Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, by Abū al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar ibn Kathīr (d. 774 AH / 1373 CE). The most read of the commentaries by ḥadīth, which explains the Qur’an by the Qur’an, then by the Prophet’s words, then by the Companions, and weighs the chains it cites.
The complete commentary on Compassion, mercy and monasticism (57:27), covering 57:27.
On 57:27
He, Exalted, informs that since He sent Noah (peace be upon him) He has not sent after him any messenger or prophet except from his progeny; and likewise Abraham (peace be upon him), the Intimate Friend of the Most Merciful: He has not sent down from heaven any scripture, nor sent any messenger, nor revealed to any human being after him, except that he was of his lineage, as He said in the other verse: and We placed among their progeny prophethood and the Scripture (57:26), meaning, until the last of the prophets of the Children of Israel was Jesus son of Mary, who gave glad tidings after him of Muḥammad (the blessings and peace of God be upon them both). For this reason He, Exalted, said: Then We sent Our messengers to follow in their footsteps, and We sent Jesus son of Mary to follow, and We gave him the Gospel (57:27),
which is the Book that God revealed to him; and We placed in the hearts of those who followed him (57:27)—and they are the disciples—compassion and mercy (57:27), that is: compassion (raʾfah), which is reverent fear, and mercy (57:27) towards creation.
And His words: and monasticism which they invented (57:27), that is: the community of the Christians invented it; We did not prescribe it for them (57:27), that is: We did not legislate it for them; rather, they bound themselves to it of their own accord.
And His words: except seeking the good pleasure of God (57:27): on this there are two views.
- One of them: that they intended by that the good pleasure of God; so said Saʿīd ibn Jubayr and Qatādah.
- The other: We did not prescribe that for them; We prescribed for them only the seeking of the good pleasure of God.
And His words: but they did not observe it with its due observance (57:27), that is: they did not fulfil what they had bound themselves to as it ought to be fulfilled. This is a censure of them from two aspects:
- the first, for innovating in the religion of God what God did not command;
- and the second, for their failure to fulfil what they had bound themselves to, of what they alleged to be an act of devotion bringing them near to God, Mighty and Majestic.
Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: Isḥāq ibn Abī Ḥamzah Abū Yaʿqūb al-Rāzī related to us: al-Sindī ibn ʿAbdawayh related to us: Bukayr ibn Maʿrūf related to us, from Muqātil ibn Ḥayyān, from al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, from his father, from his grandfather Ibn Masʿūd, who said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) said to me: “O Ibn Masʿūd.” I said: At your service, O Messenger of God. He said: “Do you know that the Children of Israel split into seventy-two sects, of which none were saved but three sects? One stood up among the kings and the tyrants after Jesus son of Mary (peace be upon him) and called to the religion of God and the religion of Jesus son of Mary; it fought the tyrants and was slain, and it endured patiently and was saved. Then another group stood up which had no strength for fighting; it stood up among the kings and the tyrants and they called to the religion of God and the religion of Jesus son of Mary, and it was slain and sawn asunder with saws and burnt with fire, and it endured patiently and was saved. Then another group stood up which had no strength for fighting and was not able to uphold justice, so it took to the mountains and devoted itself to worship and became monks; and these are the ones whom God, Mighty and Majestic, mentioned: and monasticism which they invented; We did not prescribe it for them (57:27).”
Ibn Jarīr related it with another wording by another route, saying: Yaḥyā ibn Abī Ṭālib related to us: Dāwūd ibn al-Muḥabbar related to us: al-Ṣaʿq ibn Ḥazn related to us: ʿUqayl 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-three sects; three of them were saved and the rest of them perished…”, and he mentioned the like of what has preceded, and in it: “So We gave those of them who believed their reward (57:27): they are the ones who believed in me and affirmed me; but many of them are transgressors (57:27): they are the ones who denied me and opposed me.”
The condition of Dāwūd ibn al-Muḥabbar—for he is one of the fabricators of ḥadīth—does not impair this corroborating transmission (mutābaʿah), since Abū Yaʿlā has also transmitted it with a chain of his own, from Shaybān ibn Farrūkh, from al-Ṣaʿq ibn Ḥazn, with the like of that; and so the ḥadīth is strengthened by this route.
