state receive.
This recompense is called the dominion of bounties, and it is the greatest dominion. This is His saying, exalted is He: “Faces that day are radiant, looking toward their Lord” [75:22–23]—that is, the blessings of their Lord—[ilā has] the plural ālāʾ. The “ilā of their Lord” attributed to Him here is that which He would deserve, were He to accept recompense of this description. Those things therefore become the recompense of these people. This belongs to the same subject as what God asks of His servants, saying:
“Remember Me” [2:152], “Worship Me” [36:61], “Obey Me” [3:50], and “Give thanks to Me and do not deny Me” [2:152]. All this is recompense from the servant in return for God's blessing him with existence alone. How much more when there is added to this what He created for his sake of inward and sensory blessings! He, exalted is He, says: “I created jinn and humankind only that they should worship Me” [51:56]. He thus gives a reason: they worship Him because He has blessed them by bringing them into existence, for the completeness of the rank of knowledge and existence in respect of the kinds mentioned. Know this. It is not for the completeness of the rank of existence and knowledge without this qualification, for that would be sufficiently attained by creating one originated thing and bringing into existence within it originated knowledge concerning God and created being. But since the kinds are delimited with God, and He brought them all into existence while these two kinds remained, He communicated concerning them what He mentioned. We have explained it according to what their Creator, exalted is He, intends in creating them, as the situation gives.
Part Eighty-Eight ends. It is followed by Eighty-Nine, Question One Hundred and Twelve.
Notes
Translator’s note TN3724-1: The reading turns on ilā, a singular associated with ālāʾ, “bounties,” sharing the unvoweled spelling of ilā, “toward,” in 75:23. The compressed gloss “plural: ālāʾ” is understood as specifying the plural of ilā; the bracketed words make that relation explicit. The argument applies the recompense God would deserve as thanker, if He accepted recompense, to these thankful servants.
