وَما لِيَ لا أَعبُدُ الَّذي فَطَرَني وَإِلَيهِ تُرجَعونَ
Why should I not worship Him who has originated me and to whom you shall be brought back?
EXEGESIS
Aʿbudu (I worship) is a first-person singular imperfect verb from ʿabada, which means he rendered a religious service, worship, or adoration with humility, humbleness, or submissiveness.
The Quran has used this word 275 times in its various forms of verbs and nouns, indicating three meanings: worship, servant, and in a few instances, enslaved person.
Faṭaranī (originated me) is derived from the verb faṭara, which literally means he clave, split, slit, rent, or cracked. Commonly, it is used for the creation of God, who caused it to exist, newly produced, for the first time after its non-existence, originated, commenced, or began it; so God is the originator or the creator of the heavens and the earth. It has been used for someone who began something such as being the first to dig a well.
EXPOSITION
The beginning and end of humanity is with God. When the believer from the outskirts of the city told his people to follow the messengers who were guided and did not ask for any wealth, they took him to their king, who asked him whether he had followed the messengers. In response, he in effect told them: what other options do I have if I do not worship He who created me, nurtured me, bestowed His bounties upon me, and guided me? In addition, you all shall return to Him when resurrected for the retribution of your idol worship.
Tabatabai mentions that in this verse and the next, the believer started presenting his argument on monotheism and rejecting all other deities besides the one God. Therefore, the flow of both verses is one. In this verse he confirms the one God, and in the next verse he rejects all other Gods while presenting the context of the statement of monotheism, that there is no god but He who created me, and others are fake and useless. The believer cites himself as an example applicable to every human like him whom the one God created, so why do humans worship useless idols that cannot benefit or harm, abandoning the worship of their only Creator, and only to Him they shall be returned?!
He makes a relationship between creation and worship, indicating that the one who created man out of non-existence is exclusively worthy of worship. After that, he directs a warning to his people to remind them that they would return to God, who would account them for their deeds.
Tabatabai mentions that these two verses provide two proofs against the arguments of the polytheists and their basis of idol worship. They claimed that God is metaphysical and amorphous, who is beyond the capture of the senses, imagination, and the intellect; hence, none of the capturing faculties can reach Him. Since no one can face Him during worship, the only way to worship would be to face those who are closer to Him and are powerful from amongst His creations, such as the honourable angels, the jinn, and human saints, so that they could intercede their worshippers to God in gaining good and keeping evil away from them. In response to these misconceptions, Tabatabai mentions that even though the human does not possess any knowledge about God, he can recognise Him through the unique and specific attributes, such as creation. A human can face Him through these attributes, but denying such would only indicate arrogance. This was precisely the believer’s response to his people, using this attribute of God: Why should I not worship Him who has originated me?
The other proof presented by the believer is in the next verse, in which he indicated that, even if hypothetically speaking, these idols had a God-given right to intercede for their worshippers, it would never be executed without His permission, being the superior authority over intercession. None of the claimed gods would be able to intercede without His permission because There is no intercessor, except by His leave. That is Allah, your Lord! So, worship Him (10:3). If God makes an inevitable decree upon something to happen then their intercession would never be beneficial in preventing that thing from happening. Therefore, their idol worship for such purpose would be useless and ineffective in bringing good or preventing evil; that is why he said in the next verse, Shall I take gods besides Him? If the All-Beneficent desired to cause me any distress, their intercession will not avail me in any way, nor will they rescue me.
Perhaps emphasising the point of God being his creator is as if he is saying that when I refer to my innate soul, I hear a voice telling me to worship my Creator. It is compatible with my intellect, therefore how can I ignore such a clear indication from my inner soul and intellect?
To whom you shall be brought back, along with about eighty verses in the Quran, indicate the return of humans to God after death. It seems that their return to God is to His judgement on the Day of Resurrection because, in this world, He gave the responsibility of justice to humans; however, on the Day of Resurrection, He will take total control of justice and its responsibility. Since God is essentially everywhere, neither time limits Him nor place. Hence, returning to God means the return of humans back to life and their affairs to God on the Day of Judgement, where there would be no veil or barrier preventing them God and His judgement.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- Imam Ali (a) said: ‘Some people worship God in desire [for reward], that is the worship of the merchants, and some worship God in fear [of hell], that is the worship of slaves, and some others worship God to be thankful, that is the worship of free men.’ So he used to say in his prayers: ‘My God, I do not worship You in fear of Your punishment, nor in greed of Your reward, but I found You worthy of worship, so I worship You.’
- Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) mentions the third type of worshipper in different words: ‘There are people who worship God out of love for Him … and that is the best of the worships.’ He also said: ‘I worship Him in love for Him, and that is the worship of the honoured one, and that is the security, for He, the mighty and exalted, said: Whoever brings virtue shall receive [a reward] better than it; and they shall be secure from terror on that day [27:89], and: Say: ‘If you love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins, and Allah is all-forgiving, all-merciful [3:31]; whoever loves God, He would love him, and whoever He loves would be among the secured.’
- When Imam al-Sajjād (a) was asked about his reason for worshipping God, he responded: ‘For what He is worthy of, through His hands of favours and blessings upon me.’
- Imam Ali (a) said: ‘Good tidings for a person who kept the promised day in mind, prepared himself for accounting, was content with what sufficed him, and was pleased with God.’
- Imam Ali (a) was accompanying a funeral when he heard someone laugh, and he said: ‘It is as if death has only been ordained for other than us, and as if knowing the truth in [death and the happening of] it has only been obligatory for other than us, and as if we see the dead being on a journey from which they will soon return to us. We place them down in their graves and consume their heritage as if we are going to live eternally after them, and later when we have neglected every preacher, man and woman, we would be thrown into every calamity and sickness.’
- Imam Ali (a) said: ‘Remember death frequently, the day of your emergence from the graves, and when you are standing before God, the all-mighty the exalted, so that the calamities will be easier upon you.’
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
The believer distinguished between worshipping a non-living, worthless, useless object and the everlasting, living God, who is the source of every benefit.
A few interesting points are derived from this verse; the first point is the factor of motive and obstacle – the believer indicated that there is nothing preventing him from worshipping the one God, and the motive to do so was Him being worthy of worship; therefore, the motive was there and the prevention to do so did not exist.
The believer mentioned two things that necessitate worshipping God: Him being the Creator, who has every type of sovereignty over him and having no obstacles preventing him from doing so. However, he expressed the non-existence of any obstacle before presenting the necessity of worshipping God, which may seem odd. He did so because the necessity was obvious. He wanted to emphasise the point of the non-existence of any obstacles because that was a point needed, perhaps to indicate that nothing should stop others from turning to worship God.
One of the methods of admonition is to balance between mentioning oneself and others, so he started by expressing his personal experience and did not say: why do you not worship the one who originated you? And then he ended by mentioning a warning for them. He desired for them what he desired for himself, and he beautifully used the method of describing opposites by mentioning himself first and then them; and by mentioning his beginning by his existence and their end by their resurrection and return. By this logic, one can understand this description using opposites was necessary to admonish them in a soft manner.
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
- Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
- Then people go to their eternal home, and mourners go about the streets … and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Everything is meaningless!”
- And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment – wickedness was there, in the place of justice – wickedness was there. I said to myself, “God will bring into judgment, both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed.”
[1] Lane, p. 1935.
[2] E b d in the online Quranic Arabic Corpus, < https://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=Ebd >.
[3] Tabrisi, 8/658.
[4] Mizan, 17/77.
[5] Mizan, 17/77.
[6] Mizan, 17/77.
[7] R j e in the online Quranic Arabic Corpus, < https://corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=rjE >.
[8] Bihar, 41/14.
[9] Muhammad Rayshahri, Mīzān al-Ḥikmah, 3/1800.
[10] Muhammad Rayshahri, Mīzān al-Ḥikmah, 3/1800.
[11] Nahj, saying 44.
[12] Nahj, saying 122.
[13] Muhammad Rayshahri, Mīzān al-Ḥikmah, 4/2965.
[14] Razi, 26/264.
[15] Sadra, 5/61.
[16] Psalms 100:3-5.
[17] Ecclesiastes 12:1, 5, 7-8.
[18] Ecclesiastes 3:16-17.