Surah 9. Al-Tawba, Ayah 115

Lit., "it is not for God" - i.e., it is not compatible with God's omniscience and majesty -"that He should cause people to go astray after He has guided them". My rendering of the phrase "that He should cause people to go astray" as "condemn people for going astray" is based on the interpretation given to it by some of the greatest classical commentators (e.g., Tabari, Razi). As regards the phrase, "after He has guided them", Razi interprets it as meaning "after He has invited them to the way of rectitude (ar-rushd)".

Most of the commentators assume that the people referred to are the believers who, before the revelation of {verse 113}, used to pray to God that He grant His forgiveness to their relatives and friends who had died in the state of shirk ("ascribing divinity to aught beside God"): in other words, the believers need not fear to be taken to task for something which they did before the prohibition laid down in verse {113} was revealed (i.e., "ere He has made clear unto them of what they should beware"). However, Razi advances also an alternative interpretation of verse {115}, suggesting that it is meant to explain the severity with which the whole of this surah condemns the deniers of the truth and the hypocrites who are going astray after God "has made clear unto them of what they should beware". (See in this connection {6:131-132} and the corresponding notes.) This interpretation is, to my mind, the more plausible of the two, and particularly so in view of the sequence (verse {116}).

Allah's clear commands are given, so that Believers may not be misled by their human frailty into unbecoming conduct.