and to glorify Him with praise. Yet ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—wanted to uncover the surah’s deeper purport; he was not asking for a merely linguistic parsing of its words and phrases.
So he turned to Ibn ʿAbbās—may Allah be pleased with him—and said, “What do you understand from this surah?” Ibn ʿAbbās answered, “It announces the appointed term of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. In other words, it is a sign that his passing is near. Allah granted him a token: ‘When the help of Allah comes and the conquest’—meaning the conquest of Mecca—then know that this is the mark of your approaching end; ‘so glorify the praise of your Lord and seek His forgiveness; indeed, He is ever accepting of repentance.’” ʿUmar replied, “I know no other meaning for it than the one you have mentioned,” and thus the virtue of ʿAbd-Allāh ibn ʿAbbās—may Allah be pleased with him—became manifest.
This episode indicates that one should reflect on the overall purpose of the noble verses. The outward meaning gleaned from the individual words and structures may be straightforward, but the higher intent that Allah Most High wishes to convey can remain hidden from many people and requires an insight that He grants to whomever He wills.
His—Exalted is He—statement, “So glorify the praise of your Lord,” means: declare Allah’s transcendence accompanied by praise. The preposition bi here denotes accompaniment. When tasbīḥ (glorification) is joined to ḥamd (praise), perfection is realized, for perfection consists of both the negation of defects and the affirmation of attributes of completeness. The negation of defects is taken from “glorify,” because tasbīḥ signifies declaring Him free of every imperfection and flaw; the affirmation of completeness is taken from “praise,” because ḥamd is to describe the One praised with attributes of perfection. It is therefore not identical with thanāʾ (commendation), as many scholars have supposed when they define ḥamd as “praising Allah for the good,” or, as some put it, “for the deliberate good,” and the like. The proof lies in the sacred (qudsī) hadith narrated by Abū Hurayrah that