Surah An-Nahl, Ayah 110

The One who is forced to renounce Islam will be forgiven if He does Righteous Deeds afterwards

This refers to another group of people who were oppressed in Makkah and whose position with their own people was weak, so they went along with them when they were tried by them. Then they managed to escape by emigrating, leaving their homeland, families and wealth behind, seeking the pleasure and forgiveness of Allah. They joined the believers and fought with them against the disbelievers, bearing hardship with patience. Allah tells them that after this, meaning after their giving in when put to the test, He will forgive them and show mercy to them when they are resurrected.

يَوْمَ تَأْتِى كُلُّ نَفْسٍ تُجَـدِلُ

((Remember) the Day when every person will come pleading) meaning making a case in his own defence.

عَن نَّفْسِهَا

(for himself.) means, no one else will plead on his behalf; not his father, not his son, nor his brother, nor his wife.

وَتُوَفَّى كُلُّ نَفْسٍ مَّا عَمِلَتْ

(and every one will be paid in full for what he did,) meaning whatever he did, good or evil.

وَهُمْ لاَ يُظْلَمُونَ

(and they will not be dealt with unjustly.) meaning there will be no decrease in the reward for good, and no increase in the punishment for evil. They will not be dealt with unjustly in the slightest way.

Sequence of Verses

Warnings of punishment against disbelief (kufr) - whether original or apostacy (irtidad) - appeared in previous verses. After that, in the first (106) of the initial three verses cited above, it has been pointed clearly that 'Iman or the declaration of faith is a wealth that could work wonders for a kafir (disbeliever) or murtadd (apostate) who - if he were to come up with an honest and true 'Iman - all his past sins would stand forgiven.

In the second verse (107), the last day of Qiyamah was mentioned for the reason that all this phenomena of reward and punishment has to occur after that. In the third verse (108), it was said that the real punishment of disbelief and sin will, though come after the Qiyamah, yet there are some sins the punishment of which is faced in a certain degree within the present world.

Before God, reality is what counts and not simply outward appearances. This is why liberal concessions have been made to man in Islam. If a person is truly loyal to God in his heart, but under serious compulsion and to save his own life he utters something against his faith, he will not be castigated for this by God. But those who have changed from the inside and who, under the influence of Satanic doubt or the pressure of circumstances, have willingly adopted some way other than God’s way are not pardonable. When an individual behaves faithlessly rather than as a man of faith, the reason for it is always worldliness. Looking to the salvaging of his worldly interests, he adopts the way of the unbeliever. Had he understood the value of the Hereafter, worldly interest would have appeared of so little worth to him that renouncing the Hereafter for the sake of the world would have seemed absurd. If, in the eyes of any individual, worldly benefits appear to outweigh the gains of the Hereafter, the result is necessarily that he is not able to judge matters from the point of view of the Hereafter. He sees and hears, but due to his inclination toward the world, he loses sight of the various aspects of the Hereafter. He is only able to see those aspects which are connected with worldly considerations. Those who reach this stage of neglectfulness are fated to suffer eternal loss.