We have sent you only as a herald of good news and a warner. Say: ‘No reward do I ask of you for this other than that he who so wills may find a way leading to his Lord.
Hence, place your trust in the Living One who does not die, and extol His limitless glory and praise. Sufficient is it that He is well aware of his servants’ sins.
He it is who has created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, and is established on the throne of His almightiness, the Most Merciful. Ask, then, about Him only one who knows. (The Standard, Al-Furqan: 25: 56-59)
God reassures His Messenger and lightens his burden. He assures him that once he has discharged his duty, delivering his message, with what it brings to people of good news and warnings, striving hard against the unbelievers through the Qur’an, then the stubborn rejection by the unbelievers should not trouble him. God will take over the fight against those who oppose him. All he needs to do is to place his trust in God and leave matters up to Him.
“We have sent you only as a herald of good news and a warner.” Thus the task of God’s Messenger is defined: It is to give happy news and to issue a warning. At the time when this surah was revealed, the Prophet was still in Makkah and had not yet received orders to take up arms against the idolaters to ensure freedom of expression and advocacy of his message. That order was given to him later, after his immigration to Madinah. There was certainly a definite purpose behind withholding such an order at the time, and this is best known to God Himself. However, we think that at the time the Prophet was still inculcating the new faith in the minds and hearts of his followers. He wanted it to sink deep into them so as to impart its distinctive character to them and to be manifested in their lives and actions. Thus, they would become the nucleus of the Muslim society which molds itself on the basis of its Islamic faith. Moreover, the order to refrain from fighting during the Makkan period avoided bloody hostilities and vengeance killings that could have shut the door firm between the Quraysh and Islam. God certainly knew that eventually they would all embrace Islam, with some of them doing so before the Prophet’s immigration to Madinah and the rest after the Muslims’ re-entry into Makkah. They would form the solid base of the new faith.
Nevertheless, the core of the Islamic message remained the same in Madinah: Giving happy news and issuing serious warnings. Fighting is permitted only to remove physical barriers erected by the unbelievers to deprive God’s message of free expression, and to protect the believers against any religious oppression. This means that the Qur’anic statement was applicable both in Makkah and Madinah: “We have sent you only as a herald of good news and a warner.”
“Say: ‘No reward do I ask of you for this other than that he who so wills may find a way leading to his Lord.” God’s Messenger does not entertain any thought of making any worldly gain or profit as a result of people’s acceptance of Islam. None will have to pay any fee or make any offering as he embraces the Islamic faith. All that he needs to do is to say certain words verbally, provided that he believes in them at heart. This is the distinctive feature of Islam which has no room for any priest of any kind, who would charge a fee for any service he renders. No ‘joining fee’, and no price paid to reveal any mystery or bestow any blessings or organize an entry function. Islam is free of all that may deter anyone from faith. It allows no room for anyone to stand as an intermediary between people and their Lord. God’s Messenger receives only one reward for all his troubles in advocating God’s faith, and this reward is nothing other than the fact that someone answers the divine call and receives God’s guidance, then seeks to be closer to Him: “That he who so wills may find a way leading to his Lord.” Such is his only wages. When the Prophet sees someone accepting divine guidance and seeking to earn God’s pleasure, then his compassionate heart finds comfort, and his noble conscience is set at ease.
“Hence, place your trust in the Living One who does not die, and extol His limitless glory and praise.” Everyone other than God is dead, because its life comes to an end with death. The only one that remains is God, the living One who does not die. If we are to rely on someone whose life comes to an end after a short or a long while, then we are only putting our weight against a wall that will eventually collapse, or seeking a shade that will inevitably fade away. To be truly assured one must rely only on the One who never dies, and place one’s trust only in Him. “Extol His limitless glory and praise.” The only one worthy of praise is God who grants all favors and blessings. Hence the Prophet is instructed to leave alone those unbelievers who heed no warning and care for no happy news. He should give them up to Him since He knows their sins. Nothing is hidden from Him: “Sufficient is it that He is well aware of his servants’ sins.”
Within the same context of God’s limitless knowledge and His power to grant reward and inflict punishment, the surah mentions the facts that He is the One who has created the heavens and the earth, and established Himself on the Throne: “He it is who has created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, and is established on the throne of His almightiness, the Most Merciful. Ask, then, about Him only one who knows.” We will discuss this verse in detail next week, God willing.
