وَيَقُولُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَوْلَآ أُنزِلَ عَلَيْهِ ءَايَةٌۭ مِّن رَّبِّهِۦٓ ۗ إِنَّمَآ أَنتَ مُنذِرٌۭ ۖ وَلِكُلِّ قَوْمٍ هَادٍ
The faithless say, ‘Why has not some sign been sent down to him from his Lord?’ You are only a warner, and there is a guide for every people.
ٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ مَا تَحْمِلُ كُلُّ أُنثَىٰ وَمَا تَغِيضُ ٱلْأَرْحَامُ وَمَا تَزْدَادُ ۖ وَكُلُّ شَىْءٍ عِندَهُۥ بِمِقْدَارٍ
Allah knows what every female carries [in her womb], and what the wombs reduce and what they increase, and everything is by [precise] measure with Him,
عَٰلِمُ ٱلْغَيْبِ وَٱلشَّهَٰدَةِ ٱلْكَبِيرُ ٱلْمُتَعَالِ
the Knower of the sensible and the Unseen, the All-great, the All-sublime.
سَوَآءٌۭ مِّنكُم مَّنْ أَسَرَّ ٱلْقَوْلَ وَمَن جَهَرَ بِهِۦ وَمَنْ هُوَ مُسْتَخْفٍۭ بِٱلَّيْلِ وَسَارِبٌۢ بِٱلنَّهَارِ
It is the same [to Him] whether any of you speaks secretly, or does so loudly, or whether he lurks in the night, or is open to view in daytime.
لَهُۥ مُعَقِّبَٰتٌۭ مِّنۢ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِۦ يَحْفَظُونَهُۥ مِنْ أَمْرِ ٱللَّهِ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا۟ مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ ۗ وَإِذَآ أَرَادَ ٱللَّهُ بِقَوْمٍۢ سُوٓءًۭا فَلَا مَرَدَّ لَهُۥ ۚ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن دُونِهِۦ مِن وَالٍ
He has guardian angels, to his front and his rear, who guard him by Allah’s command. Indeed Allah does not change a people’s lot, unless they change what is in their souls. And when Allah wishes to visit ill on a people, there is nothing that can avert it, and they have no protector besides Him.
هُوَ ٱلَّذِى يُرِيكُمُ ٱلْبَرْقَ خَوْفًۭا وَطَمَعًۭا وَيُنشِئُ ٱلسَّحَابَ ٱلثِّقَالَ
It is He who shows you the lightning, inspiring fear and hope, and He produces the clouds heavy [with rain].
وَيُسَبِّحُ ٱلرَّعْدُ بِحَمْدِهِۦ وَٱلْمَلَٰٓئِكَةُ مِنْ خِيفَتِهِۦ وَيُرْسِلُ ٱلصَّوَٰعِقَ فَيُصِيبُ بِهَا مَن يَشَآءُ وَهُمْ يُجَٰدِلُونَ فِى ٱللَّهِ وَهُوَ شَدِيدُ ٱلْمِحَالِ
The Thunder celebrates His praise, and the angels [too], in awe of Him, and He releases the thunderbolts and strikes with them whomever He wishes. Yet they dispute concerning Allah, though He is great in might.
لَهُۥ دَعْوَةُ ٱلْحَقِّ ۖ وَٱلَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِهِۦ لَا يَسْتَجِيبُونَ لَهُم بِشَىْءٍ إِلَّا كَبَٰسِطِ كَفَّيْهِ إِلَى ٱلْمَآءِ لِيَبْلُغَ فَاهُ وَمَا هُوَ بِبَٰلِغِهِۦ ۚ وَمَا دُعَآءُ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ إِلَّا فِى ضَلَٰلٍۢ
[Only] to Him belongs the true invocation; and those whom they invoke besides Him do not answer them in any wise—like someone who stretches his hands towards water [desiring] that it should reach his mouth, but it does not reach it—and the invocations of the faithless only go awry.
وَلِلَّهِ يَسْجُدُ مَن فِى ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ طَوْعًۭا وَكَرْهًۭا وَظِلَٰلُهُم بِٱلْغُدُوِّ وَٱلْءَاصَالِ ۩
To Allah prostrates whoever there is in the heavens and the earth, willingly or unwillingly, and their shadows at sunrise and sunset.
قُلْ مَن رَّبُّ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ ۚ قُلْ أَفَٱتَّخَذْتُم مِّن دُونِهِۦٓ أَوْلِيَآءَ لَا يَمْلِكُونَ لِأَنفُسِهِمْ نَفْعًۭا وَلَا ضَرًّۭا ۚ قُلْ هَلْ يَسْتَوِى ٱلْأَعْمَىٰ وَٱلْبَصِيرُ أَمْ هَلْ تَسْتَوِى ٱلظُّلُمَٰتُ وَٱلنُّورُ ۗ أَمْ جَعَلُوا۟ لِلَّهِ شُرَكَآءَ خَلَقُوا۟ كَخَلْقِهِۦ فَتَشَٰبَهَ ٱلْخَلْقُ عَلَيْهِمْ ۚ قُلِ ٱللَّهُ خَٰلِقُ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ وَهُوَ ٱلْوَٰحِدُ ٱلْقَهَّٰرُ
Say, ‘Who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth?’ Say, ‘Allah!’ Say, ‘Have you then taken others besides Him for guardians, who have no control over their own benefit or harm?’ Say, ‘Are the blind one and the seer equal? Are darkness and light equal?’ Have they set up for Allah partners who have created like His creation, so that the creations seemed confusable to them? Say, ‘Allah is the creator of all things, and He is the One and the All-paramount.’
