فَلِذَٰلِكَ فَٱدْعُ ۖ وَٱسْتَقِمْ كَمَآ أُمِرْتَ ۖ وَلَا تَتَّبِعْ أَهْوَآءَهُمْ ۖ وَقُلْ ءَامَنتُ بِمَآ أَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ مِن كِتَٰبٍ ۖ وَأُمِرْتُ لِأَعْدِلَ بَيْنَكُمُ ۖ ٱللَّهُ رَبُّنَا وَرَبُّكُمْ ۖ لَنَآ أَعْمَٰلُنَا وَلَكُمْ أَعْمَٰلُكُمْ ۖ لَا حُجَّةَ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمُ ۖ ٱللَّهُ يَجْمَعُ بَيْنَنَا ۖ وَإِلَيْهِ ٱلْمَصِيرُ
Fa-li-dhālika fa'dʿu wa'staqim kamā umirt; wa lā tattabiʿ ahwāʾahum; wa qul āmantu bimā anzala'llāhu min kitāb; wa umirtu li-aʿdila baynakum; Allāhu rabbunā wa rabbukum; lanā aʿmālunā wa lakum aʿmālukum; lā ḥujjata baynanā wa baynakum; Allāhu yajmaʿu baynanā; wa ilayhi'l-maṣīr
"So call, then, and stand straight as you have been commanded; and do not follow their desires. Say: I believe in whatever Book God has sent down, and I am commanded to do justice among you. God is our Lord and your Lord. Our deeds are ours and your deeds are yours. Between us and you there is nothing to argue. God will gather us together; and to Him is the returning."
The verse is one of the most tightly arranged sentences in the sūra: short clauses one after another, without connectives, with the rhythm of a list. I take them in order.
| Order | Sentence | Turned towards |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fa-li-dhālika fa'dʿu | A command — to the Prophet |
| 2 | Wa'staqim kamā umirt | A command |
| 3 | Wa lā tattabiʿ ahwāʾahum | A prohibition |
| 4 | Āmantu bimā anzala'llāhu min kitāb | An avowal — about himself |
| 5 | Wa umirtu li-aʿdila baynakum | A statement of task |
| 6 | Allāhu rabbunā wa rabbukum | Common ground |
| 7 | Lanā aʿmālunā wa lakum aʿmālukum | The field that divides |
| 8 | Lā ḥujjata baynanā wa baynakum | The closing of the argument |
| 9 | Allāhu yajmaʿu baynanā wa ilayhi'l-maṣīr | The pointing out of the authority |
The arrangement follows a direction: first the commands turned upon himself (1-3), then the declaration of his own position (4-5), then what is shared with the other side (6), then what is separate (7), then the closing of the argument (8), then the authority (9).
I record this as my own reading: the sentence is a sequence showing how an argument is to be ended — and in the sequence it is striking that what is shared comes before what is separate. First "our Lord is the same" is said, then "our deeds are separate".
اسْتِقَامَة — root ق-و-م, Form X: to be straight, to stand without swerving. The same root as aqīmu'd-dīn in the thirteenth verse. Two verses apart: hold the religion up (13), and you yourself stand straight (15).
Kamā umirt — "as you have been commanded". This qualification is worth recording: the measure of straightness is not the person's own conception but a command that has been given.
The same expression occurs in Hūd 11/112: fa'staqim kamā umirta wa man tāba maʿak. The same pattern in both places.
min kitāb — indefinite and with min. This conveys universality: "whatever He has sent down of the kind 'Book'". The avowal, that is, is not confined to a single Book.
And this is the natural consequence of the list of five prophets in the thirteenth verse: if the same foundation was given to five prophets, then faith in the Books sent down to them is part of the avowal.
عَدْل — root ع-د-ل: to make a thing equal to its counterpart, to bring two sides level. In the root there is equivalence; ʿadl and ʿidl (the counterweight of a load on the other side) are from the same root. The two sides of a camel's load must be equal, or the load falls.
And note the object of the command: baynakum — "among you". Those addressed are the other side. Justice, that is, is set down as something required not within one's own community but between oneself and one's opponents.
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pronoun: despite all the "we/you" distinctions in the sentence, the object of the command of justice includes "you" as well.
حُجَّة — root ح-ج-ج. It was treated in al-Baqara at 2/139: to bring a proof, to prevail in an argument. And what was recorded there was this: the pattern is Form III (mufāʿala, muḥājja) — a two-sided, reciprocal argument.
