Insights and Lessons from Az-Zamakhshari’s Al-Kashshaf on Al-Isra Verse 7

Here is the verse:

﴿إِنۡ أَحۡسَنتُمۡ أَحۡسَنتُمۡ لِأَنفُسِكُمۡۖ وَإِنۡ أَسَأۡتُمۡ فَلَهَاۚ فَإِذَا جَاۤءَ وَعۡدُ ٱلۡـَٔاخِرَةِ لِیَسُۥۤـُٔوا۟ وُجُوهَكُمۡ وَلِیَدۡخُلُوا۟ ٱلۡمَسۡجِدَ كَمَا دَخَلُوهُ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةࣲ وَلِیُتَبِّرُوا۟ مَا عَلَوۡا۟ تَتۡبِیرࣰا﴾ [الإسراء ٧]

“If you do good, you do good for yourselves; and if you do evil, it is against them [yourselves]. So when the promise of the latter [time] came, [We sent enemies] to disfigure your faces, and to enter the Masjid as they entered it the first time, and to destroy utterly all that they overcame.”

Let me arrange every point and draw out the lessons.

1. “If You Do Good… and If You Do Evil” — Good and Evil Belong Exclusively to You

Az-Zamakhshari’s concise gloss cuts straight to the meaning:

“Meaning: doing good and doing evil — both of them are exclusive to yourselves (mukhtassun bi-anfusikum); the benefit and the harm do not extend to anyone other than you.”

On this reading, the lam in “for yourselves” / “against them” is the lam of exclusive belonging (ikhtisas): the entire return of your deeds — reward or punishment — is yours alone, attached to you and to no one else.

He then cites the luminous saying of ‘Ali:

“And from ‘Ali (may Allah be pleased with him): ‘I have never done good to anyone, nor done evil to anyone’ — and he recited this verse.”

‘Ali’s meaning: whatever good he did, its true return was to himself; and any evil is ultimately against its doer — so, in the deepest reckoning, deeds are never truly “to” others; they belong to the one who does them.

KEY LESSONS:

• Your deeds are exclusively yours — they belong to you the way property belongs to its owner. Az-Zamakhshari’s “exclusive belonging” reading is the strongest possible statement of personal accountability: the reward and the punishment are attached to you and to no one else. No one will collect your reward in your place, and no one can be billed for your sin.
• ‘Ali’s words are a master key to sincerity and to peace of heart. When you truly grasp that your good is a gift to your own soul and any evil is a wound to it, two things happen: you stop performing good for the eyes of others (since it was always for yourself), and you stop resenting those who wrong you (since their evil is, in the end, against themselves). “I never did good or evil to anyone” — because everything returns to its author.
• (A note for the cross-commentary picture:) This “exclusive belonging” reading is exactly the one Al-Alusi cited from al-Kashshaf and then refined: he noted that worldly harm can sometimes spill onto the innocent, so he anchored the “exclusive belonging” firmly in the Hereafter, where each soul’s account never transfers (cross-ref “no bearer of burdens bears another’s burden,” 17:15). Read together, Zamakhshari states the principle and Al-Alusi locates it precisely: in the next life, ownership of your deeds is absolute.

2. “So When the Promise of the Latter Came” — The Omitted Answer

Az-Zamakhshari supplies the unspoken verb:

“‘So when the promise of the latter time came, We sent them (ba’athnahum) to disfigure your faces’ — [the answer ‘We sent them’] is omitted, because its earlier mention indicates it” — i.e., “We sent against you” already appeared in verse 5.

KEY LESSON: The Quran leaves the blow unspoken — “We sent them” is understood, not stated. The sentence “So when the promise of the latter came…” breaks off, and the dreadful answer is supplied only from the earlier “We sent against you” of verse 5. The eloquent silence makes the reader’s own mind complete the sentence of catastrophe.

3. “To Disfigure Your Faces” — The Marks of Grief, with a Quranic Witness

“The meaning of ‘to disfigure your faces’: to make them show the marks of harm and gloom — as in His saying: ‘the faces of those who disbelieved will be grieved (sī’at wujūhu-lladhīna kafarū)’ [Al-Mulk 67:27].”

Where the other commentators explained the “faces” through the psychology of grief showing on the face (and supported it with poetry), Az-Zamakhshari reaches instead for a Quranic parallel: the same root (sā’a / sī’at) is applied to faces in Al-Mulk 67:27.

KEY LESSONS:

• The face is where grief becomes visible — and the Quran itself confirms it. Zamakhshari grounds the image in revelation: as the faces of the disbelievers are “grieved” in 67:27, so the invaders were sent to make grief and gloom show on the faces of Bani Israil. The Quran is its own best commentary; one verse illumines another.
• Defeat is written on the face. The punishment is described not as an abstract loss but as visible distress on the human countenance — the universal sign of a people brought low. What befalls the heart of a humbled people appears, unmistakably, on its face.

4. The Variant Recitations (Qira’at)

Az-Zamakhshari lists the readings of liyasū’ū with his usual economy:

“It is read ‘liyasū’a’ (singular) — the pronoun referring to Allah, or to the promise, or to the sending. And ‘linasū’a’ with the nun [of majesty]. And in ‘Ali’s reading: ‘linasū’anna’ and ‘layasū’anna’ [with the heavy emphatic nun]. And it is read ‘linasū’an’ with the light emphatic nun.”

