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What was this respite? The curse on Iblis remained, i.e. he was deprived of Allah's grace and became in the spiritual world what an outlaw is in a political kingdom. An earthly kingdom may not be able to catch and destroy an outlaw. But Allah is Omnipotent, and such power as Iblis may have can only come through the respite granted by Allah. The respite then is what is expressed in xv. 39 below. In Allah's grant of limited free-will to man is implied the faculty of choosing between good and evil, and the faculty is exercised through the temptations and allurements put forward by Satan, "the open enemy" of man. This is for the period of man's probation on this earth. Even so, no temptations have power over the sincere worshippers of Allah, who are purified by His grace.
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See surah {7}, note [11].
Agwaitani: 'thrown me out of the way, put me in the wrong': Cf. vii. 16. Satan cannot be straight or truthful even before Allah. By his own arrogance and rebellion he fell; he attributes this to Allah. Between Allah's righteous judgment and Satan's snares and temptations there cannot be the remotest comparison. Yet he presumes to put them on an equal footing. He is taking advantage of the respite.
Iblis (the Satan) is powerless against Allah. He turns therefore against man.
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Lit., "Thy sincere servants": i.e., those who are so deeply conscious of God that no "blandishment of Satan" can lead them astray. (See also note [32] below.)
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I.e., "this is what I have willed" - namely, that Iblis (or Satan) should tempt man, but should have no power to seduce those who are truly conscious of God. Thus, the Qur'an makes it clear that despite his ostensible "rebellion" against his Creator, Satan fulfils a definite function in God's plan: he is the eternal tempter who enables man to exercise his God-given freedom of choice between good and evil and, thus, to become a being endowed with moral free will. (See in this connection 19:83 , as well as note [26] on 2:34 and note [16] on 7:24 .)
To be sincere in the worship of Allah is to obtain purification from all stain of evil and exemption from all influence of evil. It changes the whole nature of man. After that, evil cannot touch him. Evil will acknowledge him to be beyond its power and will not even tempt him. Apart from such purified souls, everyone who worships Allah invites Allah's grace to protect him. But if he puts himself in the way of wrong and deliberately chooses evil, he must take the consequences. The blame is not even on Satan, the power of evil, it is on the sinner himself, who puts himself into his power; xiv. 22: xv. 42.
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Lit., "except him who shall follow thee from among those who are lost in grievous error". (Cf. 14:22 , according to which Satan will thus address his erstwhile followers on Judgment Day: "I had no power at all over you: I but called you - and you responded unto me.") This phrase constitutes the essential difference between the above passage and the similar one in {7:11-18}.
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Lit., "it has seven gates, [with] an allotted share of them for each gate". This probably means "seven degrees" of hell, i.e., of the suffering which, in the life to come, awaits the "followers of Satan" in accordance with the gravity of their sins (Razi; a similar explanation is given by Qatadah, as quoted by Tabari). It should also be remembered that the concept of "hell" as such is referred to in the Qur'an under seven different names, all of them metaphorical (necessarily so, because they relate to what the Qur'an describes as al-ghayb, "something that is beyond the reach of human perception"): namely nar ("fire, which is the general term), jahannam ("hell"), jahim ("blazing fire"), sa'ir ("blazing flame"), saqar ("hell-fire"), laza ("raging flame"), and hutamah ("crushing torment"). Since, as I have mentioned, these designations of other-worldly suffering are obviously allegorical, we may also assume that the "seven gates of hell" have the same character, and signify "seven approaches [or "ways"] to hell". Furthermore, it is well known that in the Semitic languages - and most particularly in classical Arabic - the number "seven" is often used in the sense of "several" or "various" (cf. Lisan al-'Arab, Taj al -Arus, etc.): and so the above Qur'anic phrase may well have the meaning of "various ways leading to hell" - in other words, many ways of sinning.
The ways of sin are numerous, and if they are classified into seven, each of them points to a Gate that leads to Hell.
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I.e., all being equal in dignity, and therefore free from envy. As Razi points out, the plural noun surur (sing. sarir), which literally denotes "couches" or, occasionally, "thrones", signifies also "seats [or "thrones"] of eminence" or "of happiness (surur)", from which latter word the noun sarir and its plural surur may be derived. The sublime quality of these "thrones of happiness" is in some instances further symbolized by expressions like "gold-encrusted" ( 56:15 ) or "raised high" ( 88:13 ).
i.e., the bitterness they had in their hearts towards other believers who wronged them in the worldly life.
Cf. vii. 43, and n. 1021. The hearts and minds will be so purified that all past rancour, jealousy, or sense of injury will be obliterated. The true Brotherhood will be realised there, when each will have his own dignity, there will be no question of invidious comparisons; each will face the others with joy and confidence. There will be no sense of toil or fatigue, and the joy will last for ever.
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Lit., "never shall they be caused to depart from it".
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We must realise both sides of Allah's attributes: His mercy, grace, and forgiveness are unbounded; if we reject all this, His justice and punishment will also be beyond all that we can conceive.
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In his commentary on the above two verses, Razi notes that the statement relating to God's forgiveness and grace contains a threefold emphasis - expressed by the repetition of the personal pronoun ana relating to God, and the definite article al before each of the two participial adjectives - whereas there is no such stress in the mention of His chastisement of recalcitrant sinners. (Cf. 6:12 - and the corresponding note [10] - as well as 6:54 , both of which verses state that God "has willed upon Himself the law of grace and mercy".)
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