The Heights (Al-A‘raf) الأعراف 167–168
167
وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكَ لَيَبْعَثَنَّ عَلَيْهِمْ إِلَى يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ مَن يَسُومُهُمْ سُوءَ الْعَذَابِ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَسَرِيعُ الْعِقَابِ وَإِنَّهُ لَغَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
Then your Lord declared that, until the Day of Resurrection, He would send others against them to inflict terrible suffering on them. Your Lord is swift in retribution; yet surely He is most forgiving and merciful.
168
وَقَطَّعْنَاهُمْ فِي الأَرْضِ أُمَمًا مِّنْهُمُ الصَّالِحُونَ وَمِنْهُمْ دُونَ ذَلِكَ وَبَلَوْنَاهُمْ بِالْحَسَنَاتِ وَالسَّيِّئَاتِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ
We split them up into sections on the earth. Some of them are righteous while some of them are otherwise, and We tested them with blessings and misfortunes, so that they might return to the right path.
No class discussions published for this verse group yet.
(a) When a great reward is given for the performance of a task, it follows that the punishment for non-performance of that task will be equally great. This is the case in respect of a community which has been made the bearer of the Holy Book. God had elevated the Jews to this status. So, besides being made promises of bounties in the Hereafter, they were granted extraordinary benefits in the world as well. But the Jews continuously indulged in disobedience, committing irreligious acts in the name of practicing religion. The result was that God deposed them from their elevated status. It was decided that so long as the world existed, they would continue to experience God’s punishment, and whatever was going to happen in the Hereafter would be further to that. This does not mean that till Doomsday, they would never have good fortune. As is clarified in these verses themselves, they would have intervals of good days, but such periods would themselves be a sort of divine curse on them, in as much as it would be an opportunity for them to indulge in more insolence and thus become liable for more punishment. This universal law of God was not solely for the Jews. It was applicable to even that later group which was raised, after the deposition of the Jews, to the elevated position of God’s witnesses. If Muslims find that they are being dominated by those who deny the truth and polytheists, and that their various groups have become scattered, then they must revert to God, because this shows that they have incurred God’s displeasure.