Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān, by Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH / 923 CE). The earliest of the great commentaries to survive whole. Al-Ṭabarī sets out every opinion he knows on a verse with its chain of transmission, then rules between them. His reports on 4:157 are the oldest record of how the substitution at the cross was understood.
The complete commentary on Compassion, mercy and monasticism (57:27), covering 57:27.
On 57:27
On the interpretation of His words, Exalted: Then We sent following in their footsteps Our messengers, and We followed them with Jesus son of Mary and gave him the Gospel, and We placed in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy; and monasticism they invented, We did not prescribe it for them, only seeking the good pleasure of God; but they did not observe it with its due observance. So We gave those who believed among them their reward, but many of them are transgressors. (27) (57:27)
He says, Exalted be His remembrance: Then We sent, following in their footsteps, Our messengers whom We sent with the clear proofs in the footsteps of Noah and Abraham, Our messengers, and We followed them with Jesus son of Mary; and We placed in the hearts of those who followed him, meaning those who followed Jesus upon his way and his law, compassion, which is the most intense form of mercy, and mercy; and monasticism they invented: He says: they originated it; We did not prescribe it for them: He says: We did not make that monasticism obligatory upon them; only seeking the good pleasure of God: He says: but they invented it seeking the good pleasure of God; but they did not observe it with its due observance.
The people of interpretation differed concerning those who did not observe monasticism with its due observance.
- Some of them said: They are those who invented it; they did not carry it out, but rather altered and departed from the religion of God with which He sent Jesus, and became Christians and Jews.
- Others said: Rather, they are a people who came after those who invented it and did not observe it with its due observance, because they were unbelievers; but they said: We shall do as those did who did that originally. So they are the ones whom God described as not having observed it with its due observance.
The people of interpretation said the like of what we have said in the interpretation of these expressions, up to the point at which we mentioned that the people of interpretation differ about it.
Those who said this
Bishr related to me: Yazīd related to us: Saʿīd related to us, from Qatādah: and We placed in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy (57:27): these two are from God; but monasticism a people invented of their own accord, and it was not prescribed for them; rather they sought by it, and intended, the good pleasure of God, but they did not observe it with its due observance. It was mentioned to us that they renounced women and took to cells (ṣawāmiʿ).
Ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us: Ibn Thawr related to us, from Maʿmar, from Qatādah: and monasticism they invented (57:27): he said: it was not prescribed for them; they invented it seeking the good pleasure of God.
Yūnus related to me: Ibn Wahb informed us: Ibn Zayd said, concerning His words We did not prescribe it for them (57:27): he said: Then why? He said: They invented it seeking the good pleasure of God, as a voluntary act; but they did not observe it with its due observance.
Those who said: those who did not observe monasticism with its due observance were other than those who invented it, but were people who wished to emulate them
Al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥurayth, Abū ʿAmmār al-Marwazī, related to us: al-Faḍl ibn Mūsā related to us, from Sufyān, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: There were kings after Jesus who altered the Torah and the Gospel, and there were among them believers who read the Torah and the Gospel. It was said to their king: We find nothing harder upon us than the reviling with which these people revile us, for they read and whoever does not judge by what God has sent down, those are the unbelievers (5:44), these verses, together with the faults they find in us in their reading; so summon them, and let them read as we read and believe as we have believed. He said: So he summoned them and gathered them, and offered them death, or else that they abandon the reading of the Torah and the Gospel save what they had altered of them. They said: What do you want by that? Leave us be! He said: Then a party of them said: Build us a pillar, then raise us up onto it, then give us something by which we may draw up our food and drink, and we shall not come back to you. And a party of them said: Leave us to wander in the land and roam, and drink as the wild beasts drink; and if you get hold of us in your land, kill us. And a party said: Build us dwellings in the wastelands, and we shall dig wells and cultivate vegetables, and we shall not come back to you nor pass by you, and there was not one of these but he had a close kinsman among them. He said: So they did that, and God, Majestic is His praise, sent down and monasticism they invented, We did not prescribe it for them, only seeking the good pleasure of God; but they did not observe it with its due observance (57:27). The later ones said: We shall devote ourselves to worship as so-and-so devoted himself, and wander as so-and-so wandered, and take dwellings as so-and-so took, while they were upon their polytheism, having no knowledge of the faith of those whom they emulated. He said: When the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was sent, and only a few of them remained, a man came down from his cell, a wanderer came from his wandering, and the dweller came from his dwelling, and they believed in him and affirmed him. So God, Majestic is His praise, said: O you who believe, fear God and believe in His Messenger; He will give you two portions of His mercy (57:28). He said: two rewards, for their faith in Jesus and their affirmation of the Torah and the Gospel, and their faith in Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and their affirmation of him. He said: and make for you a light by which you may walk (57:28): the Qurʾān, and their following the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). And He said: so that the People of the Book may know that they have no power over anything of the bounty of God, and that bounty is in the hand of God; He gives it to whom He wills, and God is the possessor of great bounty (57:29).
