أَو تَقولَ لَو أَنَّ اللَّهَ هَداني لَكُنتُ مِنَ المُتَّقينَ
Or say: ‘Had Allah guided me I would have surely been among the God-wary!’
EXEGESIS
Given the context and the verses before and after, guidance here refers to legislative guidance, not existential guidance. See the Exposition of verse 18 for the difference between the two.
EXPOSITION
The person who is negligent toward his Lord will realise on that day that the only thing that is of any avail is God-wariness. He will thus long, Had Allah guided me I would have surely been among the God-wary. This shows that the person also realises that God is the only and absolute king (40:16), and that guidance and God-wariness are only to be sought from Him: Allah speaks the truth and He guides to the way (33:4); Were it not for Allah’s grace and His mercy upon you, not one of you would ever be pure. But Allah purifies whomever He wishes, and Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing (24:21).
Another possibility is that this statement is only a reflection of their deterministic mentality in this world that was only adopted to free them from the burden of responsibility and contemplation: The polytheists will say: ‘Had Allah wished we would not have ascribed any partner [to Him], nor our fathers, nor would we have forbidden anything.’ Those who were before them had denied likewise until they tasted Our punishment (6:148).
The above point suggests that Had Allah guided me means: If God had forced me to guidance … which complies with existential guidance. However, given the verses before and after, it is more plausible to say that this verse is about God’s initial legislative guidance, meaning His call to true beliefs and righteous deeds. This is because the previous verses talked about concepts like punishment (verses 54-55) and regret (Alas for my negligence (verse 56)), and the next verse talks about yearning to return to life: If only there had been a second chance … (verse 58), all of which imply the responsibility and accountability of the individual. Therefore, this verse can best be matched with the verse, Had We destroyed them with a punishment before it [i.e. before the revelation of the Quran], they would have surely said: ‘Our Lord! Why did You not send us an apostle so that we might follow Your signs before we were abased and disgraced?’ (20:134). This is confirmed by God’s reply in what follows in this surah: ‘Yes, My signs certainly came to you, but you denied them and acted arrogantly and you were among the faithless’ (verse 59). That is why such arrogant deniers of God’s guidance will be resurrected in disgrace and sentenced to hell: On the Day of Resurrection you will see those who attributed lies to Allah with their faces blackened. Is not the [final] abode of the arrogant in hell? (verse 60). All of these verses show that Had Allah guided me is not about forcing one to guidance.
Needless to say, it is no excuse that ‘I was wretched because God did not guide me to God-wariness’. The reason is that God’s guidance is according to His wish, as emphasised in many verses in the Quran, and His wish is based on His wisdom. He has clarified His wise plan regarding guidance and God-wariness elsewhere in the Quran: As for those who are [rightly] guided, He enhances their guidance, and invests them with their God-wariness (47:17). In other words, His special guidance is for those who strive in His cause (29:69), not for those who have negligence in the vicinage of Allah. This is a Quranic principle: one’s conscious beliefs and voluntary actions pave the road for one to either receive God’s guidance and mercy, or be deprived due to his unpreparedness and lack of capacity (17:18-20).
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
A similar logic to the one seen in this verse is found in God’s description of the people of Israel as he talked to their judge, Gideon, when they were about to fight the army of Midian:
- And the LORD said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.
TOPICAL ARTICLES
See Topical Article: Determinism, Delegation, and Free Will.
[1] Judges 7:2.