ذٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُم آمَنوا ثُمَّ كَفَروا فَطُبِعَ عَلىٰ قُلوبِهِم فَهُم لا يَفقَهونَ
That is because they believed and then disbelieved, so their hearts were sealed. Hence they do not understand.
EXEGESIS
The demonstrative pronoun dhālika (that) refers to either what they used to do, or to such hypocritical qualities as lying, taking false oaths, and barring others from the path of God, as attributed to them in the first two verses.
Lexically, ṭabʿ is an infinitive noun which means to stamp or imprint on something. Some lexicologists maintain that ṭabʿ has the same meaning as khatm – to seal – as both words signify to enfold and cover up something such that nothing can come into contact with it, like the sealing of a letter so that no one could come to know of its content. In this case, Quranic verses such as Allah has set a seal on their hearts would mean, according to this view, that God has put a veil on their hearts and thus they are unable to see the light of truth.
However, a more profound inquest into the meaning of the word indicates that it originally means to mould something in a particular shape and form. The word ṭabīʿah, which means human nature, also derives from the same root in that it has been fashioned in a specific style. Therefore, ṭabʿ signifies the act of imprinting on something in order to give it a particular shape. It is on this very basis that it is said, for instance, ‘the coin was minted (ṭubiʿa)’, implying that it was moulded on a particular style. Thus, the meaning of ṭabʿ involves two important elements: first, the act of imprinting on something; and secondly, moulding it in a specific pattern by means of the imprint.
Based on this, the phrase so their hearts were sealed in the verse under discussion would mean that, as a result of their disbelief, the hearts of the hypocrites ultimately took the shape of the state that they used to be in; that is, the state of constantly rejecting the message of God. The acquired behaviour of persistently denying the truth was so long practiced by them that it eventually became part and parcel of their nature.
Put differently, this attitude of turning away from the divine message was thus imprinted on their hearts by God as a result of their own wrongdoing, such that it became a regular pattern of their character.
EXPOSITION
Hypocrisy (nifāq) is disbelief (kufr) in its hidden form. In 9:84 the hypocrites have been clearly branded as faithless (kuffār). Disbelief in God and His message when declared explicitly is termed as kufr, but when hidden in the guise of faith it is known as nifāq.
The hypocritical traits, according to this verse, have their origin in the disbelief in God and His Messenger, though they may take the form and colour of religious rites and practices.
Faithlessness stands in sharp contrast with faith. The profound impact of faith on the human soul cannot materialise so long as disbelief and polytheism, in their multiple dimensions, are not thoroughly treated and their traces removed from it. If not, the danger of them re-germinating, particularly in the form of hypocrisy, would always remain. In that case, even a believer after relinquishing disbelief may revert back to it. This is attested to in 9:77 where faith has been followed by hypocrisy as a result of disobedience of God, which is indeed among the consequences of hidden polytheism and disbelief. Thus, some forms of hypocrisy may afflict a believer after he has professed the preliminary levels of faith.
Hypocrisy has a wide range of meanings that includes any form of dichotomy in human life. The most manifest instance of hypocrisy is that which is related to ideology and belief (ʿaqīdah). Most of the verses in the Quran regarding the hypocrites refer to this kind of hypocrisy; that is, they pretend to have faith on the outside whereas they are faithless on the inside.
However, there is another kind of hypocrisy as well that is linked with the avenue of human actions. This concerns people who although have accepted Islam from within, their deeds do not corroborate their belief; they talk of Islam but do not practice it. It is referring to this kind of hypocrisy that the Holy Prophet says in a narration: ‘There are things that whoever possesses them is a hypocrite, even though he may be offering prayers and fasting, and may consider himself to be a Muslim: he acts disloyally when given a trust, he tells lies when he speaks, and he does not keep his promise.’ Pretension and showing off (riyāʾ) is also a form of hypocrisy in actions, which has been referred to in the Islamic narrations as hidden polytheism (al-shirk al-khafī).
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- Sulaymān ibn Khālid reports from Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) that he said: ‘O Sulaymān, verily you have a heart and faculties of hearing. When God wills to guide His servant, He opens up for him the hearing capability of his heart; but if He desires for him other than that, He would set a seal (khatama) on the ears of his heart, thus he shall never be righteous. This is the meaning of the word of God, the mighty, the majestic: or are there locks on the hearts?’
Note: Ears of the heart or the hearing capability of the heart implies the ability of the heart to pay heed to the divine realities surrounding it and to comprehend them, as is stated in 69:12: That We might make it a reminder for you, and that receptive ears might remember it.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
Can the act of sealing the heart be literally attributed to God or not? This question has been among the points of contention between Asharite and Mutazilite exegetes.
