قُل إِن كانَ لِلرَّحمٰنِ وَلَدٌ فَأَنا أَوَّلُ العابِدينَ
Say: ‘If the All-Beneficent had a son, I would have been the first to worship [him].’
EXEGESIS
The conditional particle in (if) is used instead of law (if), the latter of which implies impossibility – even though the context would seem to require saying law kāna lil-raḥmāni waladun (If (impossibly) the All-Beneficent were to have a son). However, in is used here in order to bring the opposing side down somewhat from their stubborn stance and lead them toward fairness. In other words, it is used to keep the conversation productive and avoid immediate rejection (see 34:24 for another instance where a similar style is employed).
EXPOSITION
Following the prior discussion – which first confronted the Arab polytheists’ claim of divine offspring (specifically, their designation of angels as God’s daughters), and then examined the monotheistic call of Prophet Jesus (a), the present verses advance the refutation through a different methodological approach.
The Prophet addressing the polytheists refutes the notion of God having divine offspring by invalidating the very premise of God having offspring – stating that if such a thing were true, then I (the Prophet) would be the first to worship that son. In other words, the Prophet was telling the polytheists: if the All-Beneficent had a child – as the polytheists believe – I myself would be the first to worship him and fulfil the right of his sonhood, because if he existed, he would naturally be of the same nature as his father. However, I know that such a child does not exist, and that is why I do not worship anyone as the child of God. The Prophet’s faith in God as well as his knowledge of God is higher than everyone else’s, and thus the verse emphasises that the Prophet would be the first to worship such an alleged child. This view has been attributed to Suddī and Abū Muslim amongst the earlier exegetes.
This sophisticated rhetorical device is employed when dealing with obstinate and dogmatic individuals. It functions like a hypothetical challenge: if someone claims, ‘this person is the wisest of all’, when in fact they possess no such wisdom, one responds, ‘if that were true, I would be the first to follow him’. The purpose is to compel the claimant to rigorously examine the evidence for their assertion. Upon confronting the immovable reality, they are jolted out of their delusion.
The Mutazilite commentator Zamakhsharī, offers parallel examples where such a rhetorical style is employed: when the proponent of divine justice says to the determinist:
‘If God, exalted be He, were the creator of disbelief in hearts and were to punish it with eternal torment, then I would be the first to say: “He is a devil, not a god.”’
The meaning of this statement, and the purpose of its style and construction, is to deny that God is the creator of disbelief, and to exalt and sanctify Him from such an attribute whilst also indicating the ugliness of the determinist doctrine and the error of its adherent, providing conclusive testimony to its impossibility, and openly declaring himself free from it, expressing the utmost repulsion and disgust from holding such a belief. Along these lines is the saying of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr to Ḥajjāj when the latter said to him: ‘By God, I shall replace this world for you with a blazing fire!’ To which Saʿīd replied: ‘If I knew that was in your power, I would have worshipped no god but you.’
Rāzī explains the verse in a similar manner whilst resorting to a logical argument. He states that the verse merely proposes a conditional proposition (al-qaḍiyyah al-sharṭiyyah). A conditional proposition only indicates that the premise necessitates the consequence. It does not, in itself, signal whether the premise is true or false, or whether the consequence is true or false. As such, the verse presents a true conditional proposition composed of a false premise and a false consequence. The premise, ‘the All-Beneficent has a child’ is false. The consequence, ‘I would be the first to worship that child’ is also false. However, the falsity of each part does not prevent the relationship of necessitation between them from being true. This is similar to if someone were to say, ‘if five were an even number, it would be divisible into two equal parts’.
A similar form of argumentation can be seen in 21:22, Had there been gods in them [the heavens and the earth] other than Allah, they would surely have fallen apart. This statement is a conditional proposition. The premise is, ‘there are other gods within the heavens and earth’. The consequence is, ‘they would have been ruined’. The premise in itself is false, and the consequence is also false (since the truth is that there are no other gods within them, and they have not been ruined). The particle law (if) here implies the negation of a thing due to the negation of its necessary consequence (i.e. since they are not ruined, it follows that there are no other gods). Yet, despite the premise and consequence both being false in reality, the logical necessitation of that premise for this consequence remains true. In this regard, this verse is similar to 39:4, Had Allah intended to take a son, He could have chosen from those He has created whatever He wished. Immaculate is He! He is Allah, the one, the all-paramount.