He adds the grammar that follows from these:

*”The lam in ‘to enter,’ on this [reading], is connected to an omitted [verb]: ‘and We sent them to enter.’ And ‘linasū’anna’ [on ‘Ali’s emphatic reading] is the answer of ‘when [it] came.'”

KEY LESSON: Every recitation preserves a true dimension of one event. The disfigurement is rightly attributed to the invaders (who did it), to the promise (the appointed disaster), to the sending (the dispatch), and — in the nun and oath-emphatic readings — to Allah Himself, who decreed it as an absolute certainty (“We shall surely disfigure…”). All causation returns to Allah, while the human agents remain fully responsible.

5. “To Destroy Utterly All That They Overcame”

Az-Zamakhshari gives two readings of mā ‘alaw:

“‘What they overcame’ is the object of ‘to destroy’ — i.e., to annihilate everything they overcame and took control of. Or in the meaning of: the duration of their dominance [i.e., ‘to destroy throughout the time they were dominant’].”

KEY LESSONS:

• Everything they had seized was marked for annihilation. On the first reading, the object of the destruction is all that they had conquered — their gains, their holdings, the very things their dominance had won them. What a people seizes through transgression can become precisely what is destroyed.
• On the second reading, the ruin lasted as long as their dominance did. The destruction was not one blow but a sustained devastation throughout the entire period of the invaders’ upper hand. Loss of Allah’s protection is not always a moment; it can be an era of unrelenting ruin.

6. Who Were the Invaders? (The Appended Historical Note)

The text carries an editorial note (drawn from Al-Khazin‘s tafsir) identifying the invaders — note that this is an appended clarification, not Az-Zamakhshari’s own words:

“‘So when the promise of the latter time came, We sent them’ — i.e., Our servants; and they, in this [latter] time, are the Persians and the Romans. Allah sent against them a king of the kings of Babylon called Kharush, who entered Sham with armies, killed and captured, until he nearly annihilated Bani Israil; a remnant remained until they multiplied, and they held leadership in Bayt al-Maqdis — until they changed and committed misdeeds. So Allah gave power over them to Titus son of Vespasian the Roman, who destroyed their lands and expelled them; and Bayt al-Maqdis remained in ruins until the caliphate of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, when the Muslims rebuilt it by his command.”

KEY LESSONS:

• The note places the second punishment with the Romans — Titus son of Vespasian. Like Al-Qurtubi (Caesar), Ar-Razi (Constantine), Al-Alusi (Vespasian/Titus in the Jewish reckoning), and Ibn Ashur (Vespasian and Titus in full), this identification puts the second corruption’s reckoning in the Roman era. The commentators converge: the two corruptions run from Babylon to Rome.
• The arc ends, as in Ibn Ashur, with restoration through Islam. Jerusalem lay in ruins under Rome until the Muslims rebuilt it under ‘Umar. However complete the ruin a people brings on itself, Allah’s larger plan bends toward the restoration of the sacred city — here, into the care of those who would honor it.
• Even the period of multiplying and leadership was only a reprieve, not a reprieve earned. The remnant grew, regained headship in Jerusalem — “until they changed and committed misdeeds,” and the next blow fell. Recovery that is not matched by reform simply restarts the cycle of corruption and consequence.

The Master Lesson from Az-Zamakhshari on Verse 7

Az-Zamakhshari’s spare, precise treatment crystallizes the verse into a few sharp truths:

🌙 Your deeds belong exclusively to you. Good and evil alike are mukhtassun bi-anfusikum — attached to your own soul, their benefit and harm reaching no one else in the final account. As ‘Ali said, reciting this very verse: “I have never done good to anyone, nor evil to anyone.”

🌙 The punishment came suddenly and was left grammatically unspoken — “We sent them” understood from verse 5 — and it was written on their very faces, “grieved” as the Quran elsewhere describes the faces of the disbelievers (67:27).

🌙 Everything they had seized was marked for utter destruction, throughout the whole duration of the invaders’ dominance.

🌙 The reckoning came by the hand of the Romans (Titus son of Vespasian) — and Jerusalem lay in ruins until the Muslims, under ‘Umar, rebuilt it: ruin for the corrupt, restoration through the faithful.

In ahsantum ahsantum li-anfusikum wa in asa’tum fa-laha. Fa-idha ja’a wa’du-l-akhirati liyasū’ū wujūhakum wa liyadkhulū-l-masjida kama dakhalūhu awwala marratin wa liyutabbirū mā ‘alaw tatbīrā.

“If you do good, you do good for yourselves; and if you do evil, it is against them. So when the promise of the latter came, [We sent enemies] to disfigure your faces, and to enter the Masjid as they entered it the first time, and to destroy utterly all that they overcame.”

The principle is exclusive and absolute: good belongs to its doer and evil to its doer; nothing of your account transfers to another. A people that meets Allah’s blessings with corruption has its gains utterly destroyed and its grief written on its faces — fulfilled, in history, by the Romans — while the sacred city it lost is restored through the hands of the faithful. So do good, for it is wholly your own, before the promise of the latter arrives.