مَآ أَصَابَ مِن مُّصِيبَةٍ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَلَا فِىٓ أَنفُسِكُمْ إِلَّا فِى كِتَٰبٍ مِّن قَبْلِ أَن نَّبْرَأَهَآ ۚ إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ يَسِيرٌ • لِّكَيْلَا تَأْسَوْا۟ عَلَىٰ مَا فَاتَكُمْ وَلَا تَفْرَحُوا۟ بِمَآ ءَاتَىٰكُمْ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ كُلَّ مُخْتَالٍ فَخُورٍ
Mā aṣāba min muṣībatin fi'l-arḍi wa lā fī anfusikum illā fī kitābin min qabli an nabraʾahā; inna dhālika ʿala'llāhi yasīr. Li-kaylā taʾsaw ʿalā mā fātakum wa lā tafraḥū bimā ātākum; wa'llāhu lā yuḥibbu kulla mukhtālin fakhūr "No affliction befalls the earth or your own selves but that it is in a book before We bring it into being. That is easy for God. So that you may not grieve over what has escaped you nor exult over what He has given you. God does not love any conceited boaster."
The two verses are a single sentence: verse 23 is the ground of verse 22. The conjunction li-kaylā (so that … not) binds the two together.
And this link is the most striking side of the verse: emotional balance is given as the purpose of the knowledge of the decree.
Root: ص-و-ب. Fully analysed at al-Baqara 2/155-157. What was recorded there:
- The sense of the root is to hit, to find the mark
- From the same root come iṣāba and ṣawāb (right)
- A muṣība, in the logic of the word itself, is "what hits the mark" — not what falls at random but what finds its target
- The word says in advance that there is a direction within the event
- And the sentence innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rājiʿūn contains two separate propositions: a declaration of ownership and a declaration of direction
I do not repeat it here. Al-Ḥadīd 57/22 adds something to the frame set up in al-Baqara.
At al-Baqara 2/155 the afflictions were listed: fear, hunger, loss of property, of lives and of fruits. And what was said was what should be uttered at the moment of loss.
At al-Ḥadīd 57/22 the affliction is not listed; its scope is drawn: fi'l-arḍi wa lā fī anfusikum — in the earth and in your own selves. That is, everything that happens both outside and within.
مِن مُّصِيبَة — the min at the head here has the function of zāʾida (emphatic), and in a negative sentence it makes the generality absolute: "there is no affliction at all but that…" Without exception.
كتاب — here a writing, a record. That the word comes indefinite is striking: fī kitābin — "in a book." No particular book is named.
نبرأها — root ب-ر-أ: to create, but with a particular sense. Baraʾa is to bring a thing out of non-existence and make it separate and distinct. From the same root come al-Bāriʾ (the Maker — one of God's names), barāʾa (being clear of a thing), barīʾ (clean, free of).
The concrete sense recorded by the lexicographers: to slip out of something, to separate from it. Bariʾa mina'l-maraḍ — he recovered from the illness.
That is, barʾ emphasises the "separating" side of creation: to set a thing apart from the others and give it its own existence.
The question of the الضمير (pronoun): nabraʾahā — "before We bring it into being." To what does this hā refer? There are two possibilities:
| To what the pronoun refers | Sense |
|---|---|
| To the affliction | It was written before the affliction was brought into being |
| To the self or to the earth | It was written before the human being / the earth was brought into being |
Both readings are found in the sources. The first has the nearer antecedent (the affliction has just been mentioned); the second widens the scope.
This verse is one of the central texts of one of the longest debates in Islamic thought — the question of decree and human will.
This commentary takes no side in that debate. The position adopted at al-Baqara 2/7 (the verse of sealing) holds here too, and its ground is this: the debate is theological, it exceeds the limit of exegesis, and none of the parties has been able to draw a decisive conclusion from the wording of the text alone.
One. The verse speaks of the priority of knowledge. "Being written" and "being compelled" are not the same thing. This distinction is accepted by all parties to the debate; where they differ is in how knowledge determines the act.
Two. The verse is not discussing human responsibility. Its subject is afflictions — what befalls a person; not what a person does. This is an important detail that narrows the scope of the verse and must not be missed.
Three. And most importantly: the verse does not give this knowledge as a theory. Verse 23 says what the knowledge is for. The purpose the verse itself indicates is not metaphysical but practical.
This conjunction puts the two verses into a relation of ground. And this is the most striking side of the verse.
- Not an article of belief
- Not a formula of consolation
- And certainly not an exemption from responsibility
The root has an interesting relative: أسو (asā) also means the treating of a wound; an āsī is a physician, isāʾ a medicine. The lexicographers connect the two senses thus: grief is like a wound that needs treating. This connection is the lexicographers' interpretation and is not certain.
تَفْرَحُوا۟ — root ف-ر-ح: to rejoice. But in the Qurʾān this root is mostly used with an unfavourable tone: to rejoice and become insolent, to be carried away.
The Qurʾān itself shows this: "Do not exult; God does not love those who exult" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/76) — the words said to Qārūn. And: "They rejoiced in what they had" (al-Raʿd 13/26 and elsewhere).