This is the apparent meaning of the verse, however, many exegetes have found it problematic and thus have attempted to reinterpret the verse, examples of which shall be provided in the Review of Tafsīr Literature section.
Some exegetes extract from the verse that the teachings of divine religions are true and rooted in objective reality. They are not merely social constructs, useful fictions, or subjective beliefs. This is a form of epistemological reliance on divine revelation. It posits that if a major fact about God were true, the authentic message from Him would necessarily convey it. The absence of such a claim – or in this case, the presence of its direct negation – becomes evidence for its falsehood in reality.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
It has been attributed to Mujāhid, that the meaning of the verse is: ‘If – according to your claim and assertion – the All-Beneficent had a child, then I would be the first of the worshippers,’ meaning the first to worship God alone. Thus, the statement refutes the idea that God could have a child, and the implied sense is ‘I would be the first to affirm God’s oneness and reject your claim’.
It has been attributed to Sufyān al-Thawrī as well as al-Bukhārī, that ʿābidīn here means ‘those who reject’ or ‘those who disdain’ instead of the more apparent ‘those who worship’. As such the verse would mean: If – according to your claim and assertion – the All-Beneficent had a child, then I would be the first of those who reject such a claim. Those exegetes who hold such a view have presented the following lexical and literary evidence to show that the verb ʿabada can also be used in the meaning of ‘to reject’ and is not restricted to ‘to worship’: it is recorded in Arab speech: qad ʿabada fulānun min hādhā al-amr (so-and-so has ʿabada from this matter), meaning he disdained it, grew angry, and refused it. They also quote several instances from pre-Islamic poetry to attest to the same.
Another usage is the following incident from the caliphate of ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān. When a woman gave birth six months after marriage, ʿUthmān initially ordered her to be punished on charges of adultery. Imam Ali (a) intervened, citing Quranic verses. The narrator concludes: ‘By God, ʿUthmān did not ʿabida (refuse/hold back) from sending for her to be returned.’ The commentator explicitly glosses ʿabida here as istankafa, meaning ‘he refrained’.
In a recorded dialogue, Ibn Abbas was asked about this verse. He explained: ‘I am the first to be free from the notion that Allah could have a child.’ When asked if this meaning was known in Arabic, he cited a line from the pre-Islamic ruler Tubbaʿ: ‘And the people of Fihr have known that I am their lord entirely, and they did not taʿbid (reject/disdain).’
The lexicographer, al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad al-Farāhīdī, states that ʿabada means disdain and zeal, arising from a statement one is ashamed of and recoils from. Nifṭawayh has critiqued this view by arguing that even if one were to accept the above instances as examples of ʿabada to mean ‘to disdain’ and not merely figurative usages, this usage would still be extremely rare as compared to ‘to worship’ and thus the apparent of the verse must still be understood in light of the common usage. Furthermore, the active participle of ‘to disdain’ would be ʿabid and not ʿābid. Perhaps it is due to this nuance that it has been attributed to Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and al-Yamānī that they recited the verse as fa-anā awwalu al-ʿabidīn.
It has been attributed to Ibn Abbas, Qatādah, and Ibn Zayd that the particle in is used here in the meaning of the negatory particle mā, and thus the verse reads: The All-Beneficent does not have a child, and I am the first of those who worship God while affirming this truth. What could possibly support such a reading is the report that Naḍr ibn ʿAbd al-Dār ibn Quṣayy said: ‘The angels are the daughters of Allah.’ Then the verse was revealed, Say: ‘If the All-Beneficent had a son, I would have been the first to worship [him].’ Naḍr then said: ‘Do you not see that he has confirmed my claim?’ i.e. because of the use of the conditional particle in instead of law. Al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah said to him: ‘He has not confirmed you. Rather, he said: “The All-Beneficent does not have a child, so I am the first of those who declare His oneness from among the people of Mecca,”’ where al-Walīd’s negation was based on understanding the particle in to mean the negatory mā.
It has been attributed to Jubbāʾī that the meaning is: ‘If He had a child, I would be the first to reject worshipping Him,’ because anyone who has a child must be a physical, created being. Such a being does not deserve worship, since it cannot bestow the favours that would make worship obligatory.
