Surah Ale-Imran (The Family Of Imran ) 3 : 177

Overview (Verses 177 -179)

Why Disbelievers May Wield Power

Indeed, those who have bought disbelief at the price of faith cannot harm God in any way. A grievous suffering awaits them. Let not those who disbelieve imagine that Our giving them rein bodes well for their own souls. We only give them rein so that they may grow in sinfulness. A humiliating suffering awaits them. It is not God’s purpose to leave the believers in your present state except to set apart the bad from the good. And it is not God’s purpose to reveal to you what is kept beyond the reach of human perception. But God favours from among His messengers whomever He wills. Believe, therefore, in God and His messengers. If you believe and are God fearing, you shall have a great reward. (Verses 177-179)

To believe in God and to follow the path of faith was available to them. The proofs and pointers which guide human beings to faith are everywhere in the universe, planted deep into human nature. The harmony and complementarity which manifest themselves in clear and unique ways, and the direct, positive response of human nature to such remarkable evidence represent a clear invitation to man to have faith. He feels that only God could have created and organised the universe. Moreover, God has sent messengers to convey to mankind His message and to call on them to believe in Him. The message meets the needs of human nature and provides a complete and harmonious way of life.

Knowing that faith is so readily available to them, they nevertheless bartered it away for disbelief. In doing so, they deserve to be abandoned by God so that they can drive headlong into disbelief, exhausting all their share of God’s grace, leaving no reward for themselves in the hereafter. Immersed so totally in error and having nothing of the truth, they are too weak to cause God any harm whatsoever. Error has no justice and falsehood has no strength. Its advocates cannot harm those who respond to God’s call, even though they may have forces with which they can inflict temporary harm on the believers.

“A grievous suffering awaits them.” The suffering they will have to endure is incomparably more painful than what they can inflict on believers in this life. “Let not those who disbelieve imagine that Our giving them rein bodes well for their own souls. We only give them rein so that they may grow in sinfulness. A humiliating suffering awaits them.”

At this point the sūrah tackles the doubts entertained by some people and their silent remonstrations as they see the enemies of the truth and of God go about unpunished, demonstrating their power and enjoying their strength, position and wealth. What they seem to possess hardens their attitude and tempts people to side with them. Those whose faith remains weak may entertain evil thoughts so as to believe that God has acquiesced to falsehood, accepted evil and tyranny and given their advocates rein. Far be it for God to do so. They may also think that God takes a neutral position in the battle between truth and falsehood, allowing falsehood to smash the truth. They may even think that a certain brand of falsehood is right; otherwise, how is it allowed to grow and triumph? Or they may go as far as to think that it is the natural order of things in this life for falsehood to triumph over the truth. As for the transgressors who serve evil, wreak injustice and spread corruption, they continue with their erring ways and drive headlong into unbelief, imagining that they wield absolute power and that there is no force to stand up to them. All this is plainly wrong. It is an erroneous concept of how God conducts matters. God warns the disbelievers against entertaining such thoughts. If He does not visit them with immediate punishment for their disbelief and, instead, allows them a chance to enjoy themselves in this life, they should know that it is all a test which lures them away so that their attitudes harden and their errors become plainly apparent: “Let not those who disbelieve imagine that Our giving them rein bodes well for their own souls. We only give them rein so that they may grow in sinfulness.”

Had they deserved to be helped out of their distractions with an awakening test, God would have put them to such a trial. But He does not wish them well after they have bought disbelief at the price of faith. They no longer deserve to be awakened. Instead, “a humiliating suffering awaits them.” Such humiliation is the exact opposite of their present position of power, prestige and affluence.

This makes it clear to us that a test in this life is a type of God’s bounty which is granted to those for whom God stores up a happier future. When it comes as the result of actions made by good servants of God who strive hard in advocating His cause, it is done for a definite purpose which may not be immediately apparent. It remains part of God’s grace, shown to His servants. This is sufficient to reassure the believers and to drive home some basic principles about the Islamic concept of life.

It was part of God’s grace to the believers that He distinguishes them from the hypocrites who infiltrated their ranks and who had no love for Islam. He put the believers to this hard test at Uĥud as a result of certain actions of their own making, in order to set the bad apart from the good.

“It is not God’s purpose to leave the believers in your present state except to set apart the bad from the good. And it is not God’s purpose to reveal to you what is kept beyond the reach of human perception. But God favours from among His messengers whomever He wills. Believe, therefore, in God and His messengers. If you believe and are God-fearing, you shall have a great reward.” This is a clear Qur’ānic statement which leaves us in no doubt that it is not part of God’s design or method to allow the ranks of the believers to remain loose, giving a chance to the hypocrites to join them under false pretences when they have no real faith. God has moulded this nation of Islam in order that it plays a great role in this world, implements the supreme code of living designed by God Himself. Such a great role requires dedication, purity and unity. To fulfil it the Muslims must not allow any infiltration into their ranks. For this task to be accomplished it requires, in short, that the actors be as great as the role assigned to them in this life and worthy of the position God has prepared for them in the life to come. This means that a severe test must be endured so that only the strong in faith remain within the ranks and those who are weak are moved aside. In practice, it meant that the great shake-up at Uĥud was necessary so that the believers did not remain as they were before the battle.

Nor is it God’s purpose to allow human beings to know what He has chosen to remain hidden from them. They are not, by nature, ready or able to receive such a revelation because their constitution has been especially designed to fulfil a certain task in this life which does not require such knowledge. The human constitution would collapse if such a revelation was made, because it has not been made to receive of it except a portion which allows the soul to know its Creator. The least that would happen to man when he knows his eventual destiny is that he remains idle and does nothing in fulfilment of his task on earth, namely, to build human life. Alternatively,  he  may  be  worried  about  his  destiny  and  this  may  exhaust  his strength. How then does God set the bad apart from the good? How does He purge the  Muslim  ranks  from  all  hypocrisy  and  mould  the  Muslim  community  in  the proper shape to fulfil its role? The answer is given in the Qur’ānic statement: “But God favours from among His messengers whomever He wills.” It is through His message, and through accepting it and believing in it and through the striving of the messengers and the testing of their followers that God’s purpose is accomplished. This again stresses the importance of the test which distinguishes people. We now know a part of God’s purpose as it manifests itself in the events of life.

Having explained this fundamental fact, an address is made to the believers to demonstrate within their world the practical effects of their faith. If they do, then a great reward awaits them: “Believe, therefore, in God and His messengers. If you believe and are God-fearing, you shall have a great reward.” This directive, coupled with the promise of a great reward, is the best conclusion for the comments given in this sūrah on the Battle of Uĥud.