Al-Bidayah wa an-Nihayah - Ibn Kathir - (2/336)

Al-Bidayah wa an-NihayahIbn Kathir

Once the Sabbath had passed, they collected the fish. Allah grew wrathful with them and cursed them, for they had contrived a stratagem against His command and violated His sanctities through ruses that appeared outwardly acceptable but were, in truth, sheer disobedience.

When a group among them committed this deed, those who had abstained split into two parties. One party denounced their action and their scheming to flout Allah and His Law; the other neither practiced the sin nor forbade it, but instead reproached the first party, saying, “Why do you admonish a people whom Allah is going to destroy or punish with a severe torment?”—that is, What benefit is there in forbidding a people who are certain to be punished?

The censoring party replied, “As an excuse before your Lord”—meaning, we are fulfilling His command to enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, doing so out of fear of His punishment—“and so that perhaps they may become God-fearing,” that is, perhaps they will abandon this deed, Allah will spare them His punishment, and pardon them if they repent and listen.

Allah, exalted is He, says: “When they forgot what they had been reminded of, We delivered those who forbade evil and seized the wrongdoers with a wretched punishment for the sins they had been committing.” In other words, they paid no heed to those who forbade that vile act, so Allah saved the group that enjoined right and forbade wrong, and seized the perpetrators with a severe, painful chastisement.

He then clarified the nature of that punishment: “When they defiantly persisted in what they had been forbidden, We said to them, ‘Be apes, rejected and despised.’ ” The transmitted reports concerning this will be mentioned shortly.

The point here is that Allah informed us that He destroyed the wrongdoers, saved the believing denouncers, and kept silent about those who remained silent. Scholars differ about the fate of this third group: some hold that they were among the saved, others that they were among the destroyed. The correct view, according to the meticulous investigators—and the opinion to which Ibn ʿAbbās, the leading exegete, ultimately returned after debating his disciple ʿIkrimah, whom he then honoured with a fine robe—is that they were saved.

I say: They were not explicitly mentioned with the saved because, although they inwardly detested the abomination, they should have manifested that detestation by verbal condemnation, which is the middle of the three degrees of forbidding evil: the highest is changing it with one’s hand, next is condemning it with the tongue, and the last is detesting it in the heart. Thus, though not singled out, they were saved along with the others, for they did not commit the sin but rejected it inwardly.

(1) In B: ‘lahum’ is added. (2) In B: ‘wal-nahun’. (3) As in B, which is most plausible. In A and T: ‘al-ayat fi’. (4) In T: ‘innahum’. (5) As in B, which matches what appears in Tafsir al-Mu’allif (vol. 2, p. 258). In A and T: ‘an’. (6) In T: ‘ankaruha’.

سبتُهم أخذوها، فغضب الله عليهم ولَعَنَهم لِمَا احتالوا على خلاف أمره وانتهكوا محارمه بالحيل التي هي ظاهرة للناظر، وهي في الباطن مخالفةٌ مَحضَةٌ، فلما فعل ذلك طائفةٌ منهم افترق الذين لم يفعلوا فرقتين: فرقة أنكروا عليهم صنيعهم هذا واحتيالهم على مخالفة الله وشرعه في ذلك الزمان، وفرقة أخرى لم يفعلوا ولم ينهوا بل أنكروا على الذين نهوا وقالوا: ﴿لِمَ تَعِظُونَ قَوْمًا اللَّهُ مُهْلِكُهُمْ أَوْ مُعَذِّبُهُمْ عَذَابًا شَدِيدًا﴾ يقولون (١) : ما الفائدة في نهيكم هؤلاء وقد استحَقوا العقوبةَ لا محالة، فأجابتهم الطائفة المنكرة بأنْ قالوا: ﴿مَعْذِرَةً إِلَى رَبِّكُمْ﴾ أي: فيما أَمَرَنا به من الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر، فنقوم به خوفاً من عذابه ﴿وَلَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَّقُونَ﴾ أي: ولعل هؤلاء يتركون ما هُم عليه من هذا الصنيع فيقيهم اللّه عذابه ويعفو عنهم إذا هم رَجَعوا واستمعوا. قال الله تعالى: ﴿فَلَمَّا نَسُوا مَا ذُكِّرُوا بِهِ﴾ أي: لم يلتفتوا إلى مَن نهاهْم عن هذا الصنيع الشنيع الفظيع ﴿أَنْجَيْنَا الَّذِينَ يَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ السُّوءِ﴾ وهم الفرقة الآمرة بالمعروف والناهية (٢) عن المنكر ﴿وَأَخَذْنَا الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا﴾ وهم المرتكبون الفاحشة ﴿بِعَذَابٍ بَئِيسٍ﴾ وهو الشديد المؤلم الموجع ﴿بِمَاكاَنُواْ يَفْسُقُونَ﴾. ثم فَشَر العذاب الذي أصابهم بقوله: ﴿فَلَمَّا عَتَوْا عَنْ مَا نُهُوا عَنْهُ قُلْنَا لَهُمْ كُونُوا قِرَدَةً خَاسِئِينَ﴾. وسنذكر ما ورد من الآثار عن ذلك (٣) . والمقصود هنا أن الله تعالى أخبر أنه أهلكَ الظالمين، ونجَّى المؤمنين المنكرِين، وسكت عن الساكتين. وقد اختلف فيهم العلماءُ على قولين: فقيل: هم (٤) من الناجين. وقيل: إنهم من الهالكين. والصحيح الأول عند المحقّقين، وهو الذي رَجَع إليه ابن عَبَّاس إمامُ المفسرين، وذلك عند (٥) مناظرة مولاه عِكرمة، فكساه من أجل ذلك حُلَةً سَنِيَّةً تكرمةً. قلت: وإنما لم يُذكَروا مع الناجين لأنهم وإن كرهوا ببواطِنهم تلك الفاحشةَ إلا أنهم كان ينبغي لهم أن يحملوا ظواهرهم بالعمل المأمور به من الإنكار القولي الذي هو أوسط المراتب الثلاث التي أعلاها الإنكار باليد ذات البَنان، وبعدَها الإنكار القولي باللسان، وثالثها الإنكار بالجَنان، فلما لم يُذكَروا نجوا مع الناجين، إذ لم يفعلوا الفاحشة بل أنكروا (٦) .

(١) زاد في ب: لهم. (٢) في ب: والناهون. (٣) كذا في ب، وهو الأشبه بالصواب. وفى أ وط: الآيات فى. (٤) في ط: إنهم. (٥) كذا في ب: وهو مناسب لما في تفسير المؤلف (٢/ ٢٥٨). وفي أ وط: عن. (٦) في ط: أنكروها.