(53–55) “Tell My servants to say what is best. Satan indeed sows discord among them. Satan is truly a manifest enemy to humankind. Your Lord knows you best. If He wills, He will have mercy on you, or if He wills, He will punish you. We have not sent you as a guardian over them. Your Lord knows best all those in the heavens and on earth. We have certainly favored some prophets over others, and We gave David the Psalms.”
This is part of His kindness toward His servants: He has commanded them to adopt the finest conduct, deeds, and words, which bring happiness in this world and the Hereafter. He therefore says:
“Tell My servants to say what is best.” This is a command to utter every kind of speech that draws one closer to Allah, including Quran recitation, remembrance, knowledge, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and speaking kindly and gently to people, whatever their ranks and stations. When faced with a choice between two good things, they are commanded to choose the better of the two if both cannot be combined.
Good speech leads to every noble trait and righteous deed, for whoever controls his tongue controls his entire affair.
His words, “Satan indeed sows discord among them,” mean that Satan strives among people to corrupt their religion and worldly lives.
The remedy is not to obey him by using the unkind words to which he calls them, and to treat one another gently so that the Satan who sows discord among them may be subdued. He is their true enemy, whom they ought to fight, for he calls them “so that they may become companions of the Blaze.”
As for their fellow believers, even if Satan sows discord among them and strives to create hostility, true prudence lies wholly in acting contrary to their enemy’s designs and subduing their own souls that incite to evil, through which Satan gains entry. In this way, they obey their Lord, their affairs are set aright, and they are guided to sound judgment.
“Your Lord knows you best”—better than you know yourselves. He therefore desires nothing for you except what is good and commands you only to do what serves your welfare. You may desire something when the good lies in its opposite.
“If He wills, He will have mercy on you, or if He wills, He will punish you.” He grants whomever He wills success in pursuing the means that lead to mercy, while He leaves whomever He wills without aid, so that person strays from those means and thereby deserves punishment.
“We have not sent you as a guardian over them,” charged with managing their affairs and requiting them. Allah alone is their Guardian; you are only a messenger who guides to a straight path.
“Your Lord knows best all those in the heavens and on earth,” from every category of creation. He gives each of them what they deserve, as His wisdom requires, and favors some over others in every physical and spiritual quality. Likewise, He favored some prophets over others—although they all received His revelation—through virtues and distinctive qualities arising from the praiseworthy attributes, pleasing character, righteous deeds, and numerous followers He bestowed upon them. He also sent down to some of them Scriptures containing religious rulings and sound tenets of faith, just as He sent down the Psalms—the well-known Scripture—to David.
Since Allah Most High favored some of them over others and gave Scriptures to some, why do those who deny Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him—reject what Allah sent down to him and the distinction He granted him through prophethood and the Scripture?