فَفِرُّوٓا۟ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ ۖ إِنِّى لَكُم مِّنْهُ نَذِيرٌ مُّبِينٌ وَلَا تَجْعَلُوا۟ مَعَ ٱللَّهِ إِلَٰهًا ءَاخَرَ ۖ إِنِّى لَكُم مِّنْهُ نَذِيرٌ مُّبِينٌ
Fa-firrū ila'llāh; innī lakum minhu nadhīrun mubīn · Wa lā tajʿalū maʿa'llāhi ilāhan ākhar; innī lakum minhu nadhīrun mubīn "So flee to God. I am to you a clear warner from Him. And do not set up another god alongside God. I am to you a clear warner from Him."
- فِرَار — flight. The Qurʾān uses it: "That day man will say: where is the place of flight?" (al-Qiyāma 75/10) — ayna'l-mafarr.
- مَفَرّ — a place of flight.
- And one concrete use of the root: فَرَّ ٱلْفَرَسَ — to open a horse's mouth and look at its teeth in order to know its age. The lexicographers record this use and build the link by way of the idea of "bringing to light"; I do not present this link as a settled etymology.
And this verse was already named in the section on al-Qiyāma. There, in treating the question "where is the place of flight?", this verse was cited.
To flee is to move away from a danger. And the verse does not say "flee from God" — it says "flee to God".
The direction of the flight and the thing fled from, that is, come out at the same address. And this is a point regularly recorded in the classical sources: the flight is from God's punishment to God's mercy; the only place of refuge is the place that is feared.
The Qurʾān sets up this idea elsewhere too. And the structure of istiʿādha (taking refuge) treated in the discussions of al-Falaq and al-Nās in this commentary carries the same logic: the one taken refuge in is the owner of everything; and so there is no refuge apart from Him.
And the choice of verb conveys a speed. The verse could have said irjiʿū (return), tūbū (repent), āminū (believe). All of these convey a change of direction. فِرُّوا, on the other hand, conveys urgency: the one who flees does not deliberate, he runs.
And the particle fāʾ ties the command to the three preceding verses. The argument is complete, that is: the sky was built, the earth was spread, everything was created in pairs — so flee. No intervening sentence comes between the proof and the command.
The same sentence is repeated in two verses. And repetition has been treated several times in this commentary: the work a sentence repeated ten times does, in the section on al-Mursalāt; the refrain-like structures in al-Raḥmān.
50: What is to be done — fa-firrū ila'llāh (flee to God). A positive command. 51: What is not to be done — lā tajʿalū maʿa'llāhi ilāhan ākhar (do not set up another god). A negative command.
And the same ground is given for both. The warner's existence, that is, grounds both what must be done and what must not be done.
This structure belongs to the same family as the pair of negation and affirmation recorded in the sections on al-Kāfirūn and al-Ikhlāṣ: one establishes what is rejected, the other what is accepted. There two sūras shared this work; here two verses.
In the preceding verses the speaker was plural: banaynāhā, farashnāhā, khalaqnā — "We built, We spread, We created." And in the fifty-sixth verse it will be singular again: mā khalaqtu — "I created".
| View | Explanation |
|---|---|
| The Prophet | The sentence is a word commanded to be said; an elided qul (say) stands at its head |
| God | The word nadhīr can be ascribed to God too; and the expression minhu (from Him) is strained, but can be read as an expression of distance |
The first view is far more widespread and its ground is in the wording: minhu — "from Him". The speaker is speaking of someone other than himself. God does not say "from Him" of Himself.
I too take the first view as my basis. It is not binding, but I have to state that the second view has a serious problem with the wording.
And the matter of the elided qul: that the command "say" is dropped at the head of some sentences in the Qurʾān is a known situation, and the grammarians record it.
Root: ن-ذ-ر. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Mursalāt 77/6 (nudhr); I do not repeat it. In summary: indhār is to give notice before a thing comes; a warning cannot be made after the event.
And the second thing recorded there finds its work here: ʿudhr and nudhr were named together — leaving no excuse, and warning. The legal function of a warning is to remove the excuse.
مُبِين — root ب-ي-ن: to separate, to be clear. Ibāna (the ifʿāl form) — to make clear. Mubīn means both "what is clear" and "what makes clear"; the pattern can be read as transitive and as intransitive.
The phrase "a clear warner", that is, says two things: the warning is intelligible, and the warning brings something to light.