Test with Good and Evil

بسم الله والحمد لله والصلاة والسلام على رسول الله ، وبعد

In the saying of Allaah تعالى:

﴿كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ وَنَبْلُوكُم بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ ﴾

{Everyone is going to taste death, and We shall test you with evil and with good by way of trial. And to Us you will be returned} [Surah al-Anbiyaa (21): 35]

Imaam Ibn Katheer رحمه الله said in his Tafseer:

كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ

(Everyone is going to taste death,)

وَنَبْلُوكُم بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً

(and We shall test you with evil and with good by way of trial) meaning: “We shall test you, sometimes with difficulties and sometimes with ease, to see who will give thanks and who will be ungrateful, who will have patience and who will despair.”

`Ali bin Abi Talhah reported from Ibn `Abbaas رضي الله عنهما:

وَنَبْلُوكُم

(and We shall test you) means, We will test you,

بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةً

(with evil and with good by way of trial) means: with difficulties and with times of prosperity, with health and sickness, with richness and poverty, with lawful and unlawful, obedience and sin, with guidance and misguidance.

وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ

(And to Us you will be returned) means: and We will requite you according to your deeds.

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Imaam al-Baghawi رحمه الله said:

وَنَبْلُوكُم بِالشَّرِّ وَالْخَيْرِ

(and We shall test you with evil and with good) means: we shall test you with severity and prosperity, health and sickness, wealth and poverty. And it is said: (you’ll be tried with) that which you like and that which you abhor.

فِتْنَةً

(as a trial) meaning: a test to see how you thanked (Allaah) in things which you loved, and bore patiently with things which you disliked.

وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ

(And to Us you will be returned.)

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Shaikh al-Sa`dee رحمه الله:

كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ

(Everyone is going to taste death,) and this includes the souls of all the creation. And verily! From this cup (death), everyone is going to drink, even if (apparently) the slave lives for long. Allaah has created His slaves for this Dunyaa, and ordered them, and forbade them, and has tested them with good and evil, with wealth and poverty, with glory and humiliation, with life and death, a trial from Him تعالى to test which one of them are best in deeds and who will be tempted (fall into error) at the advent of the trials and who will be successful.

وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ

(And to Us you will be returned.) We will reward you according to your deeds; good with good, and evil with evil.

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