If it is God who sets a seal on the heart of His servant, then this means that it is God who causes the heart to become blind and, subsequently, to reject the call of the divine messengers. On the other hand, those who disbelieve in God and act against His commands as a result of this seal shall be held accountable on the Day of Resurrection for their deeds and subjected to divine punishment. So, the question that arises here is: how can God subject to punishment someone whom He Himself has caused to go astray?
The matter at hand is one among many other subsidiary issues related to a more general problem of divine activity. As mentioned in the Exposition of this verse, every occurrence in the universe originates from God. Now, the difference of opinion surrounding this Quranic notion stems from the fact that on the one hand this idea seems, at first, to negate the element of free will in the human being, suggesting some kind of determinism (jabr) and compulsion in relation to human activities; while on the other hand, if accepted as it is, it would naturally result in God also being the source of the wrongdoings of man.
It is from here that there have been endeavours, since the early stages of the Islamic intellectual tradition, to provide a correct explanation as to how all occurrences, including human actions, emanate from God; and in other words, how the multiplicity of human activity could be soundly traced back to unity and one single source. The two well-known theological traditions in the Sunni world, the Asharites and the Mutazilites, have also presented their understanding of the matter and have attempted to address this problem, supporting their positions by citations from the Quran.
The Asharites hold that according to numerous verses in the Quran the sole creator of all occurrences in the universe, including all human actions, is God: When Allah has created you and whatever you make (37:96). Furthermore, they say that man does not create any of his actions, rather he only earns or acquires them. This has been formulated in the doctrine of kasb (acquisition). Based on this view, the Asharite exegetes do not see any problem in literally attributing the act of sealing to God; rather, they find it to be perfectly in line with Quranic teachings.
On the contrary, asserting the freedom of the individual and the justice of God, the Mutazilites believe that man himself is the creator of his actions, and that human activities are not caused by God. Their argument is that had God been the originator of human actions, it would have necessitated that He be the source of the wrong deeds of His creatures as well; whereas such a belief stands in sharp contrast with the doctrine of divine justice (ʿadālah): We did not wrong them, but they themselves were wrongdoers (43:76). Accordingly, the Mutazilite exegetes maintain that the act of sealing can only be figuratively (majāzan) attributed to God, and not literally, due to the rationally unacceptable implications it involves. In the figurative sense, setting a seal on the heart by God indicates that one is so firm in rejecting the divine guidance that it seems to be as if he was initially created on this nature by God, and thus its attribution to God.
As a matter of fact, both these traditions have practically failed to reconcile between the prevalence of the divine will in his creation and the freedom of man in his actions, as both have lapsed into either extreme of the matter. In striving to remain within the limits of monotheism in the avenue of creatorship, the Asharite theory of kasb (acquisition) culminated in determinism (jabr) and the negation of free will; while on the contrary, with the goodwill of exonerating the divine plane of injustice and oppression, the Mutazilite position concluded in the belief in complete freedom (tafwīḍ), placing the domain of human activities outside divine influence.
A third – and balanced – position on the matter is that which has been put forward by the school of thought of the Ahl al-Bayt. The stand of the Imams from the progeny of the Holy Prophet on this issue has been that there is neither absolute compulsion nor complete freedom, but it is a position between the two.
The explanation of this principle is that man holds complete freedom and the necessary power of either performing an act or not performing it; that is, if he wishes he can perform it, and if he wishes not to perform it he can refrain from it. However, the life, power, and freedom that he possesses all emanate from God, such that if He were to withhold from him any of them then he would be unable to produce the act. Subḥānī explains: ‘In other words, although action devolves upon man, it is also dependent upon God; for the action proceeds from the human agent, but since in reality the agent, along with his power, is created by God, how can one consider the action of such an agent to be independent of God? The way in which the Ahl al-Bayt clarify the reality of human action is nothing other than the way of the Quran. This revealed scripture occasionally refers action both to its immediate agent and to God, rendering one and the same action susceptible of dual attribution. As the following verse says: And you did not throw when you threw, rather it was Allah who threw (8:17). The meaning here is that whenever the Holy Prophet undertook an action, he did not do so on the sole basis of his independent agency or power; rather, the action was accomplished through the power of God. Thus, the attribution of the action to two sources is sound and correct. Put differently, the power and might of God are present within every phenomenon; this touches upon a mystery which we might try and comprehend by means of the following simile: a current of electricity, generated by a power station, is present in electric wires; however, it is we who switch the lights on and off. It is correct to say that we switch on the light, just as it is also correct to say that the light of the bulb is derived from the electric current.’
