Maʿālim al-tanzīl, by Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn ibn Masʿūd al-Baghawī (d. 516 AH / 1122 CE). A commentary of the school of ḥadīth, valued for its restraint; it keeps the early reports and little else.
The complete commentary on God’s favours, the table and the questioning (5:110-120), covering 5:110-111 to 5:120.
On 5:110-111
His words, Exalted: When God said, “O Jesus son of Mary, remember My favour upon you” (5:110). Al-Ḥasan said: remembering the favour is giving thanks for it. By His words My favour He meant “My favours”; al-Ḥasan said: its wording is singular and its meaning plural, as in His words, Exalted: And if you were to count the favour of God, you could not number it (14:34; 16:18). “And upon your mother,” Mary. Then He enumerated the favours and said: “When I strengthened you,” fortified you, “with the Holy Spirit,” meaning Gabriel (peace be upon him); “you spoke to people,” meaning “and you spoke to people”, “in the cradle,” as an infant, “and in maturity,” as a prophet. Ibn ʿAbbās said: He sent him when he was thirty years old, and he remained in his mission thirty months, then God raised him up to Himself. “And when I taught you the Book,” meaning script, “and wisdom,” meaning knowledge and understanding, “and the Torah and the Gospel; and when you created,” made and formed, “from clay the likeness of a bird,” like the form of a bird, “by My leave, then you breathed into it and it became a bird,” alive and flying, “by My leave; and you healed,” and made whole, “the one born blind and the leper by My leave; and when you brought forth the dead,” from their graves, alive, “by My leave; and when I restrained,” held back and turned away, “the Children of Israel,” meaning the Jews, “from you,” when they resolved to kill you, “when you came to them with the clear proofs,” meaning the evidences and miracles, which are those we have mentioned.
“And those who disbelieved among them said, ‘This is nothing but plain sorcery‘,” meaning the clear proofs he brought them. Ḥamza and al-Kisāʾī read “a plain sorcerer” (sāḥir) here and in Sūrat Hūd and al-Ṣaff, so that it refers to Jesus (peace be upon him), and in Hūd it refers to Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
And when I inspired the disciples (5:111): I put it into their hearts and cast it into their breasts. Abū ʿUbayda said: meaning “I commanded”, and ilā (“to”) is a connective particle. The disciples are the select companions of Jesus (peace be upon him). “Believe in Me and in My messenger,” Jesus. They said, when I granted them success, “We believe, and bear witness that we are Muslims.”
On 5:112-113
When the disciples said, “O Jesus son of Mary, can your Lord…” (5:112)
Al-Kisāʾī read “can you” (hal tastaṭīʿu) with the tāʾ, and “your Lord” (rabbaka) with fatḥa on the bāʾ; this is the reading of ʿAlī, ʿĀʾisha, Ibn ʿAbbās and Mujāhid, that is: can you pray to and ask your Lord? The others read “can He” (hal yastaṭīʿu) with the yāʾ and “your Lord” (rabbuka) with ḍamma on the bāʾ. They did not say it as doubters of the power of God, Mighty and Majestic; rather its meaning is: will your Lord send it down or not? Just as a man says to his companion “can you get up and come with me?” when he knows that he can, and only means “will you do that or not?”. And it was said: yastaṭīʿu has the sense of yuṭīʿu (to comply); one says aṭāʿa and istaṭāʿa with one meaning, as in their saying ajāba and istajāba; its meaning is: will your Lord comply with you by answering your request? And in the transmitted reports: “Whoever obeys God, God complies with him.” Some took it according to the apparent sense and said: the people erred, and said it before their knowledge was firmly established, for they were human beings; so Jesus (peace be upon him) said to them, at the error, regarding their words as a grave matter, “Fear God, if you are believers”, that is, do not doubt His power.
