al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān, by Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Qurṭubī (d. 671 AH / 1273 CE). The commentary of the Andalusian jurist, which takes each verse through its legal and grammatical questions as well as its narrative.
The complete commentary on Compassion, mercy and monasticism (57:27), covering 57:27.
On 57:27
This passage contains four questions (masāʾil).
- The first: His words, Exalted: Then We sent following (57:27), that is, We caused to follow, in their footsteps, that is, in the footsteps of the offspring; and it has been said: in the footsteps of Noah and Abraham, Our messengers: Moses, Elias, David, Solomon, Jonah and others; and We sent following Jesus son of Mary, for he is of the offspring of Abraham on his mother’s side; and We gave him the Gospel, which is the book sent down to him. Its derivation has already been given at the beginning of Sūrat Āl ʿImrān.1
- The second: His words, Exalted: and We placed in the hearts of those who followed him (57:27), in his religion, meaning the disciples and their followers, compassion and mercy, that is, affection, so that they loved one another. It has been said: this is an indication that they were commanded in the Gospel to make peace and to refrain from harming people, and God softened their hearts to that, unlike the Jews, whose hearts hardened and who altered the words from their places. Compassion (raʾfah) is gentleness, and mercy (raḥmah) is tenderness. It has been said: compassion is the lightening of a burden, and mercy is the bearing of a weight. And it has been said: compassion is the most intense form of mercy. Here the sentence is complete. Then He said: and monasticism which they invented (57:27), that is, of their own accord. The better view is that “monasticism” (rahbāniyyah) is in the accusative governed by an implied verb. Abū ʿAlī said: “and they invented it: a monasticism which they invented”. Al-Zajjāj said: that is, “they invented it, a monasticism”, as you say “I saw Zayd, and ʿAmr I spoke to”. It has been said that it is coordinated with “compassion and mercy”, and on this view the meaning is that God, Exalted, gave it to them and then they altered it and innovated in it. Al-Māwardī said: there are two readings of it, one with fatḥah on the rāʾ, which is fear, from rahab; the second with ḍammah on the rāʾ, which is a relative adjective from ruhbān, “monks”, like ruḍwāniyyah from ruḍwān. That is because they imposed hardships upon themselves in abstaining from food, drink and marriage, and in attaching themselves to caves and hermitages; and this was because their kings altered and changed the religion, and a small band remained who became monks and devoted themselves wholly to God. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk said: kings after Jesus (peace be upon him) committed forbidden things for three hundred years, and those who had remained upon the way of Jesus censured them for it, so the kings killed them. Then a people who remained after them said: “If we forbid them, they will kill us; it is not possible for us to remain among them.” So they withdrew from people and took to hermitages. Qatādah said: the monasticism which they invented was the renunciation of women and the taking of hermitages. In a report traced to the Prophet: “It is their betaking themselves to the deserts and the mountains.”
We did not prescribe it for them (57:27), that is, We did not make it obligatory upon them nor command them to it; Ibn Zayd said this. And His words, Exalted: except seeking the good pleasure of God (57:27), that is, We commanded them nothing except what pleases God; Ibn Muslim said this. Al-Zajjāj said: the meaning of We did not prescribe it for them is “We did not prescribe anything at all upon them”, and seeking the good pleasure of God is a substitute for the hāʾ and alif in katabnāhā, the meaning being: We did not prescribe for them anything except the seeking of God’s good pleasure. It has been said that except seeking is a discontinuous exception (istithnāʾ munqaṭiʿ), and the implied construction is: We did not prescribe it for them, but they invented it seeking the good pleasure of God.
