يا أَيَّتُهَا النَّفسُ المُطمَئِنَّةُ
‘O soul at peace!
EXPOSITION
Verses 27-30, which describe the soul at peace and its ultimate fate in the hereafter, stand in stark contrast to the type of person described in the preceding verses and the ultimate fate in the hereafter of the one they described. The tone of this tranche of verses has changed again from that in the preceding verses. In the immediately preceding verses the tone of the address was in the third person, suggested to denote a distancing of the type of person described therein after having had rebuked such a person in the second person in the verses prior to those. In these verses the tone changes to a direct address in the second person singular, seeking to denote honour and a sense of drawing near.
The tranquil soul is variously described by the exegetes as the one which is neither provoked by fear or grief, or agitation, or the one which is at peace with the truth as a result of knowledge and certainty such that doubt does not bother it anymore. It is also identified as the soul that is tranquil and secure having been given the good tidings of paradise, and it is also described as the soul which is safe from God’s chastisement, true in its profession of God’s oneness, grateful for the blessings of God, patient with His trials, and pleased and content with things decreed and granted by God.
Ṭūsī reports that Ibn Zayd understood this verse to refer to the soul that is at peace for having obeyed God and refrained from His disobedience, and it is also suggested to mean the soul that is at peace due to its knowledge of God and faith in Him, which was the understanding of Mujāhid. Al-Farrāʾ explained this verse to mean: O soul at peace due to faith and having truthfully testified to rewards and resurrection.
[1] Tabrisi.J, 6/491.
[2] Tabrisi.J, 6/491; Taʾwīl al-Āyāt, 1/768.
[3] Ibn Abbas, p. 755.
[4] Tibyan, 10/348.