أَلَم يَأنِ لِلَّذينَ آمَنوا أَن تَخشَعَ قُلوبُهُم لِذِكرِ اللَّهِ وَما نَزَلَ مِنَ الحَقِّ وَلا يَكونوا كَالَّذينَ أوتُوا الكِتابَ مِن قَبلُ فَطالَ عَلَيهِمُ الأَمَدُ فَقَسَت قُلوبُهُم ۖ وَكَثيرٌ مِنهُم فاسِقونَ
Is it not time yet for those who have faith that their hearts should be humbled for Allah’s remembrance and to the truth which has come down [to them], and to be not like those who were given the book before? Time took its toll on them and so their hearts were hardened, and many of them are transgressors.
EXEGESIS
From this verse onward, the surah resumes its emphasis on its two main themes: faith in God and His Apostle, and spending in God’s way.
The verse opens with a rhetorical question: Is it not time yet for those who have faith that their hearts should be humbled for Allah’s remembrance, to mean: It is high time! This can be read as an endearing statement imploring the hearts of the faithful, or a stern one admonishing them for their lack of dedication and for taking their faith for granted. Most exegetes suggest the latter, quoting the Prophet’s companions who said they were reprimanded by this verse when times of ease befall them and they slacked in their devotion to God’s cause (see the Review of Tafsīr Literature section). Such an interpretation would agree with the verse, So woe to those whose hearts have been hardened to the remembrance of Allah. They are in manifest error (39:22).
The verb anā is to mature, become ripe, draw near, approach, come, especially when said of time. Alam yaʾni (Is it not time) is therefore an expression for the rhetorical question, ‘Is it not about time?’ meaning it is high time that something should occur. Āna al-awān means ‘the time has come’.[1] Other common expressions with this term, also found in the Quran, are ānāʾ al-layl (all night long) (3:113, 39:9), and ānāʾ al-layl wa aṭrāf al-nahār (by day and by night) (20:130).
Takhshaʿa (should be humbled) is from khushūʿ (humility), an attribute of the heart. Whenever humility is witnessed in a person’s voice, face, eyes, or limb, it reflects the inner humility of their hearts. ‘It is a state of the heart that manifests in one’s limbs,’ says Thaʿālabī, ‘which is why their hearts are specified.’[2] The Quran uses this term, almost exclusively, for the prophets of God and the faithful, such that any mention of the humble (khāshiʿīn) by default implies those who express humility and awe before God (2:45, 3:199, 17:109, 21:90, 23:2, 23:57, 33:35, 35:28, 36:11, 50:33, 57:16, 67:12, 79:45, 98:8, and many others). So when used as a reference to the wicked, it is either qualified, such as: humbled by abasement (khāshiʿīn min al-dhull) (42:45), or it is interpreted to mean humiliated, or a humility covered with disgrace and abasement (88:2).
Humbled for Allah’s remembrance, because God’s remembrance requires humility. It can never be found where arrogance is present. The humble find themselves naturally expressing gratitude to their Lord for their blessings, recalling His favours, beseeching His forgiveness for past lapses, and seeking His constant guidance. Conversely, a habit of constantly remembering God also nurtures humility, so they go hand-in-hand and feed off each other, as one attains greater awareness of God’s presence in all matters.
And to the truth which has come down alludes to the Quran, revealed to the faithful from God via His Apostle.
And to be not like those who were given the book before refers to the Jews and the Christians, whom the Quran often names the People of the Book, meaning the direct recipients of a divine scripture from past apostles. In particular, the Children of Israel are intended here,[3] whose hard-heartedness is given explicitly in 2:74 and 5:13. Their mention here is to caution the Muslims that they, too, would suffer the same fate, despite having received divine revelation, should they lose humility and allow the passage of time to plague them with taking their faith for granted.
Time took its toll on them: Time is given as amad (pl. āmād), which signifies a final point and a stretch (yet limited and set) period of time (3:30, 18:12, 72:25). Amad is also said to be synonymous with abad but the latter is used for a time period that has no fixed limit or end and hence the adage, al-dunyā amad wa al-ākhirah abad (the world is limited [in duration] whereas the hereafter is forever).[4] Likewise, zamān is also similar in meaning but again, it is used for a period whose start and end are implied, whereas amad is given regarding an end only.[5] To set an amad for something is therefore to appoint a term for it and that which possesses a limited or defined duration is referred to as dhū amad (fem. dhātu amad).[6] Amad is also used to denote anger since it reveals the end and limit of one’s patience.[7] With all this in mind, the verse cautions the faithful that when Time took its toll on their predecessors, it was not after an unlimited duration. They must, therefore, remain vigilant from indifference to faith even in their lifetimes.