“to send down to us a table from heaven?” The table (māʾida) is the tray on which food is set. It is the active participle from mādahu, yamīduhu, “he gave to him and fed him”, like their saying mārahu, yamīruhu (he provisioned him); and imtāda is the iftaʿala form from it. The māʾida is that which feeds food to those who eat; the food itself is also called a māʾida by extension, because it is eaten on the table. The people of Kūfa said: it was named māʾida because it sways (tamīdu) with those who eat, that is, it inclines. The people of Baṣra said: it is an active participle in the sense of the passive, that is, those who eat are drawn towards it, as in His words, Exalted, a pleasing life (ʿīshatin rāḍiya, 69:21; 101:7), that is, a life that is pleased with (marḍiyya). He said, that is Jesus (peace be upon him), answering them: “Fear God, if you are believers”, so do not doubt His power. And it was said: fear God lest you ask of Him something that the communities before you did not ask of Him; so he forbade them from demanding signs after having believed.
On 5:114
That is: we ask only because we wish to eat of it (5:113), an eating for blessing, not an eating out of need, so that we may be certain of His power; and that our hearts may be at rest and stilled, and that we may know that you have told us the truth, that you are the Messenger of God; that is, that we may increase in faith and certainty. It was also said that Jesus son of Mary had commanded them to fast for thirty days, and that when they broke their fast they would ask nothing of God but that He would give it to them; so they did this and asked for the table, and said: “and that we may know that you have told us the truth” in what you said, that if we fasted thirty days we would ask nothing of God, Exalted, but that He would give it to us. And that we may be among the witnesses to it: witnesses for God to His oneness and His power, and for you to your prophethood and your mission. And it was said: and that we may be among those who bear witness for you before the Children of Israel when we return to them.
Jesus son of Mary said at that: O God, our Lord, send down to us a table from heaven (5:114). It was said that he performed a full ablution, put on haircloth, prayed two cycles of prayer, bowed his head, lowered his gaze and wept, and then said: O God, our Lord, send down to us a table from heaven, that it may be for us a festival for the first of us and the last of us; that is, a return of favour (ʿāʾidah) from God upon us, a proof and a demonstration. The festival (ʿīd) is the day of rejoicing; it is so called because of the return (ʿawd) from grief to joy, and it is a name for whatever you have grown accustomed to and which returns to you. The day of Fast-breaking and the day of Sacrifice are called festival because they return every year. Al-Suddī said: Its meaning is: we shall take the day on which it was sent down as a festival for the first of us and the last of us; that is, we shall honour it, we and those who come after us. Sufyān said: We shall pray on it. His words for the first of us, that is, for the people of our own time, and the last of us, that is, for those who come after us. Ibn ʿAbbās said: The last of the people shall eat of it as the first of them ate. And a sign from You: an indication and a proof; and provide for us, and You are the best of providers.
God said, Exalted, answering Jesus (peace be upon him): I am sending it down to you (5:115), meaning the table. The people of Medina, Ibn ʿĀmir and ʿĀṣim read munazziluhā with doubling, because it came down several times, and the tafʿīl form indicates repetition, time after time; the others read it without doubling, in keeping with His words: send down to us. But whoever of you disbelieves after that, that is, after the sending down of the table, I shall punish him with a punishment, that is, a kind of punishment, with which I do not punish anyone among the worlds, meaning the people of his own age. The people then denied and disbelieved after the sending down of the table, and they were transformed into apes and swine. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar said: The people most severely punished on the Day of Resurrection are the hypocrites, those who disbelieved among the people of the table, and the house of Pharaoh.
The scholars differed as to whether the table came down or not. Mujāhid and al-Ḥasan said: It did not come down, because when God, Mighty and Majestic, threatened them for disbelieving after the sending down of the table, they feared that some of them would disbelieve and so asked to be excused, saying: We do not want it; and so it did not come down. His words I am sending it down to you mean: if you ask.
The correct view, which is that of the majority, is that it did come down, because of His words, Exalted: I am sending it down to you, and there is no breach in His report, and because the reports about it from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), the Companions and the Followers are transmitted in unbroken abundance.
They differed as to its description. Khilās ibn ʿAmr related from ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, from the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him), that it came down as bread and meat, and they were told: It will remain with you so long as you do not act treacherously or hoard; but their day had not passed before they acted treacherously and hoarded, and they were transformed into apes and swine.
Ibn ʿAbbās (may God be pleased with them both) said: Jesus (peace be upon him) said to them: Fast thirty days, then ask of God what you will and He will give it to you. So they fasted, and when they had finished they said: O Jesus, had we worked for anyone and completed his work, he would have fed us. And they asked God for the table. Then the angels came forward bearing a table on which were seven loaves and seven fish, until they set it down before them, and the last of the people ate of it as the first of them had eaten.
