بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
الٓمٓ
Alif, Lam, Meem.
أَحَسِبَ ٱلنَّاسُ أَن يُتْرَكُوٓا۟ أَن يَقُولُوٓا۟ ءَامَنَّا وَهُمْ لَا يُفْتَنُونَ
Do the people suppose that they will be let off because they say, ‘We have faith,’ and they will not be tested?
وَلَقَدْ فَتَنَّا ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ ۖ فَلَيَعْلَمَنَّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ صَدَقُوا۟ وَلَيَعْلَمَنَّ ٱلْكَٰذِبِينَ
Certainly We tested those who were before them. So Allah shall surely ascertain those who are truthful, and He shall surely ascertain the liars.
أَمْ حَسِبَ ٱلَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِ أَن يَسْبِقُونَا ۚ سَآءَ مَا يَحْكُمُونَ
Do those who commit misdeeds suppose that they can outmaneuver Us? Evil is the judgement that they make.
مَن كَانَ يَرْجُوا۟ لِقَآءَ ٱللَّهِ فَإِنَّ أَجَلَ ٱللَّهِ لَءَاتٍۢ ۚ وَهُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ
Whoever expects to encounter Allah [should know that] Allah’s [appointed] time will indeed come, and He is the All-hearing, the All-knowing.
وَمَن جَٰهَدَ فَإِنَّمَا يُجَٰهِدُ لِنَفْسِهِۦٓ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَغَنِىٌّ عَنِ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Whoever strives, strives only for his own sake. Indeed Allah has no need of the creatures.
وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ لَنُكَفِّرَنَّ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّـَٔاتِهِمْ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَحْسَنَ ٱلَّذِى كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ
As for those who have faith and do righteous deeds, We will absolve them of their misdeeds and We will surely reward them by the best of what they used to do.
وَوَصَّيْنَا ٱلْإِنسَٰنَ بِوَٰلِدَيْهِ حُسْنًۭا ۖ وَإِن جَٰهَدَاكَ لِتُشْرِكَ بِى مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِۦ عِلْمٌۭ فَلَا تُطِعْهُمَآ ۚ إِلَىَّ مَرْجِعُكُمْ فَأُنَبِّئُكُم بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ
We have enjoined man to be good to his parents. But if they urge you to ascribe to Me as partner that of which you have no knowledge, then do not obey them. To Me will be your return, whereat I will inform you concerning what you used to do.
وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ لَنُدْخِلَنَّهُمْ فِى ٱلصَّٰلِحِينَ
Those who have faith and do righteous deeds, We will surely admit them among the righteous.
وَمِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ مَن يَقُولُ ءَامَنَّا بِٱللَّهِ فَإِذَآ أُوذِىَ فِى ٱللَّهِ جَعَلَ فِتْنَةَ ٱلنَّاسِ كَعَذَابِ ٱللَّهِ وَلَئِن جَآءَ نَصْرٌۭ مِّن رَّبِّكَ لَيَقُولُنَّ إِنَّا كُنَّا مَعَكُمْ ۚ أَوَلَيْسَ ٱللَّهُ بِأَعْلَمَ بِمَا فِى صُدُورِ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
Among the people there are those who say, ‘We have faith in Allah,’ but if such a one is tormented in Allah’s cause, he takes persecution by the people for Allah’s punishment. Yet if there comes any help from your Lord, they will say, ‘We were indeed with you.’ Does not Allah know best what is in the breasts of the creatures?
وَلَيَعْلَمَنَّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَلَيَعْلَمَنَّ ٱلْمُنَٰفِقِينَ
Allah shall surely ascertain those who have faith, and He shall surely ascertain the hypocrites.
وَقَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لِلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱتَّبِعُوا۟ سَبِيلَنَا وَلْنَحْمِلْ خَطَٰيَٰكُمْ وَمَا هُم بِحَٰمِلِينَ مِنْ خَطَٰيَٰهُم مِّن شَىْءٍ ۖ إِنَّهُمْ لَكَٰذِبُونَ
The faithless say to the faithful, ‘Follow our way and we will bear [responsibility for] your iniquities.’ They will not bear anything of their iniquities. They are indeed liars.
وَلَيَحْمِلُنَّ أَثْقَالَهُمْ وَأَثْقَالًۭا مَّعَ أَثْقَالِهِمْ ۖ وَلَيُسْـَٔلُنَّ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ عَمَّا كَانُوا۟ يَفْتَرُونَ
But they will carry their own burdens and other burdens along with their own burdens, and they will surely be questioned on the Day of Resurrection concerning that which they used to fabricate.
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Triangulated across five present sources: Ṭabarsī (Majmaʿ al-Bayān) [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], al-Qummī [qummi], al-Ṭūsī (al-Tibyān) [tusi_al_tibyan], al-Baḥrānī (al-Burhān) [bahrani_al_burhan], and al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (al-Mīzān) [tabatabai_al_mizan]. None is silent.