The wording of the sentence has been understood in two ways, and both are defended in the classical sources:
| Reading | What it says | Its ground | Its result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. "There is no quarrel between us" | Ḥujja here means contention, dispute. The sentence means "we will not wrangle with you" | The Form III pattern of the root conveys reciprocal disputation; and the continuation of the sentence (Allāhu yajmaʿu baynanā) refers the matter to an authority | The argument is left, the parties separate |
| 2. "There is no more need to bring proofs" | The proof has already come and been set out; there is no longer a stage at which proofs are to be exchanged | The next verse (16) takes up exactly this point: alladhīna yuḥājjūna fi'llāhi min baʿdi mā ustujība lah — "those who argue after it has been accepted" | The argument is over, and the one who carries it on is in the wrong |
There is a point that must be recorded, and it is shared by both readings: the sentence does not silence the other side, it closes the argument. These are different things. To silence is to prevent the other from speaking; to close is to accept that the speaking will lead to no conclusion.
And a note about the law is required: in the classical sources this verse has been described as "the verse of mutual leaving-off" (mutāraka), and some authors have said that it was abrogated by rulings that came later. Per the method (Method) no legal ruling is issued in this commentary; nor is any side taken on the claim of abrogation. What I record is that the claim exists.
Three sentences of this verse overlap almost exactly with al-Baqara 2/139. I set the two texts side by side — this is a verifiable fact:
al-Baqara 2/139: "Qul a-tuḥājjūnanā fi'llāhi wa huwa rabbunā wa rabbukum; wa lanā aʿmālunā wa lakum aʿmālukum; wa naḥnu lahu mukhliṣūn." al-Shūrā 42/15-16: "…Allāhu rabbunā wa rabbukum; lanā aʿmālunā wa lakum aʿmālukum… wa'lladhīna yuḥājjūna fi'llāhi…"
| Element | al-Baqara 2/139 | al-Shūrā 42/15-16 |
|---|---|---|
| Rabbunā wa rabbukum | Present | Present |
| Lanā aʿmālunā wa lakum aʿmālukum | Present | Present |
| Yuḥājjūna fi'llāh | Present (as a question, 139) | Present (as a statement, 16) |
| The close | Wa naḥnu lahu mukhliṣūn | Allāhu yajmaʿu baynanā wa ilayhi'l-maṣīr |
Al-Shūrā 15-16, that is, sets up the elements of al-Baqara 2/139 again in the same order and gives them a different close.
What was recorded about that verse in al-Baqara was this:
"The objection inside the question is to the subject of the argument: fi'llāh — 'about God'. What is being argued over, that is, is not a ruling, a practice or a question of history; it is whom God belongs to. And the answer aims at exactly this point: 'He is our Lord and yours.' The premise of the argument is refused… The sentence turns the argument from belonging to action: what cannot be shared out is not the Lord but each person's own work."
What al-Shūrā adds is the close. Al-Baqara ended with an avowal (naḥnu lahu mukhliṣūn — "we are sincerely His"); al-Shūrā ends with a meeting: Allāhu yajmaʿu baynanā.
In the seventh verse the name of the day was given as yawmu'l-jamʿ — "the day of gathering". Here the same root comes as a verb: yajmaʿu baynanā.
And the point of arrangement is this: the verb takes baynanā — "what is between us". What is gathered, that is, is not the two sides but the distance between them.
I record this as my own reading: the sentence says that the division is not permanent, but it does not leave the joining to this world either. The argument is closed; the matter is not deferred — it is transferred elsewhere.
مَصِير — root ص-ي-ر: to turn from one state to another, to become something. The verb ṣāra in Arabic means "he became, he came to be". A maṣīr, then, is not only a "place of arrival" but "the state one turns into".
And this word will come back as a verb in the last verse of the sūra: alā ila'llāhi taṣīru'l-umūr (53). As recorded in the section on the structure of the sūra, these two occurrences bind its two ends.
Knowing at what point to leave an argument is harder than carrying it on. Most arguments lose their subject after a certain point and turn into each side's keeping of its position against the other.
The verse names that point and gives a way out. And the form of the way out is worth recording: not by declaring the other side in the wrong, but by referring both sides to the same authority. The sentence Allāhu rabbunā wa rabbukum preserves what is shared even at the place where the argument is closed.