Kaʿb al-Aḥbār said: A table came down upside down, borne in flight by the angels between heaven and earth, and on it was every kind of food except meat.
Saʿīd ibn Jubayr related from Ibn ʿAbbās: There was sent down upon the table everything except bread and meat. Qatādah said: On it was fruit from the fruits of Paradise.
ʿAṭiyyah al-ʿAwfī said: There came down from heaven a fish in which was the taste of everything.
Al-Kalbī said: On it were bread, rice and green herbs.
Wahb ibn Munabbih said: God sent down loaves of barley and fish, and a group would eat and then go out, and others would come and eat, until all of them had eaten and there was some left over.
From al-Kalbī and Muqātil: God sent down bread and fish and five loaves, and they ate as much as God, Exalted, willed, the people being a thousand and some more. When they returned to their villages and spread the account, those who had not witnessed it laughed at them and said: Woe to you, he merely bewitched your eyes. Then whomever God wished well He kept firm in his insight, and whomever He wished to try returned to his unbelief; and they were transformed into swine, with no child or woman among them. They remained so for three days and then perished; they did not breed, nor eat, nor drink, and so it is with everyone who is transformed.
Qatādah said: It used to come down to them morning and evening wherever they were, like the manna and the quails for the Children of Israel. ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ related from Salmān al-Fārisī: When the disciples asked for the table, Jesus (peace be upon him) put on wool and wept, and said: “O God, send down to us a table from heaven,” to the end of the verse. Then a red cloth came down between two clouds, a cloud above it and a cloud beneath it, while they looked at it as it swooped down, until it fell before them. Jesus wept and said: O God, make me one of the thankful; O God, make it a mercy and do not make it a punishment. The Jews looked upon a thing the like of which they had never seen, nor had they ever found a scent sweeter than its scent. Then Jesus (peace be upon him) said: Let the best of you in works rise, uncover it, and mention the name of God, Exalted. Simon the smith1, the head of the disciples, said: You are more entitled to that than we are. So Jesus (peace be upon him) rose, performed the ablution, prayed a long prayer and wept much; then he uncovered the napkin from it and said: In the name of God, the best of providers. And there was a roasted fish without scales and without bones, dripping with fat, with salt at its head and vinegar at its tail, and around it all kinds of green herbs except leeks; and there were five loaves, on one of them olives, on the second honey, on the third clarified butter, on the fourth cheese, and on the fifth dried meat. Simon said: O Spirit of God, is this of the food of this world or of the food of the Hereafter? He said: Nothing of what you see is of the food of this world or of the food of the Hereafter; rather it is something that God, Exalted, has brought about by His overmastering power. Eat of what you asked for, and He will sustain you and increase you from His bounty. They said: O Spirit of God, be the first to eat of it. Jesus (peace be upon him) said: God forbid that I should eat of it; rather, let those who asked for it eat of it. But they were afraid to eat of it. So he summoned to it the needy, the sick, those afflicted with leprosy and elephantiasis, the crippled and the afflicted, and said: Eat of the provision of God; for you is the wholesome enjoyment, and for others the trial. So they ate, and a thousand and three hundred men and women, poor, sick, chronically ill and afflicted, rose from it, every one of them satisfied; and there was the fish in the very form it had when it came down. Then the cloth of the table flew upward while they looked at it, until it disappeared. No chronically ill person, no sick person and no afflicted person ate of it but was healed, and no poor person but was made rich; and those who had not eaten of it were filled with regret. It remained for forty mornings, coming down in the forenoon, and when it came down the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the men and the women would gather, and it would remain set out, eaten
On 5:115
from, until, when the shade turned, it flew away while they watched in its shadow until it disappeared from them. It came down on alternate days, coming down one day and not coming down the next, like the she-camel of Thamūd. Then God, Exalted, revealed to Jesus (peace be upon him): Make My table and My provision for the poor to the exclusion of the rich. This weighed heavily on the rich, until they doubted and made the people doubt concerning it, and said: Do you really think the table comes down from heaven? Then God, Exalted, revealed to Jesus (peace be upon him): I made it a condition that whoever disbelieved after it came down, I would punish him with a punishment with which I punish no one among the worlds. Jesus (peace be upon him) said: If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Mighty, the Wise (5:118). Then three hundred and thirty men of them were transformed: they spent that night in their beds with their wives and in the morning were swine, running about in the roads and the rubbish heaps and eating excrement in the privies. When the people saw this they fled in alarm to Jesus (peace be upon him) and wept, and when the swine caught sight of Jesus (peace be upon him) they wept and began to circle around Jesus (peace be upon him), and Jesus began to call them by their names, and they would nod their heads and weep, unable to speak. They lived three days and then perished.
