Tafsir of Surah Al-Anfal - Verse 50

The Angels smite the Disbelievers upon capturing Their Souls

Allah says, if you witnessed the angels capturing the souls of the disbelievers, you would witness a tremendous, terrible, momentous and awful matter,

يَضْرِبُونَ وُجُوهَهُمْ وَأَدْبَـرَهُمْ

(they smite their faces and their backs), saying to them,

وَذُوقُواْ عَذَابَ الْحَرِيقِ

("Taste the punishment of the blazing Fire.")

Ibn Jurayj said that Mujahid said that,

وَأَدْبَـرَهُمْ

(and their backs), refers to their back sides, as happened on the day of Badr. Ibn Jurayj also reported from Ibn `Abbas, "When the idolators faced the Muslims in Badr, the Muslims smote their faces with swords. When they gave flight, the angels smote their rear ends."

Although these Ayat are describing Badr, they are general in the case of every disbeliever. This is why Allah did not make His statement here restrictive to the disbelievers at Badr,

وَلَوْ تَرَى إِذْ يَتَوَفَّى الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ الْمَلَـئِكَةُ يَضْرِبُونَ وُجُوهَهُمْ وَأَدْبَـرَهُمْ

(And if you could see when the angels take away the souls of those who disbelieve (at death); they smite their faces and their backs,)

In Surat Al-Qital (or Muhammad chapter 47) there is a similar Ayah, as well as in Surat Al-An`am,

وَلَوْ تَرَى إِذِ الظَّـلِمُونَ فِى غَمَرَاتِ الْمَوْتِ وَالْمَلَـئِكَةُ بَاسِطُواْ أَيْدِيهِمْ أَخْرِجُواْ أَنفُسَكُمُ

(And if you could but see when the wrongdoers are in the agonies of death, while the angels are stretching forth their hands (saying): "Deliver your souls!") 6:93

The angels stretch their hands and smite the disbelievers by Allah's command, since their souls refuse to leave their bodies, so they are taken out by force. This occurs when the angels give them the news of torment and Allah's anger. There is a Hadith narrated from Al-Bara' that when the angel of death attends the disbeliever at the time of death, he comes to him in a terrifying and disgusting shape, saying, "Get out, O wicked soul, to fierce hot wind, boiling water and a shadow of black smoke." The disbeliever's soul then scatters throughout his body, but the angels retrieve it, just as a needle is retrieved from wet wool. In this case, veins and nerve cells will be still attached to the soul. Allah states here that angels bring news of the torment of the Fire to the disbelievers. Allah said next,

ذلِكَ بِمَا قَدَّمَتْ أَيْدِيكُمْ

(This is because of that which your hands forwarded.) meaning, this punishment is the recompense of the evil deeds that you have committed in the life of the world. This is your reckoning from Allah for your deeds,

وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ لَيْسَ بِظَلَّـمٍ لِّلْعَبِيدِ

a(And verily, Allah is not unjust to His servants.)

Certainly, Allah does not wrong any of His creatures, for He is the Just, who never puts anything in an inappropriate place. Honored, Glorified, Exalted and Praised be He, the All-Rich, Worthy of all praise. Muslim recorded that Abu Dharr said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said;

«إنَّ اللهَ تَعَالَى يَقُولُ: يَا عِبَادِي إِنِّي حَرَّمْتُ الظُّلْمَ عَلَى نَفْسِي وَجَعَلْتُهُ بَيْنَكُمْ مُحَرَّمًا فَلَا تَظَالَمُوا، يَا عِبَادِي إِنَّمَا هِيَ أَعْمَالُكُمْ أُحْصِيهَا لَكُمْ فَمَنْ وَجَدَ خَيْرًا فَلْيَحْمَدِ اللهَ وَمَنْ وَجَدَ غَيْرَ ذَلِكَ فَلَا يَلُومَنَّ إِلَّا نَفْسَه»

(Allah, the Exalted, said, `O My servants! I have prohibited injustice for Myself, and made it prohibited to you between each other. Therefore, do not commit injustice against each other. O My servants! It is your deeds that I am keeping count of, so whoever found something good, let him praise Allah for it. Whoever found other than that, has only himself to blame.)

This is why Allah said,

Commentary

Mentioned in the first two of the verses cited above is the punishment of disbelievers at the time of their death and the warnings given to them by the angels. Here, addressing the Holy Prophet ﷺ ، it has been said that had he seen the condition of the disbelievers at that time when the angels of Allah were beating their faces and backs as they extracted their souls and telling them to have a taste of the punishment of burning in the Fire, then, he would have seen some-thing awesome.

Some of the leading Commentators have declared this statement to be about the particular disbelievers from among the Quraysh who had come out to confront Muslims at the site of Badr where Allah Ta` ala had sent an army of angels to help Muslims. Thus, the meaning comes to be that the Quraysh chiefs who were killed in the battle of Badr were killed at the hands of the angels who were hitting them from the front on their faces and from the rear on their backs and were killing them in this manner while giving them the dark tidings of the punishment of Hell in the Hereafter.

Then, there are other Commentators who have kept the sense of this verse general in view of the generality of the words used in it. According to them, the verse means: When a disbeliever dies, the angel of death beats his face and back while taking out his soul. In some narrations, it appears that they have lashes of fire and maces of iron in their hands which they use to strike at the disbeliever condemned to death. But, as this punishment is not related to this world of elements, rather, is related to the universe of the grave which is known as Barzakh بَرزَخ (the post-death---pre-ressurrection state), therefore, this punishment is not generally seen optically.

Therefore, the modality used to address the Holy Prophet ﷺ was: 'And only if you were to see,' you would have seen a scene full of sobering lessons. This tells us that, after death, punishment is given to disbelievers while they are in the state of Barzakh, but that phenomenon is related to the universe of the Unseen کلام الغیب (` clam al-ghayb), therefore, it is not seen usually. The punishment of the grave finds mention in several other verses of the Holy Qur'an as well, while Hadith narrations on this subject just abound.

The granting of God’s bounty depends upon eligibility for entitlement to such bounty. At the national or community level, bounty is commensurate with the worth of the individuals making up the larger entity. Collective bounty or blessings are given according to the status of a community assessed at the level of its individuals. This means that if a group wants to have God’s collective grace, it should bend its entire energies to the improvement of the inner selves of its individuals. Similarly, if a community finds that collective bounties are taken away from it, instead of running after the bounties themselves, it should pursue its individuals, because of the fact that it is due to deterioration in individuals that it is deprived of bounties, and only on the reformation of individuals can it have God’s grace restored. When a community adopts the way of tyranny instead of justice and the way of arrogance instead of modesty, then a pronouncement of Truth is made before it so that it is given a warning. This declaration, in view of its perfect clarity, is a sign from God. Accepting it amounts to accepting God, just as its rejection amounts to rejection of God. When the call of God reveals itself to the extent of a sign (ayah), and appears before people, and still they reject it, they necessarily become liable for punishment. Though the beginning of this punishment starts in this world, the punishment of the world is far more lenient than the punishment that man is going to face after death. The beatings of the angels, humiliation before all the creatures, burning in the fire of hell—all these stages are so terrible that one cannot even imagine them in the present conditions. When a man adopts the ways of tyranny and arrogance, he receives at first a warning. When he does not learn a lesson from it, he is finally struck down by the severe punishment of God.