لِكَيلا تَأسَوا عَلىٰ ما فاتَكُم وَلا تَفرَحوا بِما آتاكُم ۗ وَاللَّهُ لا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ مُختالٍ فَخورٍ

So that you may not grieve for what escapes you, nor exult for what comes your way, and Allah does not like the conceited [and] boastful.

EXEGESIS

Iyās is to despair, therefore likay lā taʾsaw (So that you may not grieve) is, more literally: So that you may not despair and become despondent. That said, that you may not grieve (taḥzanū) for what you lose (ma fātakum) is given in 3:153.

Nor exult for what comes your way can also be translated as: nor exult for what He has given you, if we assume the madda (elongated vowel) on the first letter alif of ātākum identifies the giver, who is God.^[1]

Tafraḥū (exult) is from farḥ (the verb being fariḥa), which signifies to be glad, joyful, to rejoice, to delight.[2] Rāghib’s definition of farḥ is extensive: it is to experience a sensation of lightness in one’s heart whereby one’s bosom becomes dilated with delight for a short-lived pleasure – as in the case of the transitory and fleeting worldly pleasures.[3] And this differs from its synonym surūr (to be pleased), which is a dilation of the bosom with delight or pleasure wherein is tranquillity and a rest for the mind, and it can be either of short or long continuance. Rāghib does concede though that the two terms (farḥ and surūr) can at times interchange in usage and meaning.[4]

Farḥ, therefore, is often used with negativity to mean exulting and rejoicing above measure, behaving insolently, and ungratefully[5] (3:188, 6:44, 13:26, 28:76, 40:75, 40:83). That is also what it implies in this verse.

But it can also be used to mean rejoicing with a positive connotation, as in: Say: ‘In Allah’s grace and His mercy – let them rejoice (yafraḥū) in that!’ (10:58). Cf. 3:170, 30:4.

Conceited [and] boastful is given as mukhtālin fakhūr. Mukhtāl is one seized by khuyalā which is pride (takabbur) and to imagine oneself as being special;^[6] and fakhūr is one who brags and boasts excessively, derived from fakhr, to take pride in what is external to a person such as one’s possessions, status, and so on;^[7] and hence its relevance to the words, nor exult for what comes your way. These two attributes are found in a person who imagines what he possesses of God’s blessings to be his right and his desert. He sees himself as being independent and needless of God. They are disgraceful qualities that Allah does not like.^[8]

But the concluding words, and Allah does not like the conceited [and] boastful, also prove that God is neither forbidding people from grieving with patience (ṣabr) nor barring them from rejoicing with thanksgiving (shukr). Rather He is prohibiting excessive grief that leads to despondency and from exulting boastfully.

EXPOSITION

This verse invites to patience and gratitude. Patience during afflictions and trials; and gratitude with humility during times of ease and the receipt of blessings. This verse is also tied to a previous verse that introduced the world as just play and diversion, and glitter (verse 20). If that is the case then wisdom dictates that one must not overly give the life of this world importance, except for that of it which relates and impact one’s eternal life in the hereafter. This includes neither despairing over what is lost nor exulting over what one gains and possesses of this world, for in the end, to Allah all matters are returned (verse 5). Cf. 17:67; 30:33; 39:49.

Tabatabai notes that whereas mā fātakum (what escapes you) is given indirectly without a mention of the doer – and therefore the escaping of things is attributed to the things themselves – bi-mā ātākum (if translated as ‘what He has given you’) attributes the action of giving to God. This is because loss and disappearance is the essence of things. If things were left to themselves, they would not remain as existents. As opposed to this, their acquisition and their remaining depends on God and therefore must be attributed back to Him.^[9] Indeed Allah sustains the heavens and the earth lest they should fall apart, and if they were to fall apart there is none who can sustain them except Him (35:41).

Another meaning to this verse might be that man by his nature lives with fear. Even before being afflicted, he is always in fear. Fear of falling ill, fear of losing loved ones, fear of loss of income, fear of bad news, fear of death, fear of taking risks, of exploring, and so on. And thus he behaves like a creature constantly fighting off what it fears and struggling to survive. The pious assume their faith should prevent them from any harm or suffering. The irreligious find their rational scepticism does not give them any logic to console them when they are bewildered with a calamity. Through trials and verses such as this, God invites man to transcend fear. To not mind suffering and, to embrace it as natural and a part of what it means to be human and live on earth. Numerous traditions speak of the world being a prison and a place of trial for the faithful,[10] and that those of faith should not expect any reprieve, for suffering purifies the soul like fire purifies gold. Man is covetous when good befalls him and despondent when ill befalls him (10:12, 41:51). He is invited to rise above this instinctive animal nature to one that is more divine and surrendered to God.