And when God said: O Jesus son of Mary, did you say to the people: Take me and my mother as two gods besides God? He said: Glory be to You! It is not for me to say what I have no right to say. If I had said it, You would have known it. You know what is in my self, and I do not know what is in Your self; You are the Knower of the unseen things. (116) I said to them nothing but what You commanded me: Worship God, my Lord and your Lord. And I was a witness over them so long as I remained among them; and when You took me up, You were the Watcher over them, and You are Witness over all things. (117) If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Mighty, the Wise. (118)
His words, Mighty and Majestic: And when God said: O Jesus son of Mary, did you say to the people: Take me and my mother as two gods besides God? (5:116). They differed as to when this saying takes place. Al-Suddī said: God, Exalted, said this to Jesus (peace be upon him) when He raised him to heaven, because the particle idh (“when”) is used of the past. The rest of the commentators said: God will say this to him only on the Day of Resurrection, as shown by His words before it, on the day when God gathers the messengers (5:109), and His words after it, This is the day when the truthful shall profit by their truthfulness (5:119), by both of which He meant the Day of Resurrection. Idh may come with the meaning of idhā (“when” of the future), as in His words, Mighty and Majestic, If only you could see when they are terrified (34:51), that is, when they shall be terrified on the Day of Resurrection; and the Resurrection, though it has not yet come, is as though it had already come to pass, because it is coming without any doubt.
His words: Did you say to the people: Take me and my mother as two gods besides God? If it is asked: What is the point of this question, given God’s knowledge, Mighty and Majestic, that Jesus did not say it?
It is answered: This question is put to him in order to rebuke his people and to magnify the gravity of this statement, just as one man says to another: Did you do such
On 5:116-117
and such? concerning something he knows he did not do, by way of informing him and expressing how grave it is, not by way of enquiry and seeking information.
Moreover, God, Mighty and Majestic, wished Jesus (peace be upon him) to confess of himself that he is a servant, so that his people should hear it and their lie against him, that he had commanded them to do that, should be exposed. Abū Rawq said: When Jesus (peace be upon him) hears this address, his joints will tremble and from the root of every hair on his body a spring of blood will burst forth; then he will say in answer to God, Mighty and Majestic: He said: Glory be to You!, declaring You far above that and magnifying You; It is not for me to say what I have no right to say. If I had said it, You would have known it. You know what is in my self, and I do not know what is in Your self. Ibn ʿAbbās said: You know what is hidden in me, and I do not know what is hidden in You. It was said that its meaning is: You know my secret and I do not know Your secret. Abū Rawq said: You know what came from me in the abode of this world, and I do not know what will come from You in the Hereafter. Al-Zajjāj said: The “self” (nafs) is an expression for the whole of a thing and its reality; he is saying: You know all that I know of the reality of my affair, and I do not know the reality of Your affair. You are the Knower of the unseen things: what has been and what will be.
I said to them nothing but what You commanded me: Worship God, my Lord and your Lord. And I was a witness over them so long as I remained among them; and when You took me up, You were the Watcher over them, and You are Witness over all things. (117)
I said to them nothing but what You commanded me: Worship God, my Lord and your Lord (5:117): declare Him one and associate nothing with Him; and I was a witness over them so long as I remained, that is, dwelt, among them; and when You took me up, took me and raised me to You, You were the Watcher over them, the Guardian over them, preserving their deeds, and You are Witness over all things.