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Present sources: Ṭabarsī, Majmaʿ al-Bayān [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan]; Ṭūsī, al-Tibyān [tusi_al_tibyan]; al-Qummī [qummi]; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] (Arabic original, translated here); al-Baḥrānī, al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan]. Silent: An Enlightening Commentary [enlightening_commentary] — al-islam.org Cloudflare-blocked all run. (Qummī's grouped 16–18 block is rendered with Passage 3 to keep the water/foam parable intact.)
What the passage says. The disbelievers' demand for a "sign" is answered: "you are only a warner, and for every people a guide" (v.7). God's total knowledge is then set out — of what wombs bear, diminish and increase, everything "by measure" (v.8); Knower of unseen and witnessed, Great and Exalted (v.9); to whom secret and open, night-hider and day-goer are alike (v.10). Man has relays of angels (muʿaqqibāt) guarding him "by/from the command of God," and the law that "God does not change what is with a people until they change what is in themselves" (v.11). The storm-signs follow: lightning of fear and hope, heavy clouds (v.12); thunder and angels glorifying, the thunderbolts, and God "severe in might" while they dispute (v.13); the true call versus the futile call to idols — "like one who stretches his palms to water" (v.14); universal prostration, even of shadows, morning and evening (v.15); and the closing argument: who is the Lord? — God, the Creator of all, the One, the Paramount (v.16).
"For every people a guide." All five present sources treat v.7 as the doctrinal centre of the passage, and here Shīʿī and (reported) Sunnī tradition converge remarkably. [qummi] gives al-Ṣādiq's flat identification — "the warner is the Messenger, the guide is ʿAlī, and after him the Imams … in every age an Imam," tied to ʿAlī's dictum that "the earth is never void of a Proof." [bahrani_al_burhan] frames the same doctrine through the thaqalayn and the twelve infallible Imams. [tusi_al_tibyan] lists five views (culminating in "the infallible Imam of every age") and cites al-Ṭabarī's chain for the Prophet's gesture to ʿAlī. Most carefully, [tabatabai_al_mizan] both affirms the ʿAlī-tradition through many chains (al-Kulaynī, al-Ṣadūq, al-Ṣaffār, al-ʿAyyāshī, al-Qummī, and Sunnī routes in al-Durr al-Manthūr and al-Ḥākim) and guards the plain sense: the Prophet is the exemplar of "warner" (guidance-with-a-call) and the Imam of "guide," the verse "running on" (jary) through each Imam — so the earth is never without a guide.
Wombs "by measure" (v.8). A striking convergence: [qummi], [bahrani_al_burhan] (seven near-identical narrations from al-Bāqir/al-Ṣādiq via Ḥarīz, Zurāra, Muḥammad b. Muslim) and [tabatabai_al_mizan] all read ghayḍ/increase as the blood diverted to nourish the foetus versus the blood seen in pregnancy that extends the term — al-Mīzān explicitly preferring this (with al-Rāghib's lexicon) over the majority "shortfall/excess of the nine-month term," which [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] report as the dominant exegete view. On "Knower of the unseen and witnessed," al-Mīzān's metaphysical gloss ("unseen and witnessed are relative; nothing is unseen to Him") stands beside the shared narration (Burhān, Mīzān) of al-Ṣādiq: "the unseen is what has not been, the witnessed what has been."
The muʿaqqibāt and "God does not change" (v.11). Every present source records the ʿAlid qirāʾa — "successors from behind him and a watcher before him, guarding him by (not from) the command of God" — with al-Ṣādiq's grammatical rebuke ("Are you not Arabs?"), preserved verbatim in [qummi] and [bahrani_al_burhan]. On the substance, [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] collect the classic views (recording-angels; guardians against perils until the decree; even "kings' guards"), while [tabatabai_al_mizan] builds a distinctive reading: man is a soul-body traveller to his Lord; the angels guard all that is "before and behind" him both "by" and "from" God's command (preservation and ruin alike are God's), and "God does not change …" grounds this — a decreed correlation of blessing with inner uprightness on the side of good, only a possible one on the side of ill (hence "when God wills ill," not "so He wills ill"), corroborated by {He pardons much}. Burhān and Mīzān share al-Riḍā's and Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn's traditions on the sins that "change blessings."
Storm, call, and prostration (vv.12–16). On "fear and hope," [bahrani_al_burhan] and [tabatabai_al_mizan] both give al-Riḍā's terse "fear for the traveller, hope for the resident" (one of Ṭabarsī's and Ṭūsī's listed views). On "severe in miḥāl," the sources spread across "seizing/vengeance/power/stratagem"; [tabatabai_al_mizan] and Nuʿmānī (via ʿAlī) settle on makr — God's out-contending of the idolaters' disputation. For the water-likeness of v.14, [qummi] and [bahrani_al_burhan] share the arresting Jābir-tradition identifying the futile caller with Cain at the well of Barahūt, while [tabatabai_al_mizan] reads the exception ("save like one who stretches his palms") as strengthening the denial — the idolaters attain only "the empty form of a call." On the prostration of shadows (v.15), al-Mīzān's essential-abasement reading (a real, not poetic, sujūd pictured to sense) is set explicitly against al-Ḥasan's "by the sword" and al-Jubbāʾī's "submission," which [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan] and [tusi_al_tibyan] report; [bahrani_al_burhan] adds al-Ṣādiq's turn to the answered hour of supplication at dawn and dusk. All converge on v.16 as the summation: the idolaters concede one Creator, which — as [tabatabai_al_mizan] stresses and [tusi_al_tibyan] argues against the Mujbira — refutes their partner-lords, for "God is the Creator of all things, the One, the Paramount." No claim rests on the silent Enlightening Commentary.