Transliteration:( Yaaa aiyuhal lazeena aamanooo aaminoo billaahi wa Rasoolihee wal Kitaabil lazee nazzala 'alaa Rasoolihee wal Kitaabil lazeee anzala min qabl; wa mai yakfur billaahi wa Malaaa'ikatihee wa Kutubihee wa Rusulihee wal Yawmil Aakhiri faqad dalla dalaalam ba'eedaa )
“O you who believe! Keep faith in Allah and His Messenger [404] and the Book, which He has revealed to His Messenger [405] and the Book which has been revealed before [406]. And who denies Allah and His angels, and His Books and His Messengers and the Last Day [407], then he has certainly gone far astray [408].”
The address “O you who believe” has two possible meanings:
O those who have verbally declared faith, now believe with full sincerity and wholeheartedness.
Or, O those who already believe sincerely, then remain steadfast and firm in that belief.
From this we learn that the only worthy and respected faith is the one that remains with a person until death.
Also, declaring faith in the Holy Prophet ﷺ is equivalent to declaring faith in Allah, highlighting the interlinked nature of belief in both.
The phrase “which He has revealed to His Messenger” refers to the Holy Qur’an, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ over twenty-three years.
The use of “has revealed” (past tense) for the Qur’an and “has been revealed” (passive) for previous books shows that faith in the Prophet ﷺ takes precedence over faith in the Book, because the Qur’an is authenticated through the truthfulness of the Messenger ﷺ.
Believers must affirm the divine origin of all revealed books, such as the Tawrah, Zabur, and Injil.
However, obedience is reserved only for the Qur’an, as it is the final and preserved code of law.
Thus, belief in the previous scriptures is part of faith, but practical adherence must be to Qur’anic law.
This portion teaches that rejecting even one of the following:
Allah,
His angels,
His Books,
His Messengers, or
The Last Day—
is equivalent to rejecting all of them.
Thus, denying the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is equal to denying Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Hereafter.
The conjunction “and” here links all these essential pillars of Iman, making partial belief invalid.
The term “far astray” refers to a deep level of misguidance that removes one completely from the path of Islam.
There are two types of misguidance:
Distant misguidance, which takes one out of Islam, such as acts of blasphemy (Tabarrai) or open denial of any pillar of faith.
Near misguidance, which includes internal schism, sectarianism, or abandoning the way of the four Imams, but does not expel one from Islam.
Only the first type leads to infidelity, while the second is still a serious deviation, requiring correction and return to the mainstream of Ahlus-Sunnah.
136. O you who believe! Believe in Allah, and His Messenger, and the Book (the Qur’an) which He has sent down to His Messenger, and the Scripture which He sent down to those before; and whosoever disbelieves in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Last Day, then indeed he has strayed far away.
Allah commands His faithful servants to adhere to all the elements of faith, its branches, pillars and cornerstones. This is not stated as mere redundancy, but from the view of completing faith and the continual maintenence of it. For instance, the believer proclaims in every prayer,
(Guide us to the straight way.) which means, make us aware of the straight path and increase us in guidance and strengthen us on it. In this Ayah ﴿4:136﴾, Allah commands the believers to believe in Him and in His Messenger, just as He said elsewhere,
(O you who believe! Have Taqwa of Allah, and believe in His Messenger, ). Allah’s statement,
(and the Book which He has sent down to His Messenger,) refers to the Qur’an, while,
(and the Scripture which He sent down to those before (him);) refers to the previously revealed divine Books. Allah then said,
(and whosoever disbelieves in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Last Day, then indeed he has strayed far away.) meaning, he will have deviated from the correct guidance and strayed far away from its path.
(4:136) Believers! Believe[166] in Allah and His Messenger and in the Book He has revealed to His Messenger, and in the Book He revealed before. And whoever disbelieves[167] in Allah, in His angels, in His Books, in His Messengers and in the Last Day, has indeed strayed far away.
166. To ask believers to believe might at first seem strange. The fact is, however, that belief as used here has two meanings. First, belief denotes that a man has preferred to acknowledge the soundness of true guidance, to distance himself from the fold of those who disbelieve, and to join the camp of the believers. Second, belief denotes faith, a man’s believing in the truth with all his heart, with full earnestness and sincerity. It denotes man’s sincere determination to mould his way of thinking, his taste and temperament, his likes and dislikes, his conduct and character, his friendship and enmity, and the direction of his efforts and striving, in conformity with the creed which he has resolved to embrace. This verse is addressed to all those who are ‘believers’ in the first sense of the term, and they are asked to change themselves into true believers, i.e. believers in the second sense.
167. Kufr has two meanings. One signifies categorical rejection. The other signifies that pretence of belief even when either one’s heart is not convinced or one’s conduct is flagrantly opposed to the demands of one’s belief. Here the term Kufr conveys both meanings, and the verse aims at impressing upon people that whichever kind of Kufr they adopt in respect of the fundamental beliefs of Islam, it will only alienate them from the Truth, and lead them instead to falsehood, and ultimately to their tragic failure and destruction.
[224]- i.e., renew, confirm and adhere to your belief.
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