Ar-Room (The Romans)

36. “And when We make people taste of mercy they rejoice in it, and if an evil befalls them for what their own hands have forwarded, behold, they despair.”

In this holy verse, which is another illustration of the kind of thought and spirituality of these in capacious ignorant persons, the Qur’an says:

“And when We make people taste of mercy they rejoice in it, and if an evil befalls them for what their own hands have forwarded, behold, they despair.”

But the true believers are those who are not proud and neglectful at the time of affluence nor are they hopeless at the time of affliction. They believe that the bounties are from the side of Allah (s.w.t.) and they thank Him; they also consider the afflictions as an examination and divine test, or as the fruit of their own deeds, then they are almost always patient and they turn to Him.

In the meantime that the faithless persons are wandering in the midst of pride and hopelessness, the faithful persons are often spending time in the midst of ‘gratitude’ and ‘patience with perseverance’.

By the way, it is understood from this verse that at least a part of afflictions that afflict man is the consequence of his own deeds and sins. By this means, Allah intends to warn them and He causes them to become purified and brings them towards Him.

This point is also necessary to be remembered that the Qur’anic sentence /farihu biha/ (they rejoice in it) here does not mean only ‘to be happy with the bounty’, but the purpose is a rejoice together with pride and a kind of unawareness, the same mood that the incapacious poor persons feel when they sometimes find affluence, else rejoice together with thanks and remembrance of Allah not only is not bad, but also it has been enjoined, as the Qur’an says:

“Say: ‘In the grace of Allah and in His mercy…”

The application of the Qur’anic phrase / bima qaddamat ’aydihim/ (for what their own hands have forwarded) which refers only to sins, is for the reason that most of the deeds of man are fulfilled by the help of his hands, though there are some sins which are also committed by the heart, the eyes, and the tongues, but the abundance of the deeds of hands are the cause of this usage.

There appears a question here that whether this verse does not contradict with the verse No. 33 of this Surah, since this verse refers to their despair at the time of afflictions while in that verse the words are about their attention to Allah at the time of coming afflictions and stresses. In other words, that verse speaks about hopefulness, but this verse speaks about despair.

With regard to one point, the answer to this question is made clear. In the former verse the words were about ‘harm’, i.e., the harmful events such as torments, earthquakes, and other afflictions that in that position all people, irrespective of monotheist and polytheist ones, remember Allah, and this is one of the signs of monotheistic nature.

But in the verse under discussion the words are about the sequels of man’s sins and the despair emerged from them, because some people are so that if they did a good action they would become proud and would consider themselves secure from the Divine punishment, and when they commit an evil action and its sequel comes to them, a despair from the mercy of Allah encompasses their whole entity.

Both that pride and this despair from the mercy of Allah are blameworthy.

Therefore, either of these two verses mentions a matter which is separate from the other.