِى وَبَيْنَكُمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
Say, ‘If what you seek to hasten were with me, the matter would surely have been decided between you and me, and Allah knows best the wrongdoers.’
۞ وَعِندَهُۥ مَفَاتِحُ ٱلْغَيْبِ لَا يَعْلَمُهَآ إِلَّا هُوَ ۚ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِى ٱلْبَرِّ وَٱلْبَحْرِ ۚ وَمَا تَسْقُطُ مِن وَرَقَةٍ إِلَّا يَعْلَمُهَا وَلَا حَبَّةٍۢ فِى ظُلُمَٰتِ ٱلْأَرْضِ وَلَا رَطْبٍۢ وَلَا يَابِسٍ إِلَّا فِى كِتَٰبٍۢ مُّبِينٍۢ
With Him are the treasures of the Unseen; no one knows them except Him. He knows whatever there is in land and sea. No leaf falls without His knowing it, nor is there a grain in the darkness of the earth, nor anything fresh or withered but it is in a manifest Book.
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى يَتَوَفَّىٰكُم بِٱلَّيْلِ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا جَرَحْتُم بِٱلنَّهَارِ ثُمَّ يَبْعَثُكُمْ فِيهِ لِيُقْضَىٰٓ أَجَلٌۭ مُّسَمًّۭى ۖ ثُمَّ إِلَيْهِ مَرْجِعُكُمْ ثُمَّ يُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
It is He who takes your souls by night, and He knows what you do by day, then He reanimates you therein so that a specified term may be completed. Then to Him will be your return, whereat He will inform you concerning what you used to do.
وَهُوَ ٱلْقَاهِرُ فَوْقَ عِبَادِهِۦ ۖ وَيُرْسِلُ عَلَيْكُمْ حَفَظَةً حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا جَآءَ أَحَدَكُمُ ٱلْمَوْتُ تَوَفَّتْهُ رُسُلُنَا وَهُمْ لَا يُفَرِّطُونَ
He is the All-dominant over His servants, and He sends guards to [protect] you. When death approaches anyone of you, Our messengers take him away and they do not neglect [their duty].
ثُمَّ رُدُّوٓا۟ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ مَوْلَىٰهُمُ ٱلْحَقِّ ۚ أَلَا لَهُ ٱلْحُكْمُ وَهُوَ أَسْرَعُ ٱلْحَٰسِبِينَ
Then they are returned to Allah, their real master. Look! All judgement belongs to Him, and He is the swiftest of reckoners.
قُلْ مَن يُنَجِّيكُم مِّن ظُلُمَٰتِ ٱلْبَرِّ وَٱلْبَحْرِ تَدْعُونَهُۥ تَضَرُّعًۭا وَخُفْيَةًۭ لَّئِنْ أَنجَىٰنَا مِنْ هَٰذِهِۦ لَنَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلشَّٰكِرِينَ
Say, ‘Who delivers you from the darkness of land and sea, [when] You invoke Him suppliantly and secretly: ‘‘If He delivers us from this, we will surely be among the grateful’’?’
قُلِ ٱللَّهُ يُنَجِّيكُم مِّنْهَا وَمِن كُلِّ كَرْبٍۢ ثُمَّ أَنتُمْ تُشْرِكُونَ
Say, ‘It is Allah who delivers you from them and from every agony, [but] then you ascribe partners [to Him].’
قُلْ هُوَ ٱلْقَادِرُ عَلَىٰٓ أَن يَبْعَثَ عَلَيْكُمْ عَذَابًۭا مِّن فَوْقِكُمْ أَوْ مِن تَحْتِ أَرْجُلِكُمْ أَوْ يَلْبِسَكُمْ شِيَعًۭا وَيُذِيقَ بَعْضَكُم بَأْسَ بَعْضٍ ۗ ٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ نُصَرِّفُ ٱلْءَايَٰتِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَفْقَهُونَ
Say, ‘He is able to send upon you a punishment from above you or from under your feet, or confound you as [hostile] factions, and make you taste one another’s violence.’ Look, how We paraphrase the signs variously so that they may understand!
وَكَذَّبَ بِهِۦ قَوْمُكَ وَهُوَ ٱلْحَقُّ ۚ قُل لَّسْتُ عَلَيْكُم بِوَكِيلٍۢ
Your people have denied it, though it is the truth. Say, ‘It is not my business to watch over you.’
لِّكُلِّ نَبَإٍۢ مُّسْتَقَرٌّۭ ۚ وَسَوْفَ تَعْلَمُونَ
For every prophecy there is a [preordained] setting, and soon you will know.
وَإِذَا رَأَيْتَ ٱلَّذِينَ يَخُوضُونَ فِىٓ ءَايَٰتِنَا فَأَعْرِضْ عَنْهُمْ حَتَّىٰ يَخُوضُوا۟ فِى حَدِيثٍ غَيْرِهِۦ ۚ وَإِمَّا يُنسِيَنَّكَ ٱلشَّيْطَٰنُ فَلَا تَقْعُدْ بَعْدَ ٱلذِّكْرَىٰ مَعَ ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
When you see those who gossip impiously about Our signs, avoid them until they engage in some other discourse; but if Satan makes you forget, then, after remembering, do not sit with the wrongdoing lot.
وَمَا عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ يَتَّقُونَ مِنْ حِسَابِهِم مِّن شَىْءٍۢ وَلَٰكِن ذِكْرَىٰ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَّقُونَ
Those who are Godwary are in no way accountable for them, but this is merely for admonition’s sake, so that they may beware.