The particle li (So that) at the very start of the verse, suggests a continuation from the previous verse. It is therefore important to note that God does not send afflictions So that you may not grieve … nor exult, rather He informs you that He records all afflictions in a book before they occur, So that you may not grieve … nor exult. In other words, part of the reason He informs you of His decree in a book (verse 22) is to give you solace and comfort in knowing that if anything befalls you, it is His decree to try you and thereby elevate you; and if He has willed any good for you, none can stop it and therefore there is no need to exult for what cannot escape you.

And the reason man is consoled in the knowledge that all afflictions are decreed and under God’s sight is that humans, by nature, do not question their suffering as much as the wisdom behind it. It is unbearable when it seems to be a senseless and unnecessary pain. Knowing an affliction to be God’s will, not only makes suffering tolerable, but at times even desirable, because it calls upon one to rise to greater heights of spiritual growth. Rāzī, for example, quotes a prophetic tradition that says: ‘If one realises God’s secret regarding the decree (al-qadar), afflictions will seem trivial to him.’^[11]

INSIGHTS FROM HADITH

1. From Imam Ali (a): ‘The whole of asceticism (zuhd) is confined between two expressions of the Quran. God, the Glorified, says: So that you may not grieve for what escapes you, nor exult for what comes your way. So one who does not despair over the past nor rejoice over the future has taken hold of asceticism from both ends.’[12]
2. From Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth: I asked Imam al-Ṣādiq (a): ‘May I be ransomed for you, what is the ultimate in abstinence (zuhd) from the world?’ ‘God has set its limit in His book,’ the Imam replied. And he recited: So that you may not grieve for what escapes you, nor exult for what comes your way.’[13]

Note: Tabatabai has commented on these two above-mentioned traditions saying their foundation is based on the fact that one should not let one’s heart attach itself to the world.[14]

3. In a letter to Ibn Abbas which Ibn Abbas described as ‘except for the advice of the Apostle of God (s) no advice has been so beneficial to me’, Imam Ali (a) wrote: ‘Let it be known to you that a man sometimes rejoices over the gain of something that would never have escaped him, and [sometimes] he despairs the loss of what he was never meant to attain. So let your happiness be in what you have acquired for your hereafter and your regret be of what has escaped you from it [the hereafter]. As for what you acquire from your world, do not rejoice over it excessively; and what you lose of it, do not despair for it with anxiety. And let your concern be for what lies after death.’^[15]
4. From Imam al-Husayn (a), when his trials climaxed on the Day of ʿĀshūrāʾ and the enemies pierced his infant’s throat with an arrow: ‘What has befallen me is made easier [to bear, knowing] that it is before God’s eyes!’[16]

REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE

Rāzī has noted that this verse is an example of many other verses that can be used by both the Asharites and the Mutazilites to support their individual views on predestination versus free will. For the Asharite, this verse proves that man is helpless before God’s decree and control and hence he is asked not to grieve for what escapes you, nor exult for what comes your way. But for the Mutazilites, this very fact proves that man is free to act as he pleases. This is because, if man was not free, even with all conviction in this verse’s message, he would still be unable to act on the command to not grieve for what escapes you, nor exult for what comes your way until it was predestined for him to do so. Furthermore, and Allah does not like the conceited [and] boastful would also be beyond man’s control to change, if it were God’s will and decree that made some behave in this manner. Why then does God not like His own doing?^[17]

[1] Razi, 29/468.
[2] Hans Wehr, f-r-ḥ.
[3] Raghib, f-r-ḥ.
[4] Raghib, s-r-r.
[5] Lane, f-r-ḥ.
[6] Raghib, kh-y-l.
[7] Raghib, f-kh-r.
[8] Mizan, 19/168.
[9] Mizan, 19/167-168.
[10] For example, from Imam al-Ṣādiq (a): ‘The world is a prison for the faithful (muʾmin). From which prison then, can good be expected?’ (Kafi, 2/250, h. 7).
[11] Razi, 29/468.
[12] Nahj, saying 448.
[13] Qummi, 2/146.
[14] Mizan, 19/169.
[15] Nahj, letter 22.
[16] ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Muqarram (d. 1391/1971), Maqtal al-Ḥusayn (a), pp. 331-333, quoting numerous sources.
[17] Razi, 29/468.