ما أَصابَ مِن مُصيبَةٍ فِي الأَرضِ وَلا في أَنفُسِكُم إِلّا في كِتابٍ مِن قَبلِ أَن نَبرَأَها ۚ إِنَّ ذٰلِكَ عَلَى اللَّهِ يَسيرٌ
No affliction visits the earth or yourselves but it is in a book before We bring it about – that is indeed easy for Allah.
EXEGESIS
The noun and verb in the opening words No affliction visits (mā aṣāba min muṣībah) both use the same root iṣābah (to befall), which originally meant to throw or strike a spear (or arrow) on an intended target. It can therefore also signify a positive meaning. Ṣayb, for example, is a rainstorm or downpour (2:19) and is derived from the same root. And so the Quran uses it in both contexts, negative (3:165, 4:62) and positive (4:73, 30:48), and at times both at once: If some good shall befall you (tuṣibka ḥasanatun) … but if an adversary befalls you (tuṣibka muṣībatun) (9:50). See also 4:78-79.
Commonly though, because of its frequent association with the negative, muṣībah (pl. maṣāʾib) is assumed to mean affliction.[1]
Visits the earth refers to afflictions such as famines and earthquakes; or yourselves are afflictions such as illnesses and unnatural deaths. But it is in a book refers to the protected tablet (85:22) in which is inscribed or decreed all things past and future, until the Day of Resurrection, as proven by many verses and traditions.
Before We bring it about (nabraʾahā) means: before We create or bring into existence and there occurs what was decreed, or, in Rāzī’s words, before it enters man’s realm.[2] The verb nabraʾa is from baraʾa, to create, usually said of God, for He alone is al-bāriʾ (the Creator) and His creation is referred to as bariyyah.[3]
That is indeed easy for Allah, meaning decreeing matters before they occur and setting them with an unalterable destiny.
EXPOSITION
While this verse and others (such as 4:78) suggest God causes afflictions, many other verses hold man accountable for his suffering (3:117, 4:62, 4:79, 30:41, 42:30). This suggests that afflictions are of two kinds: one caused by humans and the result of sin, injustice, and ignorance, and the other decreed by God for which man has no hand in the matter. This latter form of suffering is what is experienced by prophets and messengers, and even the righteous.
All afflictions nonetheless are only possible because God allows them. And He allows this because, whilst afflictions can serve as a punishment for transgressors, they are also an expiation for the faithful and the innocent and an opportunity to attain spiritual perfection and an increased realisation (maʿrifah) of God (cf. 3:140, 43:33-35). Even for the sinful, who initiate the cause(s) of their suffering by their sins, the aim is not to punish but to bring realisation. God allows them to experience trials so that He may make them taste something of what they have done, so that they may come back (30:41).
For the faithful, knowing God to be in control of all circumstances, including afflictions, suffices. When an affliction (muṣībah) visits them (aṣābat hum), they say: ‘Indeed we belong to Allah, and to Him do we indeed return’ (2:156), and they declare, Say: ‘Nothing will befall us (yuṣībanā) except what Allah has ordained for us. He is our master, and in Allah let all the faithful put their trust’ (9:51).
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- When Imam al-Sajjād (a) was brought in captivity before Yazīd, he (Yazīd) recited, Whatever affliction that may visit you is because of what your hands have earned (42:30) as if to suggest the tragedy of Karbala was Imam al-Husayn’s (a) own doing; to which Imam al-Sajjād (a) replied: ‘Never! This is not what was revealed concerning us. Rather what is revealed concerning us is: No affliction visits the earth or yourselves but it is in a book before We bring it about.’[4]
Note: It is also related that when Saʿīd ibn Jubayr was brought before Ḥajjāj and the latter ordered his killing, a man present began weeping. ‘What makes you weep?’ asked Saʿīd. ‘What has befallen you,’ replied the man. ‘Do not weep,’ Saʿīd consoled him, ‘for this was in God’s knowledge that it shall be so. Have you not heard the words of the Exalted: No affliction visits the earth or yourselves but it is in a book before We bring it about?’[5]
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
Tabatabai has rejected the exegetes who define the book or tablet literally, such as a stone or metal surface in the heavens on which events are inscribed in a language, and handwriting, such as ours (see 85:22 for the protected tablet (lawḥ maḥfūẓ)) but he also opposes symbolising the meaning of the book as only the knowledge of God because it would not agree with the apparent meaning of the verse, unless we assume that what God means by the book (in which is written all events) is a level within the levels of His knowledge in action.[6]
And it is not just afflictions that are in a book. Whatever there is in the heavens and the earth, that is indeed in a book (22:70). No female conceives or delivers except with His knowledge, and no elderly person advances in years, nor is anything diminished of his life, but it is [recorded] in a book. That is indeed easy for Allah (35:11). In fact, We have figured everything in a manifest book (36:12). See also 20:52 and 78:29.
The need for a book, albeit not in the form humans understand and externalised from God’s knowledge, is debated by exegetes. Rāzī comments that according to theologians, God chooses to record in a book all matters before they happen so that the angels charged with executing His orders know what He decrees,[7] and that proof of this is alluded to in verses such as: By [the angels] who dispense [livelihood] by [His] command (51:4), and By those [angels] who direct the affairs [of creatures] (79:5). And secondly, He manifests His will in a book, So that you may not grieve (verse 23). See the Exposition for verse 23.
A more convincing argument to explain the existence of such a book however would be simply that God’s plan for His creation exists in a timeless book as His decree and thereafter matters unfold in time, based on the time frame and interval determined for them in that book. That would also explain the relationship of a timeless God with His timebound creation. And hence that book is referred to as a clear or manifest Imam (36:12), because creation manifests itself following that book.
The it in before We bring it about could, in theory, refer to the earth, yourselves, the affliction, or even all three; and indeed exegetes have suggested all these meanings,[8] but as Tabatabai has rightly said, the it most likely refers to the affliction (muṣībah) because that is the subject being discussed – the causes for loss of wealth and lives and reasons for people holding back from spending in the way of God or going for jihad. So it seeks to tell them not to be stingy or worry about these matters because afflictions do not occur without God’s will.[9]
Rāzī also defends the Asharite view of predestination via this verse, saying that since God writes what is to happen in a book before it occurs, therefore it means He predestines it. Furthermore, he argues, the affliction in yourselves includes faithlessness and sin and therefore the verse proves that all actions – including sinful ones – are decreed beforehand in the protected tablet.[10] The Shia and the Mutazilite theologians would however reject the attempt to conflate afflictions with the wrongdoings and transgressions of man, and God already knowing beforehand what will transpire as the actions of His creatures does not necessitate His forcing those actions even if He allows for their results and effects to manifest – before We bring it about. And as mentioned in the Exposition, afflictions are of two kinds: some are the result of sin, caused by man’s free will, whilst others are brought about simply as a trial from God.
[1] Raghib, ṣ-w-b.
[2] Razi, 29/467.
[3] Hans Wehr, b-r-ʾ.
[4] Qummi, 2/277; Kafi, 2/450, h. 3.
[5] Bursawi, 9/375.
[6] Mizan, 19/167.
[7] Razi, 29/467.
[8] Zamakhshari, 4/479; Razi, 29/467.
[9] Mizan, 19/167.
[10] Razi, 29/467.