but they did not observe it with its due observance (57:27), that is, they did not discharge it with its due discharge. This is a specific statement, because those who failed to observe it were only some of the people, who made monasticism a means to seeking leadership over people and consuming their wealth, as He, Exalted, said: O you who believe, indeed many of the rabbis and monks consume the wealth of people by falsehood and turn others away from the path of God (9:34). This concerns a people whose monasticism led them, in the end, to the seeking of leadership. Sufyān al-Thawrī related from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His words, Exalted, and monasticism which they invented (57:27), who said: There were kings after Jesus who altered the Torah and the Gospel, and among them were believers who recited the Torah and the Gospel and called to the religion of God, Exalted. Some people said to their king: “If only you would kill this party.” The believers said: “We will spare you the trouble of ourselves.” So one party said: “Build us a pillar and raise us up on it, and give us something by which we may hoist up our food and drink, and we shall not come back among you.” Another party said: “Let us roam the earth and wander, and drink as the wild beasts drink in the wilderness, and if you get hold of us, kill us.” And another party said: “Build us houses in the deserts, and we shall dig wells and cultivate vegetables, and you will not see us.” There was not one of these but had a close kinsman among them, so they did so. Those men continued upon the way of Jesus, and after them came a people from among those who had altered the Book, who said: “We shall wander and devote ourselves to worship as those men devoted themselves”, while they were upon their polytheism, having no knowledge of the faith of those who had gone before them, whom they imitated. That is His word, Exalted: and monasticism which they invented; We did not prescribe it for them, except seeking the good pleasure of God to the end of the verse. He says: those righteous ones invented it, but they did not observe it, the later ones, with its due observance; so We gave those of them who believed their reward (57:27), meaning those who first invented it and observed it, but many of them are transgressors (57:27), meaning the later ones. When God sent Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and only a few of them remained, they came out of the caves, the hermitages and the caverns and believed in Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
- The third: This verse indicates that every newly introduced thing is an innovation (bidʿah), so it behoves whoever introduces something good to persist in it and not turn away from it to its opposite, lest he fall under the verse. From Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī, whose name was Ṣuday ibn ʿAjlān, who said: “You have introduced the night prayer of Ramaḍān, and it was not prescribed for you; only the fast was prescribed for you. So persist in the night prayer now that you have undertaken it, and do not abandon it, for some of the Children of Israel invented innovations which God had not prescribed for them, seeking by them the good pleasure of God, but they did not observe them with their due observance, so God censured them for abandoning them and said: and monasticism which they invented; We did not prescribe it for them, except seeking the good pleasure of God, but they did not observe it with its due observance (57:27).”
- The fourth: In the verse there is a proof for withdrawal from people in hermitages and houses, and that is recommended when the age is corrupt and friends and brethren have changed. The exposition of this has already been given in full in Sūrat al-Kahf,2 and praise be to God. In the Musnad of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, from the ḥadīth of Abū Umāmah al-Bāhilī (may God be pleased with him), who said: We went out with the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) on one of his expeditions, and he said: A man passed by a cave in which there was some water, and he said to himself that he would settle in that cave, and the water in it would sustain him, and he would gather the vegetables around it and withdraw from the world. He said: “Suppose I were to go to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and mention that to him; if he gives me leave I shall do it, and if not I shall not.” So he came to him and said: “O Prophet of God, I passed by a cave in which there is enough water and vegetables to sustain me, and I said to myself that I would settle in it and withdraw from the world.” He said: the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “I was not sent with Judaism nor with Christianity, but I was sent with the tolerant primordial faith (al-ḥanīfiyyah al-samḥah). By Him in whose hand is the soul of Muḥammad, a morning’s or an evening’s going forth in the path of God is better than the world and all that is in it, and the standing of one of you in the first row is better than his prayer for sixty years.” The Kufans related from Ibn Masʿūd, who said: the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said to me: “Do you know which of people is the most knowledgeable?” He said: I said: “God and His Messenger know best.” He said: “The most knowledgeable of people is the one with the clearest sight of the truth when people differ about it, even if he falls short in works, and even if he crawls upon his backside. Do you know whence the Children of Israel took up monasticism? Tyrants gained mastery over them after Jesus, acting in disobedience to God, and the people of faith grew angry and fought them, and the people of faith were defeated three times until only a few of them remained. They said: ‘If they annihilate us, there will be no one left for the religion to call people to it; so come, let us scatter through the earth until God sends the unlettered Prophet whom Jesus promised us’, meaning Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him). So they scattered into the caverns of the mountains and introduced a monasticism; and among them were those who held fast to their religion, and among them were those who disbelieved.” And he recited and monasticism to the end of the verse. “Do you know what the monasticism of my community is? Emigration, struggle in the path of God, fasting, prayer, the pilgrimage, the lesser pilgrimage, and proclaiming God’s greatness upon the hills. O Ibn Masʿūd, those of the Jews who were before you split into seventy-one sects, of which one was saved and the rest perished; and those of the Christians who were before you split into seventy-two sects, of which three were saved and the rest perished: a sect which confronted the kings and fought them for the religion of God and the religion of Jesus (peace be upon him) until they were killed; a sect which had no strength to confront the kings, so they remained among their people and called them to the religion of God and the religion of Jesus son of Mary, and the kings seized them and killed them and cut them in pieces with saws; and a sect which had no strength to confront the kings nor to remain among their people and call them to the religion of God and the religion of Jesus son of Mary, so they wandered in the mountains and became monks there, and they are those of whom God, Exalted, said: and monasticism which they invented to the end of the verse. So whoever believes in me and follows me and affirms me has observed it with its due observance, and whoever does not believe in me, those are the transgressors“, meaning those who became Jews and Christians. It has been said: these are those who lived to see Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and did not believe in him; those are the transgressors. In the verse there is consolation for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), that is: the earlier peoples also persisted in unbelief, so do not marvel at the people of your age if they persist in unbelief. And God knows best.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=qurtubi). 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.
Compassion, mercy and monasticism (57:27): all commentaries · The classical commentaries