إِنَّ عَلَيْنَا لَلْهُدَىٰ وَإِنَّ لَنَا لَلْـَٔاخِرَةَ وَٱلْأُولَىٰ
Inna ʿalaynā la'l-hudā Wa inna lanā la'l-ākhirata wa'l-ūlā "The guidance is surely upon Us. The hereafter and this world are surely Ours."
Two sentences of principle, coming in the middle of the sūra after the two sides have been described.
The particle عَلَى in Arabic conveys obligation and debt. "ʿAlayhi daynun" — there is a debt upon him. "ʿAlayka an tafʿala" — it falls to you to do this.
The verse places guidance upon God. Not as a favour, that is, but as a work He has taken upon Himself.
At first sight this is disquieting. No one can place anything upon God. The answer lies in the verse's own logic: the one who placed the obligation is also He. The Qurʾān states this idea openly:
"Your Lord has written mercy upon Himself" (al-Anʿām 6/54; also 6/12: "He has written mercy upon Himself").
What is in question, then, is not a debt laid on from outside but an undertaking laid upon oneself. And the undertaking's being self-imposed does not make it any less binding — the verb the Qurʾān uses is "wrote".
The Qurʾān gives the same idea in Sūrat al-Naḥl with a different pattern: "And upon God rests the showing of the straight way (wa ʿalā'llāhi qaṣdu'l-sabīl)" (al-Naḥl 16/9).
A distinction has to be made here, because without it the verse can be read as a claim of compulsion (jabr).
| Kind | What it means | Its extent |
|---|---|---|
| Guidance of direction / indication | To show the road, to offer the proof, to explain | To everyone |
| Guidance of enabling / bringing to arrive | To bring the person actually onto the road | To whoever wills |
It is generally accepted that al-hudā in this verse is in the first sense, and its ground is the text itself: had the second sense been meant, everyone would have had to arrive at guidance, whereas the sūra speaks of two groups.
The Qurʾān shows this distinction with two separate verbs as well: "You cannot guide whom you love, but God guides whom He wills" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56) — the second sense here; "And indeed you guide to a straight path" (al-Shūrā 42/52) — the first sense here. Two verses, describing two different works.
The function of the verse within the sūra. Up to the eleventh verse two human types were described, and this question may come to mind: who is responsible for that distinction? The twelfth verse answers: the road was shown. Nobody is on that side because he did not know the road.
It does the same work as "fa-alhamahā fujūrahā wa taqwāhā" in Sūrat al-Shams (91/8). There at the level of equipment — inspiration into the soul; here at the level of announcement — the showing of the road is a debt upon Us. The two sūras close the same door: there is no defence of "I did not know".
The first — the requirement of the verse-ending. The word al-ūlā (this world) fits the sūra's ā rhyme, al-ākhira does not. This world therefore has to come at the end. This explanation is correct but does not suffice on its own.
The second — where the emphasis lies. What is in dispute throughout the sūra is the hereafter. What the miserly man gave the lie to was al-ḥusnā — that is, the promise that the return will come. The hereafter's being named first is the bringing forward of what is in dispute.
The function of the sentence. This verse is the natural continuation of the twelfth. If the obligation of showing the road belongs to God, the end of the road must belong to Him too. Both worlds being in the same hand establishes an unbroken link between what is given in this world and what is received in the hereafter.
And this completes the economic logic of the sūra: why does the one who gives give? Because he knows that the place he gives in and the place he will receive in have the same owner. Miserliness is supposing the two worlds to be separate.
The particle لِ conveys ownership. And in the sentence it has been brought forward: wa inna lanā la'l-ākhirata wa'l-ūlā. The usual order in Arabic would be "al-ākhiratu lanā"; the bringing forward of the predicate conveys takhṣīṣ (only).
That is: not "the hereafter and this world are Ours" but "the hereafter and this world are Ours alone."