Al Rūm

وَإِذَا مَسَّ النَّاسَ ضُرٌّ دَعَوْا رَبَّهُم مُّنِيبِينَ إِلَيْهِ ثُمَّ إِذَآ أَذَاقَهُم مِنْهُ رَحْمَةً إِذَا فَرِيقٌ مّـِنْهُم بِرَبّـِهِمْ يُشْرِكُونَ

33. “And when harm afflicts men, they call upon their Lord, turning to Him, then, when He makes them taste of mercy from Him, behold, some of them associate partners with their Lord,”

The losses we bear are from our own side, but the mercy and favours are from the side of Allah. There are some people who call on Allah only at the time of afflictions and difficulties, but a believer ought to call upon Allah at all times. The verse under discussion, in fact, is reasoning and an emphasis on the discussion mentioned in the previous verse indicating that monotheism is natural and that this divine light will develop with the existence of afflictions and difficulties.

It says:

But they are so incapacious, short sighted, and captive of the bigotry and blind imitation of their ancestors’, polytheistic ideas that as soon as the terrible events remove and they feel the breeze of peacefulness and Allah makes them taste of mercy from His side, a group of them become polytheist. The verse says:

The use of ‘harm afflicts men’ points to a little distress as the phrase ‘when He makes them taste of mercy from Him’ indicates to receiving a little bounty, because the application of ‘taste’ in these instances is used for showing the scanty of something, specially with mentioning the Arabic words /durr/ (harm) and /rahmah/ (mercy) in an indefinite form. That is, there are some persons who with a little stress go toward Allah (s.w.t.) and the curtain of over their nature of Monotheism will be removed, but by a little bounty they will change the way and become neglectful of Him and may forget everything.

For the first case, of course, it speaks in a general form and says that all people are such that they remember Allah (s.w.t.) when confronting afflictions, because the monotheistic nature is general and for all. But for the second case, i.e. mercy, the verse mentions only those who pave the path of polytheism, since some of the servants of Allah usually remember Him both when they confront difficulties and when they face with Divine bounties, and the variations of life never cause them to be neglectful of the Truth.

With regard to the concept of the Arabic word /’inabah/ which is derived from /noub/ in the sense of: ‘returning again to something, the application of the Qur’anic phrase: /munibina ’ilayh/ (turning to Him) is a tender hint to this meaning that the basis and foundation in man’s nature is certainly monotheism and theology, but polytheism is something casual, because when his hope is ceased from it, he, desirably or undesirably, returns to Faith and Monotheism.

It is interesting that in the abovementioned verse, ‘mercy’ is counted from the side of Allah, but harm has not been attributed to Him, for a great deal of our difficulties and afflictions are the consequences of our own deeds and sins, while all bounties are from Allah whether directly or indirectly. The Qur’anic word /rabbahum/, which has been mentioned twice in this verse, is an emphasis on this fact that man feels the Divine Lordship and administration on his own self, if wrong training does not drive him toward polytheism.

This point is also necessary to be mentioned here that the pronoun mentioned in the word /minhu/ relates to Allah and it is an emphasis on this fact that all bounties are from the side of Allah, the Exalted. Many of the commentators, such as the authors of Al-Mizan, Tibyan, and Abul-Futuh Razi, have chosen this meaning, though some other commentators, such as Fakhr-i-Razi, have considered this pronoun for /durr/ (harm) and have rendered the verse as this: ‘When Allah gives them mercy after harm and stress, some of them associate partners with their Lord’.

But it is clear that the first commentary is more consistent with the appearance of the verse.