وَذَرِ ٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّخَذُوا۟ دِينَهُمْ لَعِبًۭا وَلَهْوًۭا وَغَرَّتْهُمُ ٱلْحَيَوٰةُ ٱلدُّنْيَا ۚ وَذَكِّرْ بِهِۦٓ أَن تُبْسَلَ نَفْسٌۢ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ لَيْسَ لَهَا مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ وَلِىٌّۭ وَلَا شَفِيعٌۭ وَإِن تَعْدِلْ كُلَّ عَدْلٍۢ لَّا يُؤْخَذْ مِنْهَآ ۗ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ أُبْسِلُوا۟ بِمَا كَسَبُوا۟ ۖ لَهُمْ شَرَابٌۭ مِّنْ حَمِيمٍۢ وَعَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌۢ بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَكْفُرُونَ
Leave alone those who take their religion for play and diversion and whom the life of this world has deceived, and admonish with it, lest any soul should perish because of what it has earned: It shall not have any guardian besides Allah, nor any intercessor; and though it should offer every kind of ransom, it shall not be accepted from it. They are the ones who perish because of what they have earned; they shall have boiling water for drink and a painful punishment because of what they used to defy.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Sources present: Ṭabarsī, Majmaʿ al-Bayān [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]; Ṭūsī, al-Tibyān [tusi_al_tibyan]; Baḥrānī, al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]; al-Qummī [qummi]; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan]; An Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary]. All six present.
This passage closes the sūra's sustained argument against the Meccan polytheists. The Prophet is made to disavow idol-worship and rest his case on a clear proof (6:56–57); the timing of punishment is taken out of his hands and reserved to God (6:57–58); God's all-encompassing knowledge and power are displayed through the keys of the unseen, sleep-as-death, the recording angels, and deliverance from peril (6:59–64); and the disbelievers are warned of layered chastisements and told the Prophet is only a warner, before the command to withdraw from those who mock revelation (6:65–70).
1. Judgment belongs to God alone (6:57–58). All read "what you seek to hasten is not with me" as the disbelievers' demand for the threatened punishment or a proposed sign. [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] note the two readings yaquṣṣu / yaqḍī al-ḥaqq and draw the theological point that, since God "decrees the truth," injustice cannot be by His decree. [tabatabai_al_mizan] turns the verse into an extended discussion of the meaning of ḥukm — that the creative and legislative command (and, derivatively, all of reality's truth) belongs to God alone, others judging only by His permission. [enlightening_commentary] frames it plainly: retribution is with God, who respites the unjust as His wisdom requires.
2. The keys of the unseen (6:59). All gloss "with Him are the keys of the unseen." [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] cite Ibn ʿUmar's hadith of the five keys (cf. 31:34) and debate whether "a clear Book" is God's knowledge or the Preserved Tablet. Strikingly, [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], [tusi_al_tibyan], [bahrani_al_burhan] and [qummi] all transmit the same Imāmī gloss from al-Ṣādiq — the leaf = the miscarried, the grain = the child, the darknesses of the earth = the wombs, the moist = what lives, the dry = what the womb discharges — with [bahrani_al_burhan] adding the variant "in a clear Imam (imām mubīn)." [tabatabai_al_mizan] and [enlightening_commentary] develop the same verse as proof that God's knowledge reaches every particular, not merely universals.
3. Sleep, death and the recording angels (6:60–62). All read "He takes you by night" as sleep, a lesser death, and "raises you" as waking — [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] making this an argument for the Resurrection. On "the Subduer above His servants," [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] insist "aboveness" is overpowering dominion, not place (citing 48:10). [bahrani_al_burhan] and [qummi] preserve al-Ṣādiq's reconciliation of the soul-taking verses: the Angel of Death's helpers take the soul, he takes it from them, and God from him. [bahrani_al_burhan] alone carries al-Ḥusayn's retort to Marwān b. al-Ḥakam on 6:62 ("I and my companions to the Garden, he and his to the Fire").
4. The layered chastisements (6:65). All four Arabic sources and [enlightening_commentary] expound "punishment from above or beneath, or confusion into sects." [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] give the historical instances (the Flood, the stones of Lūṭ's people, Qārūn's swallowing) and the doctrine that God "confuses into sects" by withdrawing His grace (luṭf). [bahrani_al_burhan] and [qummi] supply the two Imāmī gloss-sets from al-Ṣādiq and al-Bāqir (unjust ruler, base people, partisanship, bad neighborliness; or smoke, Cry, swallowing, religious discord, mutual killing), all referred to "the people of the qibla." The Prophet's prayer — granted two requests, denied the two concerning internal division — is shared by [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan].
[bahrani_al_burhan] alone preserves the Jābir/al-Bāqir reading of 6:58, tying "what you seek to hasten" to a wish to hasten the Prophet's death, with the sun-and-moon parable of Muḥammad and his legatee. [qummi] alone gives the Prophetic injunction (via ʿAbd al-Aʿlā) on 6:68 against sitting where an imam is reviled or a Muslim backbitten. [tabatabai_al_mizan] supplies the structural reading that these verses form a single connected argument for monotheism, prophethood and resurrection, and the semantic derivation of bayyina from bayn (separation). [enlightening_commentary] contributes the "light that glitters in darkness" reading of 6:63 and the catalogue of "various chastisements." The classical pair [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] supply the juristic-theological scaffolding — luṭf, the impossibility of God in place, the abrogation of 6:68 by 4:140, and the long defense of the imams' ʿiṣma against al-Jubbāʾī. No source is silent for this passage.