To put what has just been said in the context of our daily life activities, the following illustration might be of help: let us consider two actions such as eating and drinking. Insofar as these actions partake of existence, they are grounded in the divine reality. But from another angle we must note firstly that ‘existence’ within these two actions manifests in the form of ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’; then since it is man’s free actions that result in these particular forms of existence, the actions must be seen as pertaining to the agent, i.e. man. These two actions, in their particular forms and qualities, cannot in any respect pertain to God. Thus, God must be understood as the bestower of existence, while man is the agent of the acts within existence, the actual eater and drinker.
In conclusion, the stand of the Shia exegetes in relation to the issue of whether or not the sealing of the hearts could be ascribed to God, as discussed in the Exposition, is that the act of sealing can be literally ascribed to God, and in so doing it necessitates neither compulsion nor delegation.
[1] Mizan, 19/280; Ahsan al-Hadith, 11/177.
[2] Lisan, 8/232, under ṭ-b-ʿ.
[3] Raghib, under ṭ-b-ʿ.
[4] Tahqiq, 7/60.
[5] Mizan, 9/350.
[6] Mizan, 19/280.
[7] Mizan, 9/350.
[8] Safinah, 2/605.
[9] Nemuneh, 24/176-177. There is also a third level to hypocrisy which manifests itself in the realm of human relations within human societies, irrespective of their faith, race, or colour. The great Muslim thinker and scholar of the twentieth century, Martyr Murtaḍā Muṭahharī, says in this regard: ‘How is it that the Quran has emphasised so much on the issue of hypocrisy whereas the past divine books have either not spoken of hypocrites at all, or if they have done so, then it is very little? This is because as long as man lived a life devoid of sophistication and away from civilisation, he has better possessed the quality of being forthright; that is, he would reveal and make manifest exactly that which he had inside him of his thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires, affection, anger, faith, disbelief, and the like. However, as much as a human being has advanced and made progress, his ability to pretend – which is a kind of hypocrisy – has also grown. Similarly, we would find that hypocrisy has increased a thousand times more if we were to compare the people of our times to those during the early days of Islam. Once, I was thinking to myself that if our present day and age were to be assessed based on humanity and not industrialization – that is, if it were to be overall characterised by a quality that is specific to human beings only – then [our age] should have been named as the age of hypocrisy. And if it were asked that what is the greatest machinery to have been invented in our times, then in my opinion it is the machinery of altering the realities; that man has achieved such tremendous power to distort and misrepresent the facts.’ (Mutahhari, 25/205)
[10] Barqi, 1/200.
[11] Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī, Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid (Qum: Sharīf Raḍī, 1409 AH), 4/240; Mīr Sayyid Sharīf Ījī, Sharḥ al-Mawāqif (Qum: Sharīf Raḍī, 1325 AH), 8/145.
[12] Tabari, 1/87-88; Razi, 2/291; Ibn Kathir, 1/84-85.
[13] Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-Khamsah (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ Turāth al-ʿArabī, 1422 AH), p. 231.
[14] The Mutazilites also hold that had human actions been under divine influence, the concept of duty and divine reward and punishment could no longer be justified on rational grounds, as all of these depend on the fact that the performer of the act should be a voluntary agent (Miṣbāḥ Yazdī, Philosophical Instructions, translated by Muhammad Legenhausen and Aẓīm Sarvdalīr, 2/457).
[15] Zamakhshari, 1/48.
[16] Zamakhshari, 1/50, gives five figurative interpretations of the sentence, God has set a seal on their hearts.
[17] Meaning that God has left the creation of human actions, in its entirety, to man himself.
[18] Al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, the renowned Mutazilite theologian of the fourth century AH, says in this regard: ‘The proponents of the doctrine of divine justice unanimously agree that the activities of human beings such as free movement, standing, and sitting, are all created by them. Although God, the all-mighty, the majestic, is the most powerful of them in that, the only agent of these acts and their creator is man himself.’ (Al-Mughnī fī Abwāb al-Tawḥīd wa al-ʿAdl (Cairo: al-Dār al-Miṣriyyah, 1962-65), v. 8, p. 3)
[19] ‘Lā jabra wa lā tafwīḍ, wa lākin amrun bayna amrayn’, Tawhid, p. 362.
[20] Jaʿfar Subḥānī, Doctrines of Shiʿi Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices, translated and edited by Reza Shah-Kazemi (Qum: Imam Sadeq Institute, 2003), p. 60.
[21] Thus, at every moment he would obtain his existence and all the aspects of his existence from God. In this case, all his activities will be entirely under the domain of God’s will and influence.
[22] Hence, man would be responsible for creating his own actions out of volition, without there being any room for compulsion.
[23] Jaʿfar Subḥānī, Doctrines of Shiʿi Islam: A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices, translated and edited by Reza Shah-Kazemi (Qum: Imam Sadeq Institute, 2003), pp. 23-24.