That is, what is forbidden in the verse is not rejoicing itself. Elsewhere the Qurʾān commands rejoicing: "Say: in God's bounty and in His mercy — in that let them rejoice" (Yūnus 10/58), and there the same root is used.
The difference lies in what one rejoices at. The subject of the prohibition of joy in the verse is bimā ātākum — "what He has given you"; that is, property, position, gain.
| Grief | Joy | |
|---|---|---|
| Its object | mā fātakum — what escapes you | mā ātākum — what comes to you |
| Its direction | What goes | What comes |
| The verb | taʾsaw | tafraḥū |
فَاتَكُمْ — root ف-و-ت: to let slip, to escape one's hand, for a gap to be left between. From the same root come fawt (missing) and tafāwut (a difference between things).
The sound-resemblance of the two verbs is striking: fātakum and ātākum. On the same measure, with similar sounds. This is a technique the Qurʾān often uses: to give two opposite concepts in similar sounds so that the symmetry between them becomes audible.
The verse bounds two extreme feelings at once. And this is striking, because usually only one is aimed at.
A consoling text tries to lighten the pain of loss — it bounds grief. A warning text unsettles the confidence gain gives — it bounds joy. The verse does both at once.
The assumption behind excessive grief: what I lost was mine. The assumption behind excessive joy: what I gained is my own work.
Both assumptions rest on ownership. And the sūra has been dismantling exactly this assumption since the seventh verse: mustakhlafīn — that in which you have been made successors.
That is, verses 22-23 are the counterpart of verse 7 in the sphere of feeling. There ownership was taken up economically; here psychologically.
And the sentence at al-Baqara 2/156 confirms this link: innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rājiʿūn. It was recorded there: the first half of this sentence is a declaration of ownership — "what was lost was never the person's own."
The same idea is applied in al-Ḥadīd in both directions: neither what was lost nor what was gained was yours.
At al-Baqara 2/155-157 a note was entered, and it needs repeating here:
The two sentences together do not deny pain. The verse does not say "do not grieve"; grieving is indeed not a forbidden thing.
The same note holds for al-Ḥadīd 57/23, and the text supports it itself.
The Qurʾān records the grief of the prophets and does not blame it: Jacob's grief for Joseph (Yūsuf 12/84), and the words said to the Prophet, "do not grieve over them" (al-Naḥl 16/127) — which shows that the grief was there.
What is forbidden is not the feeling itself but its measure. Look at the words: asā is not ordinary grief but deep and continuing sorrow. Faraḥ is not ordinary joy but insolent exultation. Both words name extremes.
And the continuation of the verse confirms this: "God does not love any conceited boaster." Joy is criticised at the point where it turns into pride.
- خيال (khayāl) — imagination, what is pictured in the mind
- تخيّل (takhayyul) — to imagine
- خيلاء (khuyalāʾ) — pride, self-importance
- مختال (mukhtāl) — conceited, one who walks with a swagger
- خيل (khayl) — horse
A mukhtāl, in the logic of the word itself, is a person who holds an imagining about himself. Pride is named here not as a behaviour but as a false conception: the person sees himself as other than he is.
This fits the context of the verse exactly. For the first half of verse 23 was setting up a true conception: what you lost was not yours, and neither is what you gained. A mukhtāl is the reverse of that conception.
And the connection with the horse has also been noted: the lexicographers connect the word khayl (horse) with this root and give as their ground the swagger in a horse's gait. This connection is the lexicographers' interpretation and is not certain; but it is interesting, because the commonest Arabic image of pride is the walk.
The Qurʾān uses this plainly: "Do not walk on the earth with insolence" (al-Isrāʾ 17/37, Luqmān 31/18).
فخور — root ف-خ-ر. It was taken up above (57/20) in the context of tafākhur. Fakhūr is in an intensive pattern: one who boasts much.
| Mukhtāl | Fakhūr | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it shows | In the walk, in the bearing | In speech |
| Its direction | Turned to oneself (seeing oneself as great) | Turned to another (a claim of superiority) |
The word كل here too conveys istighrāq (universality): "whoever is like this." The measure recorded in the section on al-Humaza holds exactly: the verse aims not at a person but at an attribute.
The structure of the verse shows a method: a piece of metaphysical knowledge is given (22), then what that knowledge is for is said (23). The knowledge is given not for its own sake but for its consequence.
This is the point most discussions of decree miss. The verse answers not the question "what is decree?" but the question "what does this knowledge do to a person?"
Grieving excessively over loss and rejoicing excessively over gain look like two independent states. The verse ties the two together with a single ground, and this has an observable counterpart: the same person lives both. The one who rejoices most when he gains is the one most shattered when he loses. Because the source of both is the same — the assumption that the outcome belongs to oneself.
What the verse asks for is not a state of indifference. This is clear from the words of the text: what is forbidden is asā and faraḥ, and both are words of extremity. And the sūra itself gives a glad tiding in verse 12 and speaks of riḍwān in verse 20.
What is sought is not the absence of feelings but a right knowledge of whose the feelings' object is.