Qasat (masc. qasā) is to be harsh, merciless, to handle something roughly. The infinitive nouns qaswah and qasāwah are defined as hardness, sternness, cruelty, remorselessness.[8] Qasāwah was originally used to refer to a rock’s hardness but it became a metaphor for a hard heart,[9] and is used with this meaning in several verses besides this one, including 5:13, 22:53, and 39:22. In some instances, a direct parallel is drawn between hard rocks and hard hearts: Then your hearts hardened (qasat) after that; so they are like stones, or even harder (ashaddu qaswah) (2:74). Several reasons are posited for why the hearts of past communities hardened and these are discussed under Review of Tafsīr Literature.
In other verses, instead of hardness, hearts are mentioned as being blind (22:46), diseased (2:10, 5:52, 33:12, 33:32, 33:60, 47:20, 47:29, 74:31), locked (47:24), sealed (2:7, 9:87, 47:16), and rusted (83:14). In contrast, the healthy hearts soften to the remembrance of God (39:23), are at peace in the remembrance of God (13:28), and is infused with tranquility (sakīnah) (48:4). For more on hard-heartedness among previous religious communities, see 2:74, 5:13, and 6:42-44.
So their hearts were hardened (qasat) means they became unreceptive to God’s words and were apathetic when they heard the truth. Whatever they followed of God’s commands was only an empty ritual, devoid of spirit. It did not prevent them from violating God’s laws and indulging in sinful matters and many of their priests had complete disregard for the sacred, even changing the scripture for personal gain (2:79, 2:174, 3:187), which is why many of them are transgressors.
And many of them are transgressors (fāsiqīn): fāsiqīn (sing. fāsiq) is the plural, active participle derived from the root fisq (pl. fusūq), which is to exit a boundary. Fisq originally meant the outgrowth of dates (ruṭab) from its skin,[10] and in time it came to denote any kind of exiting of limits: natural, rational, or religious.[11]
Interestingly, the use of fāsiq for people was first introduced by the Quran. There is no trace of its use to refer to humans, even in the pre-Islamic poetry.[12]
Just like humility and God’s remembrance have reciprocal effects on a human heart, so do transgression (fisq) and hard-heartedness, each feeding off the other.
Many of them are transgressors is also repeated in the conclusions to verses 26 and 27, and it is often said of the People of the Book that Among them [some] are faithful but most of them are transgressors (3:110). See also 5:59 and 5:81.
EXPOSITION
There are numerous points of reflection to draw from this verse that Qarāʾatī highlights: faith without humility is not valuable to God – He condemns it; one of God’s goals in revealing the Quran is that hearts should be humbled for His remembrance; the faithful should learn from the past; God’s practice (sunnah) is the same and all people are affected in the same way if they make the same choices; hard-heartedness leads to transgression (fisq); being given more time does not help if you do not do anything about it; and receiving guidance alone does not suffice – the heart, as a receptacle to that guidance – must be readied as well.[13]
To this we may add: just as prolonged hopes over time leads to the hardening of the heart, a hard heart left unattended leads to hypocrisy. We saw earlier that one reason the hypocrites end up in hell is due to being deceived by false hopes (verse 14), and also that the hypocrites have no light to guide them (verse 13). In 39:22, the faithful are described as having a light to walk by and they are unlike those who lack light and whose hearts have been hardened to the remembrance of Allah. This completes the picture: the hypocrites have hard hearts because they allowed themselves to be deceived by prolonged hopes so Time took its toll on them.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- From what God spoke to Prophet Moses (a) was this: ‘O Moses, do not prolong your hope in this world lest your heart becomes hard. One whose heart is hard is far removed from Me.’[14]
- In a tradition from Prophet Jesus (a), he said: ‘Do not talk excessively without the remembrance of God for your hearts will become hard. The hard heart is far removed from God.’[15]
- From the Prophet, in a supplication he often made: ‘I seek refuge in God from a heart that is not humbled (lā takhshaʿa).’[16]
- Shaddād ibn Aws reported from the Prophet: ‘The first [quality] to be lost in people will be humility (al-khushūʿ) [before God].’[17]
- From Imam Ali (a): ‘Do not be hasty in matters before their [time] matures lest you regret it. And do not let time take its toll on you lest your hearts become hard.’[18]
- Imam Ali (a) in his advice to his son, Imam al-Hasan (a): ‘Certainly the heart of a young man is like uncultivated land. It accepts whatever is strewn on it. So I hastened to mould you properly before your heart hardened up and your mind became occupied.’[19]
- Also from Imam Ali (a): ‘Tears do not dry up except because the hearts harden, and hearts do not harden except due to excessive sins.’[20]
- From Imam al-Bāqir (a): ‘Indeed God has various forms of punishments for the hearts and the bodies, [such as] straits in livelihood and languish in worship; and [yet] no person is afflicted with a chastisement greater than hard-heartedness.’[21]
