Tafsir Ibn Abbas: An-Nisaa, Ayah 78
Common Words
Other Scholars on This Ayah
Tafsir
Wherever you may be death will overtake you though you should be in raised-up lofty towers’ forts so do not shrink from fighting for fear of death. And if a good thing such as fertility and abundance befalls them the Jews they say ‘This is from God’; but if an evil thing such as drought or misfortune befalls them as it did with them when the Prophet s arrived in Medina they say ‘This is from you’ O Muhammad (s) that is from the bad luck you bring. Say to them ‘Everything good and evil is from God.’ What is wrong with this people that they do not understand that is they do not come close to comprehending any words delivered to them the mā ‘what’ of mā li-hā’ūlā’ ‘what is wrong with these’ is an interrogative intended to provoke amazement at their extreme ignorance; to state that one cannot even come close to doing something is rhetorically more intense than saying that he cannot do it.
Related Hadiths
"When Allah decrees that a slave (of His) is to die in a land, He makes him have some need from it." Or, he said: "In it."
"When Allah decrees that a slave (of His) is to die in a land, He makes him have some need from it." Another chain reports a similar narration.
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Ibn Abbas Commentary
(Wheresoever ye may be) O sincere believers, on land or on the sea, in settlement or travelling, (death will overtake you, even though ye were in lofty towers) in fortified towers. Allah then mentioned the saying of the Jews and hypocrites: �since Muhammad and his Companions came to us, our harvests and fields have kept ever decreasing�, saying: (Yet if a happy thing) land fertility, lower prices and continuous rain throughout the year (befalleth them) the Jews and hypocrites (they say: This is from Allah) for He knew that we were good; (and if an evil thing) drought, dearth, hardship and high prices (befalleth them they say: This is of your doing) this is because of the ill-omen of Muhammad and his Companions. (Say (unto them)) unto the Jews and hypocrites, O Muhammad: (All) hardship and blessing (is from Allah. What is amiss with these people) the Jews and hypocrites (that they come not nigh to understand a happening?) that both hardship and bounty are from Allah.