Tanwīr al-miqbās min tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās, by attributed to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās; compiled by Majd al-Dīn al-Fīrūzābādī (d. compiler d. 817 AH / 1414 CE). A running gloss, phrase by phrase, transmitted under the name of the Prophet’s cousin Ibn ʿAbbās through a chain (al-Kalbī from Abū Ṣāliḥ) that Muslim scholars have long judged weak; it is read as a witness to early Kufan exegesis rather than as Ibn ʿAbbās’s own words.
The complete commentary on God’s favours, the table and the questioning (5:110-120), covering 5:110-120.
On 5:110-120
5:110. When God said: God has said; O Jesus son of Mary, remember My favour: keep in mind My grace; upon you: with prophethood; and upon your mother: with Islam and worship; when I strengthened you: aided you; with the Holy Spirit: with Gabriel, the purified; he instructed you and aided you in speaking to people; you speak to people in the cradle: in the lap and on the bed: “I am the servant of God and His Messiah”; and in maturity: and He aided you after thirty years: “I am the Messenger of God to you”; and when I taught you the Book: the books of the prophets; and it is said, script with the pen; and the Wisdom: the wisdom of the wise; and it is said, the lawful and the unlawful; and the Torah: and I taught you the Torah in your mother’s womb; and the Gospel: after your coming forth; and when you create: fashion; from clay the likeness of a bird: the semblance of a bird, and it is the bat; by My leave: by My command; then you breathe into it: like the breathing of a sleeper; and it becomes a bird: it turns into a bird that flies between heaven and earth; by My leave: by My command and My will; and you heal: make sound; the blind from birth: he who is born blind; and the leper by My leave: by My command, My will and My power; and when you bring forth: give life to; the dead by My leave: by My will and My giving of life; and when I restrained: held back; the Children of Israel from you: when they intended to kill you; when you came to them: at the time you came to them; with clear proofs: with command and prohibition and the wonders which you showed them; and those who disbelieved among them said: among the Children of Israel; This is nothing: this which Jesus shows us is nothing; but manifest sorcery: evident. And if you read it “a manifest sorcerer” (sāḥir mubīn), they meant Jesus by it.
5:111. And when I inspired the disciples: I inspired the disciples, the fullers (al-qaṣṣārūn), and they were twelve men; to believe in Me and in My Messenger: Jesus; they said: We believe: in You and in Your Messenger Jesus; and bear witness: you, O Jesus; and they bore witness one for another; that we are Muslims: sincere in worship and in the profession of God’s oneness.
5:112. When the disciples said: the chosen ones, meaning Simon the Chosen (Shamʿūn al-Ṣafī); O Jesus son of Mary: your people say to you; can your Lord: will your Lord do it; and if you read it with tāʾ and the accusative on the yāʾ1, you say: can you ask your Lord; send down to us a table: food; from heaven? He said: Jesus, to Simon: Say to them, Fear God: be in awe of God; if you are: since you are; believers: certain in faith; for perhaps you will abandon gratitude for it and He will punish you. So Simon said that to them.
5:113. They said: We wish to eat of it and that our hearts be reassured: by what you show us of wonders; and that we may know: and be certain; that you have told us the truth: in what you say; and that we may be witnesses to it: when we return to our people.
5:114. Jesus son of Mary said: O God, our Lord, send down to us a table from heaven: food from heaven; and it is said, a blessing upon the food, for they had with them some food; that it may be a festival for us, for the first of us: for the people of our time; and the last of us: for those who come after us, so that we may worship You on it; and it was a Sunday; and a sign from You: for him who believes, and a proof against him who disbelieves; and provide for us: give us what we have asked of You; and You are the best of providers: the most excellent of those who give food.
5:115. God said: to Jesus: Say to them; I shall send it down to you: what you have asked; but whoever disbelieves afterwards: after its descent and the eating; among you, I shall punish him with a punishment with which I shall punish no one among the worlds: the people of their time: I shall transform him into a swine. They said, after its descent and the eating: This is manifest sorcery, an evident lie. Jesus said: If You punish them for this saying, by which they have deserved destruction, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, relent towards them and pardon them, then You are the Mighty, in vengeance upon him who does not repent, the Wise, in forgiveness for him who repents. This is an advancing and a postponing in the order of the words.
5:116. And when God said: God will say on the Day of Resurrection; O Jesus son of Mary, did you say to people: in this world; Take me and my mother as two gods besides God? He said: Jesus will say; Glory be to You: he declared his Lord transcendent; it is not: he says, it was not fitting nor permissible; for me to say: to them; what I have no right to: what is not permissible; if I had said it: to them; You would have known it. You know what is in my soul: what command and prohibition came from me to them; and I do not know what is in Your Soul: what forsaking and granting of success came from You to them; indeed You are the Knower of the unseen things: of what is hidden from the servants.
5:117. I said nothing to them: in this world; except what You commanded me: Worship God: declare God One and obey Him; my Lord and your Lord: He is my Lord and your Lord; and I was a witness over them: to the conveying of the message; as long as I was among them: while I was among them; but when You took me: raised him from among them; You were the Watcher over them: the Guardian and Witness over them; and You are over all things: of my speech and their speech; a Witness: Knowing. Jesus said:
5:118. If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Mighty, the Wise: I have explained it already in what preceded.
5:119. God said: God will say; This is the Day when the truthful will profit from their truthfulness: and the believers from their faith, and those who conveyed the message from their conveying, and those who fulfilled from their fulfilment; for them are gardens: orchards; beneath which flow: beneath their trees and their couches; rivers: rivers of water, milk, wine and honey; abiding therein: dwelling in the Garden, neither dying therein nor departing from it; for ever. God is pleased with them: for their faith and their deeds; and they are pleased with Him: with the reward and the honour; that: which I have mentioned of everlasting abiding and good pleasure; is the great triumph: the abundant deliverance; they have triumphed with the Garden and been delivered from the punishment of the Fire.
5:120. To God belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth: the treasuries of the heavens and the earth; the treasuries of the heavens are rain, and of the earth, plants and fruits and other things; and whatever is in them: of creatures and wonders; and He is over all things: of the creation of the heavens and the earth, and of reward and punishment; Powerful: so praise Him who created the heavens and the earth.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of Tanwīr al-miqbās min tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (shamela.ws, book 12877). 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
- The variant reading hal tastaṭīʿu rabbaka, “can you ask your Lord”, in place of hal yastaṭīʿu rabbuka, “can your Lord”. ↩