إِنَّ رَبَّكَ لَبِالمِرصادِ

Indeed your Lord is always watchful.

EXPOSITION

Mirṣād is the place where a spy or watcher keeps watch, lies in wait, or lies in ambush.^{‎[1]Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, pp. 366-367.} Thus Qummī explained this emphatic verse by the following periphrastic statement, writing: ‘It means God is alert and observant of every tyrant,’^{‎[2]Qummi, 2/420.} while Ibn Abbas explained mirṣād to mean that God hears and sees the acts of the servants (of God), and Hasan al-Baṣrī and al-Ḍaḥḥāk explained that the phrase la bil-mirṣād meant ‘always watchful in order to secure justice for the victims of oppression from the oppressors’.^{‎[3]Tibyan, 10/344.}

This verse serves to emphasise that God is ever watchful, both in this world and in the hereafter, and nothing bypasses Him of the acts of mankind, just as nothing bypasses a guard on watch at a watch post.^{‎[4]Tibyan, 10/343-344.}

The idea enunciated in this verse is reflective of a recurrent Quranic theme. One place in the Quran where it usually appears is at the end of Quranic passages, bringing the passage to a close. Such terminal verses encapsulating this theme describe God as al-baṣīr (all-seeing), and al-ʿalīm (all-knowing) in addition to other adjectives. Some examples of verses containing the term al-baṣīr are 2:96, 2:110, 3:15, and 4:58 (among many other verses),^{‎[5]2:233, 2:237, 2:265, 3:20, 3:156, 3:163, 4:134, 5:74, 8:39, 8:72, 11:112, 17:1, 17:17, 17:30, 17:96, 20:35, 22:61, and 22:75.} while examples of verses containing the term al-ʿalīm are 24:41, 20:7, and 20:110 (among many others).^{‎[6]2:33, 5:116, 14:38, 22:70, 5:97, 2:77, 2:235, 2:255, 5:97, and 5:99.} With respect to the term al-ʿalīm, many verbal derivatives of its root letters are frequently used in reference to God’s knowledge of the hidden and the apparent, including the hidden and apparent acts of human beings. Both terms are active participles but in a form which denotes an intensification of their basic meanings. Thus the term al-baṣīr has b-ṣ-r as its root letters, meaning to see, to comprehend, and to realise,^{‎[7]Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 94.} while the term al-ʿalīm has ʿ-l-m as its root letters, meaning knowledge and cognition.^{‎[8]Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 635.} Hence, al-baṣīr, an active participle in an intensive form, would mean one greatly discerning, one endowed with great insight, and one who is all-seeing,^{‎[9]Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 95.} while the term al-ʿalīm, which is of a similar nature to the former, would mean one possessing great knowledge and cognition or one who knows all.^{‎[10]Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 637.}

The verse then describes God as your Lord in its address to the Prophet, thereby attempting to emphasise that this mode of behaviour of requiting the iniquitous is not limited to bygone communities, but rather is applicable to the iniquitous of the community of Muhammad (s) too.^{‎[11]Mizan, 20/282.}

Thus Ṭabrisī narrates that ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd, the Mutazilite, recited this surah in the presence of the Abbasid caliph Manṣūr, till he reached this verse, whereupon he recited: ‘Indeed your Lord is always watchful, O Abū Jaʿfar!’ (which was a reference to Manṣūr), subjecting Manṣūr to this verse in order to frighten and warn him.

Despite the graphic description of God at watch illustrated in this verse, Tabatabai cautions that this verse is a metaphor for the omnipresence^{‎[12]Mizan, 20/281.} and omniscience of God and need not be taken literally, since temporal and spatial characteristics do not pertain to God. Once, when Imam Ali (a) was asked: ‘Where was our Lord before He created the heavens and the earth?’ He replied: ‘The term “where” is a question regarding space, while God existed when there was no space.’^{‎[13]Tibyan, 10/343-344; Tabrisi, 10/739.}

INSIGHTS FROM HADITH

1. Imam Ali (a) is reported to have explained this verse as follows: ‘Indeed, your Lord is capable of requiting the perpetrators of iniquity with what is due to them of punishment.’^{‎[14]Tabrisi, 10/739; Nur, 5/573.} He has also been reported to have said: ‘Indeed, God may have granted respite to an oppressor, yet he [i.e. the oppressor] will never escape His [i.e. God’s] grasp, for He is ever watchful over him on the pathways he walks and at the place in his throat where a foreign body can inhibit the easy swallowing of the saliva.’^{‎[15]Nur, 5/573.}

[1] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, pp. 366-367.
[2] Qummi, 2/420.
[3] Tibyan, 10/344.
[4] Tibyan, 10/343-344.
[5] 2:233, 2:237, 2:265, 3:20, 3:156, 3:163, 4:134, 5:74, 8:39, 8:72, 11:112, 17:1, 17:17, 17:30, 17:96, 20:35, 22:61, and 22:75.
[6] 2:33, 5:116, 14:38, 22:70, 5:97, 2:77, 2:235, 2:255, 5:97, and 5:99.
[7] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 94.
[8] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 635.
[9] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 95.
[10] Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 637.
[11] Mizan, 20/282.
[12] Mizan, 20/281.
[13] Tibyan, 10/343-344; Tabrisi, 10/739.
[14] Tabrisi, 10/739; Nur, 5/573.
[15] Nur, 5/573.