437

﴿7﴾ وَالَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ لَنُكَفّـِرَنَّ عَنْهُمْ سَيّـِئَاتِهِمْ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَحْسَنَ الَّذِي كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ

7. “ And those who believe, and do righteous deeds, We shall certainly acquit them of their evil deeds, and shall recompense them the best of what they were doing.”

Commentary:

Among the best examples of struggle that we studied in the previous holy verse are faith and righteous deed which are mentioned in this verse.

For receiving the Divine rewards, a person needs faith and righteous deeds both.

The Divine reward is not only forgiving the past sins, but it contains the best reward, too. However, this holy verse is an explanation and a complementary meaning for what was said closely in the previous verse under the title of ‘strive’. Here, the reality of struggle is explicitly explained, where it says:

Thus, the first benefit of this great struggle (both Faith and righteous deed) is the concealment of sins which man gains, in the same manners that reward reaches him, too; as it is mentioned at the end of this verse:

The Arabic word /nukaffirann/ is derived from /takfīr/ which originally means: ‘To conceal’, and the objective of it here is ‘the Divine forgiveness’.

438

Though Allah compensates all of good deeds whether they are ‘good’ or ‘better’ and ‘best’, the application of the phrase: ‘The best of what they were doing’ in this verse may point to this fact that Allah reckons all their good deeds as their best deeds. That is, if some of their deeds are excellent, some are good and some are medium, Allah counts all of them as excellent, and this is the meaning of ‘Allah’s grace’ which is also mentioned in other verses of the Qur’ān, such as Sura An-Nūr, No. 24, verse 38, which says: “That Allah may reward them with the best of what they have done, and increase for them out of His grace. …”

* * * *