يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ لَا تَتَوَلَّوْا۟ قَوْمًا غَضِبَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ قَدْ يَئِسُوا۟ مِنَ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ كَمَا يَئِسَ ٱلْكُفَّارُ مِنْ أَصْحَٰبِ ٱلْقُبُورِ
Yā ayyuha'lladhīna āmanū lā tatawallaw qawman ghaḍiballāhu ʿalayhim, qad yaʾisū mina'l-ākhirati kamā yaʾisa'l-kuffāru min aṣḥābi'l-qubūr
"O you who believe! Do not take as allies a people upon whom God is angry. They have despaired of the hereafter, just as the unbelievers have despaired of those in the graves."
| 60/1 | 60/13 | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ | يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ |
| Prohibition | لَا تَتَّخِذُوا۟ … أَوْلِيَآءَ | لَا تَتَوَلَّوْا۟ |
| Root | و-ل-ي | و-ل-ي |
The same address, the same root, the same prohibition — in a different pattern. This is a structure the Qurʾān often uses at the close of a sūra: the text closes the ring by repeating in another form the sentence with which it began.
And recall what has come in between: the prohibition was laid down (1), its ground given (2), its motive pulled out (3), an example shown (4-6), a door of hope opened (7), its scope narrowed (8-9), its application made (10-12). Now the prohibition is laid down again, after all these caveats.
The order matters. The same prohibition does not say the same thing at the beginning and at the end of a sūra. Read at the beginning it looks absolute; read at the end it is read together with all the caveats laid down in between. The text's own arrangement contains its own interpretation.
غَضَب — the root غ-ض-ب: anger. In the dictionaries the root's connection with the sense "hardness, stiffness" is pointed to; it is transmitted that a word from the same root is used for hard rock as well.
And here there is a caveat that must, per the method (Method), be written plainly: this expression does not give a community a permanent label.
First, the form of the verb. Ghaḍiba is a perfect verb — it states a situation that has come about. It is not the description of a nature, an essence, a destiny.
Second, the verse's own ground. The sentence does not end there; immediately after, an attribute is counted: قَدْ يَئِسُوا۟ مِنَ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ — "they have despaired of the hereafter". That is, the verse describes whom it is speaking of not by a lineage or a name but by an attitude.
Third, the seventh verse within the sūra itself. "Perhaps God will put an affection between you and those with whom you are at enmity." A sūra that says positions can change does not at its end declare an unchanging identity.
As is written in the method (Method): what the verse describes are attributes; whoever carries that attribute is included in it.
The root ي-أ-س: to cut off hope. The Qurʾān uses this root in a heavy context: "Do not despair of God's mercy; none despairs of God's mercy but the people who disbelieve" (Yūsuf 12/87).
And the diagnosis in this verse is worth noting: what is counted is not denial but despair. That is, the situation the verse describes is not "they do not believe in the hereafter" but "they have no expectation left of the hereafter".
The difference is fine but real. Not to believe is a conviction; to despair is a state. A person may say that he believes in the hereafter and yet expect nothing from it — and indeed what was laid down in the sixth verse as the condition of exemplarity was exactly the opposite of this: li-man kāna yarjūllāha wa'l-yawma'l-ākhir — "for whoever hopes in God and the Last Day".
The sūra thus sets two states over against one another: hoping (6) and despairing (13). And exemplarity is tied to the first, the prohibition to the second. The measure is again not an identity but an orientation.
On the sentence of comparison the commentaries have two readings, and both are possible in terms of the language:
| Reading | The meaning of the sentence | Its ground |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "As the unbelievers despair of the rising of those in the graves." That is, the certainty of one who believes the dead will not come back. | The particle min is the normal usage of the pattern "to despair of…". The comparison describes the certainty of the despair. |
| 2 | "As the unbelievers who are in the graves despair (of the hereafter)." That is, the state of those who have died and whose case is now settled. | The attaching of the construct min aṣḥābi'l-qubūr to al-kuffār as an attribute or an explanation. The comparison describes the irreversibility of the despair. |
The first reading is the more widespread and fits the word order of the sentence better. The second has also been defended. I make no definite choice between them.
What the two readings have in common is this: the comparison describes a despair from which there is no return. And the verse makes this the last sentence of the sūra.
The sūra closes, after a verse that opens hope (7), with a verse that describes despair (13). At first sight this may look like a step backwards.
It is not; the two verses speak of two different things. The seventh verse said that the enmity can be lifted by God — that the door is in His hand. The thirteenth describes the own state of a community that has cut off its expectation of the hereafter.
That is, one speaks of the possibility of a change coming from outside, the other of the situation one is in. The sūra records both, and the two do not contradict: that a situation is changeable does not mean that it does not exist at present.