The Story
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[28:85]
VERILY, [O believer,] He who has laid down this Qur’ān in plain terms, making it binding on thee, will assuredly bring thee back [from death] to a life renewed.
Say [unto those who reject the truth]: My Sustainer knows best as to who is right-guided and who is obviously lost in error!"
* v.85 : According to Mujāhid (as quoted by Tabarī), the phrase farada ‘alayka is almost synonymous with a‘tāka, “He gave [it] to thee.” This, however, elucidates only one part of the above complex expression, which, I believe, has here a meaning similar to that of faradnāhā (“We laid it down in plain terms”) occurring in the first verse of sūrah 24 (An-Nūr) and explained in the corresponding note 1. In the present context, the particle ‘alayka (“upon thee”), with its pronominal suffix, gives to the above clause the additional meaning of a moral obligation on the part of the recipient of the Qur’anic message to conform his or her way of life to its teachings; hence my compound rendering of the phrase.
* The term ma‘ād denotes, literally, “a place [or “a state”] to which one returns,” and, tropically, one’s “ultimate destination” or “ultimate condition”; in the present context, it is obviously synonymous with “life in the hereafter.” This is how most of the classical authorities interpret the above phrase. But on the vague assumption that this passage is addressed exclusively to the Prophet, some commentators incline to the view that the noun has here a specific, purely physical connotation – “a place of return” – allegedly referring to God’s promise to His Apostle (given during or after the latter’s exodus from Mecca to Medina) that one day he would return victoriously to the city of his birth. To my mind, however, the passage has a much deeper meaning, unconnected with any place or specific point in history: it is addressed to every believer, and promises not only a continuation of life after bodily death but also a spiritual rebirth, in this world, to anyone who opens his heart to the message of the Qur’ān and comes to regard it as binding on himself.
* Lit., “as to who comes with guidance.”