2/284-286 — The closing of the sūra
"To God belongs whatever is in the heavens and the earth. Whether you disclose what is within you or hide it, God will bring you to account for it."
The weight of verse 284 is read together with the answer of the two verses that follow. It is widely transmitted in the classical commentaries that this verse produced a heavy anxiety in those addressed, and that the verses that come after it met that anxiety.
لَا نُفَرِّقُ بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ مِّن رُّسُلِهِۦ — "we make no distinction between any of His messengers." A sentence standing exactly opposite the attitude of distinction treated in the long section on the Children of Israel.
وَقَالُوا۟ سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا — "we hear and we obey." The counterpart of the word samiʿnā wa ʿaṣaynā (we hear and we disobey) reported at verse 93 of the sūra. There is a difference of a single word between the two sentences; the sūra has put these two attitudes at its two ends.
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا — "God does not burden any soul beyond what it can bear."
وُسْع — root و-س-ع: breadth. The measure, that is, is the person's own breadth. This sentence is a direct answer to the anxiety produced by verse 284, and it is the last expression of the principle of ease seen again and again in the legal sections of the sūra (2/185).
لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتْ وَعَلَيْهَا مَا ٱكْتَسَبَتْ — "what it has earned is for it, what it has brought upon itself is against it."
The two verbs are from the same root (ك-س-ب) but their patterns differ: kasabat (Form I) and iktasabat (Form VIII). In Arabic Form VIII adds effort and intent. The lexicographers record this difference and explain it thus: the plain verb is used for the good, the effortful verb for the evil.
This is an observation about the language and can be verified from the patterns; the meaning drawn from it I give as my own reading: evil is named as something that requires a person to go after it.
| Prayer | What is asked |
|---|---|
| Rabbanā lā tuʾākhidhnā in nasīnā aw akhṭaʾnā | That responsibility be lifted for forgetting and error |
| Rabbanā wa lā taḥmil ʿalaynā iṣrā | That a heavy burden not be laid on us |
| Rabbanā wa lā tuḥammilnā mā lā ṭāqata lanā bih | That what we have no strength for not be laid on us |
إِصْر — root أ-ص-ر: to bind, to confine; a heavy load. The word speaks of the burdens upon past communities.
وَٱعْفُ عَنَّا وَٱغْفِرْ لَنَا وَٱرْحَمْنَآ أَنتَ مَوْلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرْنَا عَلَى ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلْكَٰفِرِينَ — the sūra, after a long text of 286 verses of legal ruling, history and dispute, ends with a request.
And all the closing sentences are in the first person plural: lā tuʾākhidhnā, lā taḥmil ʿalaynā, waʿfu ʿannā, irḥamnā. At the beginning of the sūra (2/2) it was said that the Book is "a guidance for those who guard themselves"; at the end, the speaker is not individual persons but a community.