Yaḥyā ibn Abī Ṭālib related to us: Dāwud ibn al-Muḥabbar related to us: al-Ṣaʿq ibn Ḥazn related to us: ʿAqīl al-Jaʿdī related to us, from Abū Isḥāq al-Hamdānī, from Suwayd ibn Ghafalah, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Those who were before us split into seventy-one sects, of which three were saved and the rest perished. One sect of the three confronted the kings and fought them over the religion of God and the religion of Jesus son of Mary (the blessings of God be upon them), and the kings killed them. And one sect had no strength to confront the kings, so they remained in the midst of their people, calling them to the religion of God and the religion of Jesus son of Mary (the blessings of God be upon him), and the kings killed them and sawed them asunder with saws. And one sect had no strength either to confront the kings or to remain in the midst of their people calling them to the religion of God and the religion of Jesus (the blessings of God be upon him), so they betook themselves to the deserts and the mountains and became monks there; and that is the word of God, Mighty and Majestic: and monasticism they invented, We did not prescribe it for them.” He said: they did it only seeking the good pleasure of God; but they did not observe it with its due observance: he said: those who came after them did not observe it with its due observance; So We gave those who believed among them their reward: he said: and they are those who believed in me and affirmed me. He said: but many of them are transgressors: he said: and they are those who denied me and called me a liar.
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us: Mihrān related to us, from Sufyān, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās: and monasticism they invented, We did not prescribe it (57:27): he said: The later ones, from among those of the people of polytheism who devoted themselves to worship, after those of them who had passed away had passed away, would say: We shall devote ourselves to worship as so-and-so devoted himself, and wander as so-and-so wandered, while they were in their polytheism, having no knowledge of the faith of those whom they emulated.
Those who said: those who did not observe it with its due observance were those who invented it
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me: my father related to me: my paternal uncle related to me: my father related to me, from his father, from Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His words and We placed in the hearts of those who followed him compassion and mercy up to His words with its due observance (57:27): He says: they did not obey Me in it, and they spoke in it with disobedience to God. That is because God, Mighty and Majestic, had prescribed fighting for them before He sent Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him); and when the people of faith had been rooted out and only a few of them remained, and the people of polytheism had grown many, and the messengers had gone and been overpowered, they withdrew into the caves, and that state persisted with them until a party of them disbelieved and abandoned the command of God, Mighty and Majestic, and His religion, and took up innovation and Christianity and Judaism, and so did not observe it with its due observance; while a party remained firm upon the religion of Jesus son of Mary (the blessings of God be upon him), as it was when he came to them with the clear proofs, and God, Mighty and Majestic, sent Muḥammad as a messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) while they were in that state; and that is His word: O you who believe, fear God and believe in His Messenger; He will give you two portions of His mercy up to and God is Forgiving, Merciful (57:28).
I was told, from al-Ḥusayn, who said: I heard Abū Muʿādh say: ʿUbayd related to us, saying: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk say concerning His words and monasticism they invented, We did not prescribe it for them (57:27): God, Mighty and Majestic, had prescribed fighting for them before Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was sent; and when the people of faith had been rooted out and only the few of them remained, and the people of polytheism had grown many, and the messengers had ceased, they withdrew from the people and came to be in the caves, and they remained so until a party of them changed, and abandoned the religion of God and His command and His covenant which He had made with them, and took up innovations, and invented Christianity and Judaism; so God, Mighty and Majestic, said to them: but they did not observe it with its due observance; while a party of them remained firm upon the religion of Jesus (the blessings of God be upon him) until God sent Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and they believed in him.
Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm related to me: Hushaym related to us: Zakariyyā ibn Abī Maryam informed us, saying: I heard Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī say: God has prescribed for you the fasting of Ramaḍān, but He has not prescribed for you its night vigil; the night vigil is only something you have innovated. And a people innovated an innovation that God had not prescribed for them, seeking by it the good pleasure of God, but they did not observe it with its due observance, and so God censured them for abandoning it, saying: and monasticism they invented, We did not prescribe it for them, only seeking the good pleasure of God; but they did not observe it with its due observance (57:27).
The most likely of the opinions on this to be correct is to say: Those whom God described as not having observed monasticism with its due observance were some of the groups which invented it. That is because God, Majestic is His praise, informed that He gave those who believed among them their reward; and so He indicated thereby that among them were those who did observe it with its due observance, for had there not been among them those who were such, there would have been no one deserving of the reward of which He, Majestic is His praise, said: So We gave those who believed among them their reward. Only, those who did not observe it with its due observance may have been in the time of those who invented it, and may have been after them; for when those who are their descendants did not observe it, it is permissible in the speech of the Arabs to say: the people did not observe it, in general terms, while those meant by it are the part of them who were present. The like of this has already been dealt with in many places in this book.
On His words: So We gave those who believed among them their reward (57:27)
He says, Exalted be His remembrance: So We gave those who believed in God and His messengers from among these people who invented monasticism their recompense, in the Hereafter, for their seeking the good pleasure of God and their faith in Him and in His Messenger; but many of them are people of acts of disobedience, who have departed from obedience to Him and from faith in Him.
The people of interpretation said the like of what we have said concerning that.
Those who said this
Yūnus related to me: Ibn Wahb informed us: Ibn Zayd said: So We gave those who believed among them their reward (57:27): he said: those who observed that properly.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=tabari). 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. The modern editors’ apparatus is not part of the classical text and is left untranslated; a second translator has not checked the rendering, and the Arabic is linked so that any passage can be compared.
Compassion, mercy and monasticism (57:27): all commentaries · The classical commentaries