the messengers. This entails their freedom from all that those who deny and oppose them say against them. If they are free of every accusation their enemies level against them, then everything they brought must likewise be free of falsehood and corruption.
The greatest of what they brought is the affirmation of Allah’s oneness, knowledge of Him, and descriptions befitting His majesty with which He described Himself through their words. If this is free of falsehood, impossibility, and corruption, then it is pure truth. Whatever contradicts it is falsehood and an impossible fabrication.
This very meaning is contained in His words:
“Say, ‘Praise be to Allah, and peace be upon His servants whom He has chosen.’”
This includes praising Him for His attributes of perfection and majesty, His praiseworthy deeds, and His most beautiful names, as well as affirming His messengers’ freedom from every fault, deficiency, and lie. This, in turn, entails that what they brought is free of all falsehood.
Reflect, then, on this profound secret in the pairing of His salutation of peace upon His messengers with His praise of Himself and His declaration of His own freedom from imperfection. This supports the interpretation that the salutation of peace here comes from Allah, Most High, as it does at the end of Sūrat al-Sāffāt.
As for coordinating a declarative statement with a request, examples are plentiful. Among them are His words, Most High:
21: 112 “He said, ‘My Lord, judge in truth. Our Lord is the Most Merciful, whose help is sought.’”
And His words:
23: 118 “And say, ‘My Lord, forgive and have mercy, and You are the best of those who show mercy.’”
And His words:
7: 89 “Our Lord, judge between us and our people in truth, and You are the best of judges.”
There are very many similar examples.
The decisive resolution is to say that the verse encompasses both meanings together, uniting them in a single expression. The Messenger conveys Allah’s words, and his role in them is solely to convey them. The words are those of the Lord, Blessed and Exalted is He: He is the One who praised Himself, pronounced peace upon His chosen servants, and commanded His Messenger to convey this. Thus, when the Messenger says, “Praise be to Allah, and peace be upon His servants whom He has chosen,” he praises Allah and pronounces peace upon His servants with the very words by which the Lord praised Himself and pronounced peace upon His servants. The salutation therefore originates from Allah, is conveyed by the Messenger, and is repeated by His servants in obedience and following their example. Thus we say, as our Lord, Most High, has commanded us:
“Praise be to Allah, and peace be upon His servants whom He has chosen.”