Human-review flags: al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] (confidence 0.85) — its single coarse unit (vv. 1–13) carries long argument-chains that I condensed faithfully in al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī's own voice (marked with bracketed
[He notes…]summaries): the iltifāt-to-the-Name rationale at v. 3, the active-vs-essential-knowledge digression, the "meeting with God" alternatives, and especially the lengthy refutation of the Medinan-dating argument. The full fetched Arabic is retained inoriginal_ar.
What the passage says. After Alif Lām Mīm (1), the sūra opens with its governing question: do people imagine that merely saying "we believe" exempts them from being tried (2)? God has always tried prior nations, so He will surely make manifest the truthful and the liars (3); the evildoers cannot "outstrip" Him (4); whoever hopes to meet God should know His term is coming (5); whoever strives, strives only for himself, God being free of all need (6); the believers' misdeeds will be remitted and their best rewarded (7). Kindness to parents is enjoined — but not obedience when they push toward shirk "of which you have no knowledge" (8) — and the faithful will be admitted among the righteous (9). Then the hypocrite who equates "the people's trial" with "God's punishment" and claims a share when help arrives (10–11), and the disbelievers who say "follow our way and we will carry your sins" — they will carry their own loads and loads with their loads, and be questioned for what they fabricate (12–13).
How the present sources read it. On fitna all converge: it is examination, not mere claim — and Ṭabarsī [tabarsi_majma_al_bayan], al-Burhān [bahrani_al_burhan] and al-Mīzān [tabatabai_al_mizan] all carry the Imam's ḥadīth (via Maʿmar b. Khallād from Abū l-Ḥasan) that believers "are tried as gold is tried, then purified as gold is purified." A genuine qirāʾa divergence is unique to Ṭabarsī: he ascribes to ʿAlī (with Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan, and al-Zuhrī) the causative reading fa-la-yuʿlimanna ("He shall surely make known") against the canonical fa-la-yaʿlamanna ("He shall surely know) — a non-canonical reading I render strictly as-attributed. On the theological difficulty of God "coming to know," Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān agree the sense is the manifesting of faith's effects in action, knowledge standing for distinction/requital (al-Jubbāʾī's gloss in both Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī).
On the occasions of revelation, the sources transmit a spread that al-Mīzān gathers and then overrides: ʿAmmār b. Yāsir under torture (Ibn Jurayj), the persecuted Meccan emigrants (al-Shaʿbī/Qatāda), and — for v. 8 — the well-attested Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ narration (his mother's hunger strike), which Ṭabarsī gives verbatim and al-Mīzān cites via al-Durr al-Manthūr. Ṭabarsī and al-Mīzān also carry the ʿAyyāsh b. Abī Rabīʿa story (his brothers Abū Jahl and al-Ḥārith b. Hishām). al-Ṭūsī notes the same Saʿd sabab more briefly. (One transmission wrinkle: Ṭabarsī names Saʿd's mother "Ḥamna bint Abī Sufyān b. Umayya," where the standard genealogy is bint Sufyān b. Umayya — flagged.) Decisively, al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī alone mounts the sustained argument that the whole sūra is Meccan, refuting the Medinan inference from "hypocrisy / help / jihād" point by point — a structural reading absent from the others.
The Shīʿī taʾwīl layer is carried only by al-Qummī [qummi] and al-Baḥrānī [bahrani_al_burhan], and is reported as theirs, never asserted: the fitna of v. 2 is glossed as the trial of ʿAlī's succession (the Prophet to ʿAlī, "you will be tried and tried through you — prepare for the contention"); al-Suddī reads "the truthful" as "ʿAlī and his companions" and "the liars" as "his enemies"; and the "two parents" of v. 8 are read allegorically, via al-Aṣbagh b. Nubāta from ʿAlī, as "the two who begot knowledge and bequeathed wisdom" — al-Baḥrānī extending this into sixteen Imam-attributed sayings naming Muḥammad and ʿAlī "the two fathers of this community," and reading "the son of so-and-so / ibn Ḥantama." Both al-Qummī and al-Baḥrānī also gloss "help from your Lord" (10) as al-Qāʾim (the Riser). On vv. 12–13, Ṭabarsī, al-Ṭūsī and al-Mīzān read the "loads with loads" through {No bearer bears another's burden} and the "evil custom" ḥadīth, while al-Baḥrānī alone supplies the long Abū Isḥāq al-Laythī narration on the transfer of deeds between believers' and enemies' accounts.
Sources present: tabarsi_majma_al_bayan, qummi, tusi_al_tibyan, bahrani_al_burhan, tabatabai_al_mizan; silent: none.