Then the Almighty said:
“So you enjoyed your allotted share just as those before you enjoyed their allotted share, and you plunged as they plunged” (Q 9:69).
With regard to the word alladhī, there are two interpretations. The sounder view is that it qualifies the verbal noun: “like the plunging that they plunged into,” with the implicit pronoun omitted, as in His statement, “of that which Our hands have fashioned” (Q 36:71)—an omission that is common and well attested in the language.
The second view is that it modifies the doer, meaning “like the group, the category, or the generation that plunged,” as though one were to say, “like those who plunged.”
God, exalted be He, links the enjoyment of one’s allotted portion with plunging into vain discourse because religious corruption occurs either through holding and voicing false beliefs, or through acting in opposition to sound belief.
The first leads to innovations and the like, while the second results in blatant sin and similar misconduct.
(1) Quran 9:69.
(2) In manuscripts J and D the wording is: “khadu” (“they plunged”).
(3) The printed edition cites the whole verse: “Have they not seen that We created for them, out of what Our own hands have fashioned, cattle of which they are the owners” (Quran 36:71), a reading not found in the other manuscripts.
(4) Quran 36:71.
(5) In manuscripts Ab and T it reads: “kal-fawj” (“like a troop”).
(6) Manuscript A has: “al-dunya” (“the present world”).
(7) Such involvement in falsehood includes adding extra acts to the prescribed worship, supplicating at graves and building structures over them, visiting shrines other than the Three Mosques and the pilgrimage sites named by the Lawgiver, and creating new festivals—birthday celebrations, commemorative or national holidays, and the like.
(8) The printed text reads instead: “that is the wickedness of deeds.”
(9) Examples include consuming riba (usury), drinking intoxicants, fornication, unlawfully taking people’s property, theft, disrespecting one’s parents, and perjury; these and similar acts fall under “enjoying one’s allotted share,” as the author, may Allah have mercy on him, notes.