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
The cause of revelation for this verse is believed to be laxity and slackness amongst the faithful when times of ease and affluence came upon them, after a long period of hardship and struggle in Mecca and the early Medinan days, and hence they were admonished with this verse.[22] This would also confirm this surah is Medinan, though a report from Ibn Masʿūd relates: ‘Between our embracing Islam and God admonishing us with this verse, Is it not time yet there was only four years.’[23] This would then make it Meccan as Ibn Masʿūd converted to Islam in 616 ce and the migration to Medina took place in 622 ce. But as Tabatabai points out, since we know from the themes of the surah that it is Medinan, if the report from Ibn Masʿūd is proven authentic, it would only suggest that this particular verse was revealed in Mecca and was later added to this surah.[24] But others such as Ibn Kathīr consider this to be a later revelation, based on a saying attributed to Ibn Abbas: ‘The hearts of the faithful hearts had grown tepid; so they were reproached at the beginning of the thirteenth year since the revelation [commenced].’[25]
The influence of this verse in the early Muslim community is shown to have exerted and remained well after the Prophet, from various incidents quoted by exegetes. Zamakhsharī, for example, relates that this verse was recited before Abū Bakr (while he was the caliph) in Medina, when he received a delegation from Yamāmah. Hearing the verse, the delegation wept profusely and Abū Bakr looked at them and remarked: ‘Thus were we until the hearts became hard!’[26] For the story of Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ of Khorasan (d. 187 ah/803 ce) and his conversion from being a highway robber to a mystic after he heard this verse recited, see ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-Awliyāʾ.[27]
There are also reports to suggest ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s conversion in Mecca was after he heard the opening verses of this surah, but most historians believe the verses that ʿUmar heard were from Sūrat Ṭā Hā (20).
Al-Wāḥidī mentions this verse as being revealed about the hypocrites, a year after the migration, when they asked Salmān al-Fārsī: ‘Tell us about what is in the Torah for it contains wonders,’ and so this verse was revealed.[28] Nasr also comments that some maintain this verse refers to the hypocrites who displayed faith outwardly while failing to manifest it in their hearts,[29] but the address in this verse makes it unlikely that it is speaking to the hypocrites. The verse clearly warns the faithful of the fate of their predecessors from the People of the Book and not to be like those who were given the book before. Such an admonishment would not be to the hypocrites unless we stretch their meaning to include those of weak faith.
Zamakhsharī, Tabatabai, and others have said Allah’s remembrance (dhikr) may refer to the Quran since its recitation is also a form and means for God’s remembrance.[30]
While it is true that dhikr (pl. adhkār) is at times ascribed to the recitation of the Quran (8:2, 39:23), that may not be the case here since Allah’s remembrance is immediately followed by and to the truth which has come down, which refers to the Quran. So Allah’s remembrance here is either a literal recitation of litanies (adhkār), glorifying and praising God, seeking repentance, expressing gratitude to Him, or beseeching His blessings on the Prophet and his household, or it may be a non-verbal, constant remembrance (dhikr) of God in the heart. Furthermore, the admonishment is more likely to have been due to a lack of humility that induces God’s constant remembrance rather than a lack of reciting the Quran more frequently.
Concerning those who were given the book before and who, when Time took its toll on them and so their hearts were hardened, and many of them are transgressors, Thaʿālabī and Rāzī have quoted others as saying amad (time) in this verse signifies amal (hope). So when their hopes prolonged, it was inevitable that their hearts hardened.[31] And Tustarī understands their hearts were hardened through the pursuit of lust.[32]
In traditions, the most prominent reasons cited for the hardening of the heart, besides prolonged hopes and materialistic ambitions,[33] are excessive sinning and the disobedience of God[34] and forsaking the worship and remembrance of God.[35]
Rāzī also believes the hardening of hearts is inevitable when they become distant from revelation, which is the meaning of Time took its toll on them, and thus refers to the Jews and Christians who lived much after the time of their prophets.[36] But this cannot be the main cause because the conjunction particle fa (then or so) occurs twice: [Then] (fa) time took its toll on them and so (fa) their hearts hardened. If the first conjunction particle fa was absent then the two statements would be linked as cause and effect and the passing of time would be the cause: Time took its toll, then (fa) their hearts hardened. As well, if the passing of time is the real cause then even the Muslims today would be unable to prevent it.
