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القرآن
2 The Qur'an explains the Qur'an 5 / 9

The model and its limit

Observation 2 examples 1 min

When the text offers a model to follow, it sets the model's limit itself through an exception. The exception is part of the teaching; it is read together with the passage of the Qur'an that explains it.

Sura 60 offers Ibrahim as a model: "You have had a good example in Ibrahim and those with him" (60:4). The model is a clean break with a people who obey others than God.

But the verse at once sets a limit: "except the saying of Ibrahim to his father: I will surely ask forgiveness for you" (60:4). That saying is not to be imitated.

Sura 9 gives the reason: "Ibrahim's asking forgiveness for his father was only because of a promise he had made him; but when it became clear to him that he was an enemy of God, he disavowed him." (9:114). The model is therefore complete: Ibrahim himself ended by disavowing his father.

Reading the model without its exception, or the exception without 9:114, draws a false lesson from it.

In the text

Example 60:4
إِلَّا قَوْلَ إِبْرَٰهِيمَ لِأَبِيهِ
“except the saying of Ibrahim to his father: I will surely ask forgiveness for you”
The exception set within the very verse of the model.
Example 9:114
تَبَرَّأَ مِنْهُ
“when it became clear to him that he was an enemy of God, he disavowed him.”
The passage that explains the exception.

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