Surah Al-Bayyinah, Ayah 8

Mentioning the Worse and Best of Creation and Their Recompense

Allah informs of what will happen to the wicked disbelievers among the People of the Scripture and the idolators who oppose the Allah's divinely revealed Books and the Prophets whom He sent. He says that they will be in the fire of Hell on the Day of Judgement and they will abide therein forever. This means that they will remain in it and they will have no way out of it and they will not cease being in it.

أَوْلَـئِكَ هُمْ شَرُّ الْبَرِيَّةِ

(They are the worst of creatures.) meaning, they are the worst creation that Allah has fashioned and created. Then Allah informs about the situation of the righteous people who believed in their hearts and performed righteous deeds with their bodies. He says that they are the best of creation. Abu Hurayrah and a group of the scholars have used this Ayah as a proof that the believers have a status among the creatures that is better than the angels. This is because Allah says,

Verse [ 8 - the concluding phrase ] ذَٰلِكَ لِمَنْ خَشِيَ رَ‌بَّهُ (…That is for him who has awe of his Lord.) The word 'fear' or 'awe' here is not used in the sense of an 'agitated, disturbed or perturbed feeling' which we naturally have for an enemy, a beast, a ferocious animal or an obnoxious thing that might harm us. 'Khashyatullah' (Allah's awe) is, on the contrary, a feeling of deep, reverential awe that leads man to Allah's obedience. It is the awe of Allah's Majesty and His Incomparability that makes the perfect slave do every work under every circumstance to attain the Divine pleasure and evade every occasion of His displeasure. This is the axis on which rotates the religious perfection and all bounties of the Hereafter.

Al-hamdulillah

The Commentary on

Surah Al-Bayyinah

Ends here

The true religion of God is that according to which man should pray to and worship the one and only God; he should love and admire God from the bottom of his heart; he should consistently say his prayers and pay zakat (prescribed alms-giving). This is the real religion which comes from God. The best of all are those who adopt this correct religion and the worst are those who do not do so, or who devise another religion instead of the proper one and call the new religion the true religion.