On the meaning of fāsiqīn (transgressors), fisq is sinfulness and moral depravity and the label fāsiq (pl. fussāq, fāsiqīn) is used in Islamic law for a Muslim who is a profligate, acts sinfully and licentiously, and his witness is not accepted in an Islamic court of law (24:4).[37] Such a person acknowledges the laws of Islam but refuses to live by them and instead leads a sinful life. He is deemed to have exited God’s set boundaries. Yet in this verse and many others, the term fāsiqīn is used for non-Muslims. Rāghib, therefore, notes that fisq is a more general term in the Quran than kufr (faithlessness) and ẓulm (injustice) is even more general than fisq.[38] So often, fisq is used for transgressors and even for the People of the Book (3:110), the hypocrites (9:67), and the faithless (6:49, 10:33). It is used in contrast to faith (32:18, 32:20). This is because, just as a fāsiq amongst Muslims abandons the practice of Islam’s laws despite acknowledging them, one who is faithless (kāfir) abandons the adherence to God’s laws despite what his intellect and divine instinct acknowledge. Satan, who is a kāfir (2:34, 38:74), is also charged with fisq (18:50).
Rāzī regards fisq to be synonymous to fujūr (immorality) because fujūr is an outburst or a breaking out from a constraint, like the outburst (fujūr) of a dam that holds back water that would otherwise cause harm if allowed to flow freely. The time of dawn is called fajr because it is when the day breaks out from the night. In other words, man is not meant to live an unrestrained life where he does as he pleases without being held accountable or having consequences for his actions. He has boundaries set by God, which when he exits he commits fisq (transgression); and he has walls that mark this boundary, which when he breaks forth from, it leads to corruption (fasād) and profanity (fujūr).[39]
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
Hard-heartedness is also a Biblical theme. In a prayer of the Prophet Isaiah:
- Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants, for the sake of the tribes that are your heritage.[40]
- Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness.[41]
- Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?[42]
[1] Hans Wehr, ʾ-n-ā.
[2] Thaalabi, 5/386.
[3] Thaalabi, 5/386; Zamakhshari, 4/477.
[4] Lane, ʾ-m-d.
[5] Raghib, ʾ-m-d.
[6] Lane, ʾ-m-d.
[7] Tahqiq, ʾ-m-d.
[8] Hans Wehr, q-s-w.
[9] Raghib, q-s-w.
[10] Lisan, f-s-q; Raghib, f-s-q.
[11] Tahqiq, f-s-q.
[12] Raghib, f-s-q.
[13] Qaraati, 9/471-472.
[14] Kafi, 2/329, h. 1.
[15] Tabrisi, 9/238. The last statement is also reported from the Apostle of God in Amali.T, p. 530.
[16] Faqih, 1/335, h. 981; Muslim, 8/82; Abu Dawud, 1/345; Ahmad, 4/371; Baghawi, 5/260; Ibn Kathir, 8/401; Suyuti, 4/124.
[17] Tabarani, 7/354, h. 7183; Suyuti, 6/175; Thaalabi, 5/386.
[18] Bihar, 78/83.
[19] Nahj, letter 31.
[20] Ilal, 81/1.
[21] Tuhaf, h. 296.
[22] Suyuti, 6/175; Mizan, 19/168-169.
[23] Muslim, 2/43; Alusi, 14/164; Ibn Kathir, 8/52-53; Zamakhshari, 4/477.
[24] Mizan 19/169.
[25] Ibn Kathir, 8/52.
[26] Zamakhshari, 4/477.
[27] A J Arberry, Muslim Saints and Mystics - Selections from Farīd ad-Dīn al-ʿAṭṭār’s Tadhkirat al-Awliyāʾ (Arkana, 1990), p. 55.
[28] Wahidi, p. 406.
[29] Nasr, p. 1335.
[30] Mizan, 19/161; Zamakhshari, 4/477.
[31] Thaalabi, 5/386; Razi, 29/461.
[32] Tustari, p. 162.
[33] Kafi, 2/329, h. 1; Mustadarak.W, 12/94, h. 13613.
[34] Ilal, 81/1; Khisal, 1/228, h. 65.
[35] Amali.T, p. 530.
[36] Razi, 29/461.
[37] Hans Wehr, f-s-q.
[38] Raghib, f-s-q.
[39] Razi, 3/615.
[40] Isaiah 63:17.
[41] Psalms 95:8; Hebrews 3:8.
[42] 1 Samuel 6:6.