Surah 57. Al-Hadid, Ayah 20

Lit., "[It is] like the parable of...", etc.

Commenting at length on this passage, Razi makes it clear that life as such is not to be despised, inasmuch as it has been created by God: cf. 38:27 - "We have not created heaven and earth and all that is between them without meaning and purpose"; and 23:115 - "Did you think that We have created you in mere idle play?" But whereas life in itself is a positive gift of God and - as Razi points out - the potential source of all blessings, it loses this positive quality if it is indulged in recklessly, blindly and with disregard of spiritual values and considerations: in brief, if it is indulged in without any thought of the hereafter.

This is the sole instance in the Qur'an where the participial noun kafir (in its plural form kuffar) has its original meaning of "tiller of the soil". For the etymology of this meaning, see note [4] on 74:10 , where the term kafir (in the sense of "denier of the truth") appears for the first time in the sequence of Qur'anic revelation.

According to Tabari, the conjunction wa has here the meaning of aw ("or").

Cf. vi. 32, and n. 855. In the present passage the idea is further amplified. In this life people not only play and amuse themselves and each other, but they show off, and boast, and pile up riches and man-power and influence, in rivalry with each other.

Cf. xxxix. 21, and n. 4273. Here the Parable is meant to teach a slightly different lesson. Allah's mercies are free and open to all, like His rain. But how do men make use of them? The good men take the real spiritual harvest and store the Spiritual grain. The men who are in love with the ephemeral are delighted with the green of the tares and the grass; but such things give no real nourishment; they soon wither, become dry, and crumble to pieces, like the worldly pleasures and pomps, boasting and tumults, possessions and friends.

Kuffar is here used in the unusual sense of 'tillers or husbandmen', because they sow the seed and cover it up with soil. But the ordinary meaning, 'Rejecters of Truth', is not absent. The allegory refers to such men.

Cf. iii. 185, and n. 492. Many of the attractive vanities of this world are but nets set by Satan to deceive man. The only thing real and lasting is the Good Life lived in the Light of Allah.