As-Saff (The Ranks)

10. O you who believe! Shall I guide you to a trade that will save you from the excruciating torment on the Day of Resurrection?

11. Believe in Allah and His Messenger and fight in the Cause of Allah with your wealth and your lives. That will be better for you, if you but know!

12. Thus, He will forgive you your sins and admit you into Gardens under which rivers flow and pleasant dwellings in the everlasting Paradise. That is verily a great deliverance.

13. And also another bounty which you love, help from Allah and a near victory. And O Prophet (S) give glad tidings to the believers.

The triumph of the Islamic faith over other religions was promised in the preceding blessed Verse but there are three prerequisites in this respect:

1. The Perfect and Universal Law is the Holy Qur’an, a Light perfected by God Almighty, and no one is able to put out such Light.

2. The existence of the Infallible Leader who is Imam Mahdi (as), the Remainder of Allah and the Divine Treasure.

3. Preparedness on the part of the people which is reflected in these blessed Verses.

Therefore, one of the significant goals of the blessed Chapter is to call people unto the Islamic faith and jihad in Allah’s Cause and the blessed Verses in question lay emphasis on these two principles through the expression of a delicate similitude that encourages man to make such Divine moves and such incentive is the prerequisite for the triumph of the Islamic faith over all religions as discussed in the preceding blessed Verses.

The blessed Verse 10 is asking:

“O you who believe! Shall I guide you to a trade that will save you from the excruciating torment on the Day of Resurrection?”

Even though faith and jihad are among absolute obligations, but the question is posed as a commercial offer rather than an injunction and the offer is intermingled with expressions reflecting the Infinite Graciousness of God Almighty. The blessed Verse 10 asks the question but without expecting any answer, when the audience is according attention to the question elaborates on the lucrative transaction.

The blessed Verse 11 is saying:

“Believe in Allah and His Messenger and fight in the Cause of Allah with your wealth and your lives. That will be better for you, if you but know!”

God Almighty is indubitably in no need of such lucrative trade, but all the interests will belong to the believers.

Thus, the blessed Verse closes by saying that

“It is the best for you if you know.”

It is worthy of note that addressed to the believers, the blessed Verse calls upon them to have faith and wage jihad in Allah’s Cause.

The expression may reflect that nominal and superficial faith is insufficient, but what is significant is profound and sincere faith as the fountainhead of sacrifice and jihad. Making mention of believing in God Almighty and His Messenger may further elaborate the faith briefly mentioned in the opening of the preceding Verse.

It is noteworthy that belief in the Prophet (S) is not different from that in God Almighty in the same manner that waging jihad in Allah’s Cause with one’s life may not be different from that with one’s property, since waging any war requires financial means.

Some believers are able to wage jihad in two respects and some may be able to support jihad by their property and provide the logistics. Some are only able to wage jihad in Allah’s Cause by their lives and they are prepared to sacrifice them.

However, the point is that triumph rests on the accompaniment of these two types of jihad. The precedence of jihad by one’s possessions in the blessed Verse does not suggest that jihad by one’s life bears further significance, but it suggests that such type of jihad is the prelude, since the path to jihad is paved through the provision of the required funding.

The blessed Verses 12 and 13 are saying that if you do so, God Almighty will forgive your sins and you will be admitted to the Gardens of Paradise beneath whose trees rivers flow where you will reside in pleasant dwellings in everlasting Paradise. This is a great success.

The blessed Verses treat of the forgiving of the sins by God Almighty in terms of the Rewards in the hereafter, since man is above all preoccupied with his sins and when he finds certainty as to the forgiving of his sins, he will be free from preoccupation. The expression suggests that the first Divine Reward granted to the martyrs fallen in His Cause is that all their sins will be forgiven.

Now a question arises that forgiving of one’s sins includes what is due to God (haqq Allah) Almighty or it also includes what is due to people (haqq al-nas). The absolute contextual meaning of the blessed Verse suggests generality, though granted that God Almighty vested people with waiving their own rights, some scholars have entertained doubts as to the generality of the contextual meaning of the blessed Verse in question.

Therefore, the blessed Verses in question treat of two types of faith, believing in God Almighty and His Messenger (S), two types of jihad, through life and possessions, and two types Rewards in the Hereafter, forgiving of sins and being admitted to the everlasting Paradise.

The blessed Verse 13 deals with two types of Divine Bounties in this world:

“And also another bounty which you love, help from Allah and a near victory.”

Such trade is quite lucrative since it constitutes triumph over the enemies and Divine Bounties and Graciousness. That is why the Holy Qur’an terms it as the great triumph.

It is in this vein that the believers receive the glad tidings:

“And O Prophet (S) give glad tidings to the believers.”

It is narrated that when the Noble prophet secretly met with some Medinans on the Night of ‘Aqabih and they pledged him their allegiance, ‘Abd Allah ibn Rawaha said unto him that the Noble Prophet (S) may ask for any condition for God Almighty and himself to which the Noble Prophet (S) replied that the condition for his Lord was that they may never associate any partners to Him, but for himself, he asked them to defend him in the same manner that they defend themselves and their possessions.

‘Abd Allah inquired about the remuneration for such obligations to which the Noble Prophet replied that their remuneration would be Paradise. ‘Abd Allah said that the transaction was quite lucrative and it would be totally irrevocable.¹ It is worthy of note, however, that the triumph promised in these blessed Verses repeatedly fell into the share of the Muslims in logical terms as well as in battlefields.

Qur’an exegetes present different exegeses as to the contextual meaning of the “near triumph.” Many exegetes maintain that the conquest of Mecca is hereby intended. Some maintain that it alludes to the conquest of Persian and Rome. Some also hold that it indicates all Muslim conquests which happened briefly between conversion to the Islamic faith and the battles waged by the Muslims.

Since all the believers down the centuries, rather than solely the Noble Prophet’s (S) Companions are addressed herein, the clause

“help from Allah and a near victory”

is quite broad in its application serving as glad tiding to them all, though it clearly designated the conquest of Mecca upon the Revelation of the blessed Verses in question.

It is mentioned in the closing sections of Nahj al-Balagha that meeting with someone who pretended to be a strict Muslim and repeatedly spoke ill of worldly possessions, Imam ‘Ali (as) said:

“You've erred, since the world is a great capital for those who are awake and aware.”

Then, the Imam (as) elaborated on his statement saying that the world is the trading house of Allah’s friends.² The world is likened elsewhere to the farm of the hereafter. It is in the trading house of the world that man sells the merchandise being granted to him by God Almighty to Him at the highest price and thereby receives the greatest Bounties in exchange for some insignificant merchandise.

In this vein, thus it is narrated from Imam ‘Ali (as):

“Your price is Paradise, do not sell yourselves cheaply.”3

According to another tradition narrated from Imam ‘Ali (as), he said that he was the same lucrative trade leading to deliverance from excruciating torment as mentioned in the Holy Qur’an:

“Shall I guide you to a trade that will save you from the excruciating torment on the Day of Resurrection?”