“Our Lord, admit them into the Gardens of perpetual residence which You have promised them, together with the righteous among their forefathers, spouses, and descendants. Indeed, You alone are the Almighty, the All-Wise. Protect them from evil deeds. Whoever You protect from evil deeds on that Day, You have surely shown mercy to; and that is the supreme triumph.”
“Our Lord, admit them into the Gardens of perpetual residence which You have promised them” through Your messengers, “together with the righteous”—that is, those made righteous through faith and good deeds—“among their forefathers and spouses,” including their wives and husbands, as well as their companions and associates, “and descendants. Indeed, You alone are the Almighty,” who subdues all things. Through Your might, You forgive their sins, remove what they fear, and thereby bring them to every good. You are “the All-Wise,” who puts all things in their proper places. Therefore, our Lord, we do not ask You for anything contrary to what Your wisdom requires. Rather, part of Your wisdom—as You have informed us through Your messengers and as Your bounty requires—is that the believers be forgiven.
“Protect them from evil deeds”—that is, from evil deeds and their recompense, for they bring grief upon those who commit them. “Whoever You protect from evil deeds on that Day”—that is, the Day of Resurrection ⦗733⦘—“You have surely shown mercy to.” Your mercy has always continued to encompass Your servants, and nothing bars them from it except their sins and evil deeds. Thus, whoever You protect from evil deeds, You enable to perform good deeds and receive their excellent reward. “And that”—the removal of what is feared through protection from evil deeds and the attainment of what is desired through mercy—“is the supreme triumph,” a triumph without equal and better than anything for which competitors might vie.
This prayer of the angels demonstrates their perfect knowledge of their Lord, their seeking nearness to Allah through His Most Beautiful Names—which He loves His servants to invoke Him by—and their asking for what befits the matter about which they supplicate. Since their prayer concerned the attainment of mercy and the removal of the effects arising from human souls—whose deficiency Allah knows and whose nature leads to sins—as well as other antecedents and causes fully encompassed by Allah’s knowledge, they invoked Him by His names the Most Merciful and the All-Knowing.
It also demonstrates their perfect courtesy toward Allah Most High: they acknowledge His lordship over them, both general and special, and recognize that they have no control whatsoever. Their prayer to their Lord issues from those who are inherently needy in every respect and who put forward no claim before their Lord on account of any state of theirs. Whatever they possess is nothing but Allah’s bounty, generosity, and kindness.
It also demonstrates their complete accord with their Lord: they love what He loves, both the deeds that He loves—namely, the acts of worship they themselves perform, striving with the earnestness of lovers—and those who perform them, namely the believers whom Allah Most High loves from among His creation. As for the rest of morally accountable creation, Allah hates them, except for the believers among them. Because the angels love the believers, they pray to Allah for them and strive to promote their well-being. Praying for someone is among the clearest indications of love, for a person prays only for one whom he loves.
Allah’s exposition and detailed account of their prayer after His words, “and seek forgiveness for those who believe,” also contains subtle guidance on how to contemplate His Book. One who reflects should not confine himself merely to the isolated meaning of a word or expression. Rather, he should contemplate its meaning; then, once he has understood it correctly and as intended, he should use his reason to consider the matter itself, the paths leading to it, what is indispensable to it, and what it depends upon. He should be certain that Allah intended all of this, just as he is certain that He intended the particular meaning directly indicated by the wording.
Two things require him to be certain that Allah intended it. The first is his knowledge and certainty that it is a necessary implication of the meaning and indispensable to it. The second is his knowledge that Allah knows all things and has commanded His servants to contemplate and reflect upon His Book.
Allah Most High knew everything necessarily implied by those meanings. He is the One who has informed us that His Book is guidance, light, and an explanation of all things, and that it is the most eloquent speech and the greatest in clarity. Through this, the servant acquires immense knowledge and abundant good according to what Allah enables him to attain. Our commentary contains many instances of this, which Allah has graciously bestowed upon us.
Yet in some verses, the basis of such an inference may remain hidden from one who does not reflect with sound thought. We ask Allah Most High to open for us treasures of His mercy that will bring about the well-being of both ourselves and the Muslims. We have nothing but recourse to His generosity and the seeking of nearness to Him through His kindness, in which we are continually immersed at every instant and at every moment. We ask Him, out of His bounty, to protect us from the evil of our own souls, which bars and hinders His mercy from reaching us. Indeed, He is the Generous, the Bestower, who graciously grants both causes and their effects.
This also indicates that one joined to another—whether a spouse, child, or companion—may be blessed through that person, and that the connection between them may bring him good beyond his own deeds and the means produced by those deeds. Thus, the angels prayed for the believers and for the righteous among their forefathers, spouses, and descendants. It may be said, however, that those relatives must themselves possess righteousness, because Allah says, “the righteous.” In that case, this benefit would be a result of their own deeds. Allah knows best.