Ibn Jarīr and Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī—the wording being his—said: al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥurayth informed us: al-Faḍl ibn Mūsā related to us, from Sufyān ibn Saʿīd, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, from Ibn ʿAbbās (may God be pleased with them both), who said: There were kings after Jesus (peace be upon him) who altered the Torah and the Gospel, and among the people were believers who used to recite the Torah and the Gospel. It was said to their kings: We find nothing more severe than the abuse with which these people abuse us: they recite: And whoever does not judge by what God has sent down—those are the disbelievers (5:44), these verses, together with what they reproach us with concerning our deeds in their recitation; so summon them and let them recite as we recite and believe as we believe. So he summoned them and gathered them together and offered them death, or else that they abandon the recitation of the Torah and the Gospel, except what they had altered of them. They said: What do you want with that? Leave us be. One group of them said: Build us a pillar, then raise us up onto it, then give us something by which we may hoist up our food and drink, and we shall not trouble you. Another group said: Leave us to wander in the earth and roam and drink as the wild beasts drink, and if you catch us in your land, then kill us. Another group said: Build us houses in the deserts, and we shall dig wells and cultivate vegetables, and we shall not trouble you nor pass by you. And there was no tribe but had a close kinsman among them, so they did that; and God, Mighty and Majestic, sent down: 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 others said: We shall worship as So-and-so worshipped, wander as So-and-so wandered, and take houses as So-and-so took houses—while they were upon their polytheism, having no knowledge of the faith of those whom they imitated. When the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was sent and only a few of them remained, a man came down from his hermitage, a wanderer came from his wandering and the master of a monastery from his monastery, and they believed in him and affirmed him. So God, Mighty and Majestic, said: O you who believe, fear God and believe in His Messenger; He will give you a double portion of His mercy (57:28): two rewards, for their belief in Jesus son of Mary, the Torah and the Gospel, and for their belief in Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and their affirmation of him. He said: and He will appoint for you a light by which you shall walk (57:28): the Qurʾan and their following of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). He said: so that the People of the Book may know (57:29)—those who imitate you—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).
This narrative contains some strangeness, and the interpretation of these latter two verses will come in a manner other than this; and God knows best.
The Ḥāfiẓ Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī said: Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā related to us: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb related to us: Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-ʿAmyāʾ related to me that Sahl ibn Abī Umāmah related to him that he and his father went in to Anas ibn Mālik in Medina in the time of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, when he was governor, and he was praying a light prayer, as though it were the prayer of a traveller or close to it. When he gave the salutation, he said: May God have mercy on you; do you consider this prayer to be the prescribed prayer, or something supererogatory you have performed? He said: It is the prescribed prayer, and it is the prayer of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him); I have not erred except in something I have forgotten. For the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) used to say: “Do not be severe with yourselves, lest severity be shown to you; for a people were severe with themselves and severity was shown to them, and those are their remnants in the hermitages and the monasteries: ‘monasticism which they invented; We did not prescribe it for them’.” Then they set out the next morning and said: Let us ride and look and take a lesson. He said: Yes. So they all rode, and behold, they came upon desolate dwellings whose people had perished, died out and passed away, fallen in upon their roofs. They said: Do you know these dwellings? He said: How well I know them and their people! These are the people of these dwellings; oppression and envy destroyed them. Surely envy extinguishes the light of good deeds, and oppression confirms that or belies it; and the eye commits fornication, and the hand, the foot, the body and the tongue, and the private parts confirm that or belie it.
Imām Aḥmad said: Yaʿmar related to us: ʿAbd Allāh related to us: Sufyān informed us, from Zayd al-ʿAmmī, from Abū Iyās, from Anas ibn Mālik, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Every prophet has a monasticism, and the monasticism of this community is striving (jihād) in the way of God, Mighty and Majestic.”
The Ḥāfiẓ Abū Yaʿlā related it from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Asmāʾ, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, with this chain, and its wording is: “Every community has a monasticism, and the monasticism of this community is striving in the way of God.”
Imām Aḥmad said: Ḥusayn—that is, Ibn Muḥammad—related to us: Ibn ʿAyyāsh—meaning Ismāʿīl—related to us, from al-Ḥajjāj ibn Marwān al-Kalāʿī and ʿUqayl ibn Mudrik al-Sulamī, from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī (may God be pleased with him), that a man came to him and said: Counsel me. He said: You have asked about what I asked the Messenger of God (peace and blessings be upon him) before you. I counsel you to fear God, for it is the head of everything; and hold fast to striving (jihād), for it is the monasticism of Islam; and hold fast to the remembrance of God and the recitation of the Qurʾan, for it is your spirit in heaven and your mention on the earth. Aḥmad alone has related it.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=ibn-katheer). 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