His words, Exalted: If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Mighty, the Wise (5:118). If it is asked: How did he seek forgiveness for them when they were unbelievers, and how did he say: and if You forgive them, You are the Mighty, the Wise, when this is not fitting for a request for forgiveness? It is answered: As for the first, its meaning is: if You punish them for persisting in their unbelief, and if You forgive them after faith; and this holds good on the view of al-Suddī that this question takes place before the Day of Resurrection, because faith is of no avail on the Day of Resurrection.
It was also said: This concerns two groups among them, and its meaning is: if You punish those of them who disbelieved, and if You forgive those of them who believed.
It was also said: This is not by way of a request for forgiveness, for had it been so he would have said: You are the Forgiving, the Merciful; rather, it is by way of surrendering the matter and committing it to His will.
As for the second question: Ibn Masʿūd (may God be pleased with him) used to read “and if You forgive them, You are the Forgiving, the Merciful”, and so it stands in his codex. As for the well-known reading, it was said that there is a transposition in it, its sense being: if You forgive them, they are Your servants; and if You punish them, You are the Mighty, the Wise.
It was also said that its meaning is: if You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Mighty in dominion, the Wise in judgement; nothing diminishes Your might, and nothing escapes Your judgement. The unbelievers come within the scope of His wisdom, His forgiveness and the vastness of His mercy and His forgiveness, but He has declared that He will not forgive, and He does not go back on what He has declared.
Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Qāhir informed us: ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Muḥammad al-Fārisī informed us: Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Julūdī related to us: Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Sufyān related to us: Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj related to us: Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to me: Ibn Wahb related to us: ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith informed me that Bakr ibn Sawādah related to him, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) recited the words of God, Exalted, concerning Abraham: My Lord, they have led many of mankind astray; so whoever follows me is of me (14:36), to the end of the verse, and the words of Jesus (peace be upon him): If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Mighty, the Wise (5:118). Then he raised his hands and said: O God, my community! and wept. God, Mighty and Majestic, said: O Gabriel, go to Muḥammad, and your Lord knows best, and ask him what makes him weep. Gabriel came to him and asked him, and the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) told him what he had said. Then God, Exalted, said: O Gabriel, go to Muḥammad and say: We shall satisfy you concerning your community, and We shall not grieve you.
On 5:118-119
God said: This is the day when the truthful shall profit by their truthfulness (5:119). Nāfiʿ read yawma with the mīm in the accusative, meaning: these things shall take place on a day; the “on” is omitted and so it takes the accusative. The others read it in the nominative, as the predicate of “this”; that is, the truthful in this world shall profit by their truthfulness in the Hereafter, whereas had they lied, God would have set a seal upon their mouths and their limbs would have spoken of it, and they would have been disgraced. It was also said that by “the truthful” the prophets are meant.
On 5:120
Al-Kalbī said: The believers shall profit by their faith. Qatādah said: Two speakers will not err on the Day of Resurrection: Jesus (peace be upon him), and that is what God, Mighty and Majestic, has related; and the enemy of God, Iblīs, and that is His words: And Satan said, when the matter had been decided (14:22), to the end of the verse. The enemy of God spoke the truth on that day, having been a liar before that, so his truthfulness did not profit him; whereas Jesus (peace be upon him) was truthful in this world and the Hereafter, so his truthfulness profited him.
ʿAṭāʾ said: This is a day among the days of this world, because the abode of the Hereafter is an abode of recompense, not an abode of works. Then He set out their reward, saying: Theirs are gardens beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein for ever; God is well pleased with them and they are well pleased with Him; that is the great triumph (5:119). Then He magnified Himself, saying: To God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is in them, and He has power over all things (5:120).
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of Maʿālim al-tanzīl on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=baghawi). Nothing is abridged: every opinion, every report with its chain of transmission, every verse of poetry and every grammatical note is translated. Qur’anic quotations are in bold; the translator’s own notes are confined to the numbered footnotes and identify names, terms and variant readings only. A second translator has not checked the rendering, and the Arabic is linked so that any passage can be compared. The modern editors’ apparatus is not part of the classical text and is not translated.
God’s favours, the table and the questioning (5:110-120): all commentaries · The classical commentaries
Notes
- Shamʿūn al-Ṣaffār, that is, Simon Peter, whom the commentators call the chief of the disciples. ↩