وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا يَنفَعُهُمْ وَلَا يَضُرُّهُمْ وَكَانَ ٱلْكَافِرُ عَلَىٰ رَبِّهِۦ ظَهِيرًا · وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَٰكَ إِلَّا مُبَشِّرًا وَنَذِيرًا · قُلْ مَآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ أَجْرٍ إِلَّا مَن شَآءَ أَن يَتَّخِذَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِۦ سَبِيلًا
"Setting God aside, they serve what can neither profit nor harm them… We sent you only as a bringer of good news and as a warner. Say: 'I ask you no wage for this; only, let whoever wills take a way to his Lord.'"
| Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | The one who disbelieves backs up (Satan, or falsehood) against his Lord |
| 2 | Ẓahīr here means "cast behind the back, disregarded" |
The fifty-seventh verse, in refusing the demand for a wage, sets up an exception, and the content of the exception is worth recording:
Illā man shāʾa an yattakhidha ilā rabbihī sabīlā — "only that whoever wills should take a way to his Lord."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the kind of thing the exception is: what is asked for is not something that leaves the hand of the one who gives it. What is counted as the wage is to the benefit of the one who pays it. That is, the exception, having refused the demand, turns it into a different kind of thing.
The same structure was treated at al-Shūrā 42/23 (lā asʾalukum ʿalayhi ajran illa'l-mawaddata fi'l-qurbā), and the disagreement was set out in a table there. I rely on that treatment; both verses use the same pattern (lā asʾalukum … illā).
وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَٰكَ إِلَّا مُبَشِّرًا وَنَذِيرًا — two attributes: a bringer of good news and a warner. The same pair was treated at al-Aḥqāf 46/12 (li-yundhira … wa bushrā): the same text does two distinct jobs according to the one addressed. And the limit is drawn by these two jobs — a link in the line of responsibility set out in a table at al-Qaṣaṣ 28/56.