It has been attributed to Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah that the verse is actually a rhetorical analogy in which the Prophet is saying, ‘just as I am not the first to worship God, likewise God does not have a child’. This is like saying: ‘If you are a writer, then I am an accountant,’ intending to mean: ‘You are not a writer and neither am I an accountant.’
Some exegetes, such as Ṣādiqī Tehrānī, suggest that the verse is not discussing literal procreative sonship but honorary sonship. Many contemporaneous communities held that supremely pious servants of God – such as Jesus (a), Ezra (a), or the angels – could be figuratively adopted as ‘sons’ due to their exalted spiritual status. The verse dismantles this logic through a compelling reductio ad absurdum: if nearness to God through perfect servitude warranted the title ‘son of God’, then Prophet Muhammad (s), as the paramount exemplar of servitude and the bearer of the final revelation, would be the first and most deserving of such an honour. His emphatic denial of this status for himself serves as definitive proof that the entire premise of honorary divine sonship is a theological impossibility. Based on this perspective, the sentence is not a complete conditional clause whose consequence is ‘I would have been the first to worship him’ but rather, it is a connective sentence. For ‘the first to worship him’ itself demolishes the edifice of this honorary sonship claimed for others.
According to some exegetes, when the Prophet says, I would have been the first to worship (ʿābidīn) [him], ʿibādah is used in the sense of obedience, respect, and glorifying. As such, assuming the impossible did happen and God did have a son, then the Prophet would be the first to obey, respect, and glorify him due to his relationship with God.
[1] Mizan, 18/125.
[2] Amthal, 16/103; Qurtubi, 16/119.
[3] Amthal, 16/102.
[4] Mizan, 18/125; Tabari, 20/658.
[5] Alusi, 13/103; Amthal, 16/103.
[6] Tabrisi, 9/88; Razi, 27/646; Tabari, 20/656.
[7] Amthal, 16/103; Alusi, 13/104.
[8] It is noteworthy that postulating this example by Zamakhsharī resulted in many Asharite scholars heavily criticising him. For example, Abū Ḥayyān al-Gharnāṭī (d. 745/1344) denounced Zamakhsharī’s impropriety by saying: ‘Then he mentioned speech for which he deserves discipline – indeed, the sword! I have kept my book pure from mentioning it’ (Muhit, 9/390). Nāṣir al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Munīr al-Iskandarī al-Mālikī, the judge of Alexandria (d. 683 AH), also commented: ‘He [Zamakhsharī] has committed a grave audacity and plunged into a ruinous course with his analogy to the statement of one he called a “proponent of divine justice”: “If God were the creator of disbelief in hearts and were to punish for it, then I would be the first to say: ‘He is a devil, not a god.’” So let him be confronted for that with the statement of one who says: “It is established by both reason and revealed law that He, exalted be He, is the creator of that [disbelief] in hearts, just as He created faith – in fulfillment of the dictates of rational proof which demonstrates that there is no creator but God, and in affirmation of the meaning of His word, exalted be He, Is there any creator other than God? (35:3), and His saying, God is the Creator of all things (39:62). And once this premise is established by reason and revelation, he is left to wring his ear and bow his neck [in shame], for he has uttered a calumny against God – a calumny no disbelieving servant of His has preceded him in, and which none of the wicked among the depraved have dared to utter.”’ (see the footnote in Zamakhshari, 4/265).
[9] Zamakhshari, 3/497; Fadlallah, 17/65.
[10] Razi, 27/646.
[11] Ibn Kathir, 7/222.
[12] Rahnama, 17/109.
[13] Tabrisi, 9/87; Tabari, 20/654.
[14] Tabari, 20/657; Ibn Kathir, 7/222.
[15] Tabari, 20/656-657.
[16] Suyuti, 6/23-24.
[17] Hadi, 3/270.
[18] Ibn Ashur, 25/297; Qurtubi, 16/119.
[19] Qurtubi, 16/120.
[20] Tabrisi, 9/87; Tabari, 20/654-656.
[21] Zamakhshari, 4/266; Makhzan, 12/53; see also Mudarrisi, 12/530-531.
[22] Tabrisi, 9/88.
[23] Tabrisi, 9/88.
[24] Furqan, 26/371.
[25] Amthal, 16/103.