Appearance
Sūrah al-Tawbah, verse 100
وَالسَّابِقُونَ الْأَوَّلُونَ مِنَ الْمُهَاجِرِينَ وَالْأَنْصَارِ وَالَّذِينَ اتَّبَعُوهُم بِإِحْسَانٍ رَّضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ وَرَضُوا عَنْهُ وَأَعَدَّ لَهُمْ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي تَحْتَهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَدًا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ الْفَوْزُ الْعَظِيمُ
Was-sābiqūna al-awwalūna mina al-muhājirīna wal-anṣāri wa alladhīna ittabaʿūhum bi-iḥsān, raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhum wa raḍū ʿanhu, wa aʿadda lahum jannātin tajrī taḥtahā al-anhāru khālidīna fīhā abadan, dhālika al-fawzu al-ʿaẓīm.
The early vanguard of the Emigrants and the Helpers and those who followed them in virtue—Allah is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him, and He has prepared for them gardens with streams running in them, to remain in them . That is the great success.
Context and significance
This verse stands as one of the most consequential Qur’anic statements about the earliest believers in Islam. It honors the sābiqūn al-awwalūn—the pioneers who embraced faith and sacrifice at the dawn of the Prophet’s mission—and extends that honor to later generations, provided they follow them bi-iḥsān (“with excellence”). Yet the verse also raises pressing questions that have long animated exegetical debate:
- Who exactly are the sābiqūn al-awwalūn? Are they the people of Badr, those who prayed toward both qiblahs, the pledge-takers at Ḥudaybiyyah, or all early converts in general?
- How should the conditional phrase bi-iḥsān be understood? Does divine approval attach to all Emigrants and Helpers collectively, or only to those among them who remained sincere and faithful?
- How does this verse reconcile with other passages that criticize hypocrisy among some Companions?
- What is the scope of “those who followed them”—does it encompass all later generations, or only those who emulate the pioneers in faith and virtue?
The significance of this verse is therefore twofold. Theologically, it frames the relationship between divine pleasure, human sincerity, and the historical Companions of the Prophet. Communally, it has been used to affirm the honor of the early Muslims while also generating debates about the conditions of that honor. In both respects, verse offers not only praise of the past but also a living standard for every believer: true success lies in following the pioneers of faith, but always with excellence.
What the exegetes say
At a glance
The question: Is God's stated pleasure a blanket approval of all the Emigrants and Helpers, or only of the sincere among them?
Ibn KathīrTakes it as divine approval guaranteeing the Emigrants and Helpers eternal success, without stating any condition; reviling the Companions, as he says the Rāfiḍah do, contradicts revelation itself.
Al-QurṭubīApplies the condition of excellence to later followers, who must emulate the Companions' virtues, not their errors; does not apply it to the Emigrants and Helpers, whom he ranks by merit.
Al-ṬabarsīGrounds the pioneers' merit in faith and endurance under persecution, and makes later followers' inclusion depend on emulating their sincerity; does not discuss whether every Emigrant and Helper is included.
ʿAllāmah ṬabāṭabāʾīHolds it covers only the sincere: min means 'some of', since the Qur'an records hypocrites among both groups and God is never pleased with wrongdoers; the pleasure is conditional, not absolute.
How each exegete answers the question, in one line. Click a name to read his reading in full.
Ibn Kathīr
In his commentary on verse , Ibn Kathīr highlights the exceptional rank of the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār, the two earliest groups of believers who embraced Islam and supported the Prophet Muḥammad (s.a.w.). The verse declares Allah’s pleasure with them, and their mutual satisfaction with Him, promising them eternal gardens beneath which rivers flow. Ibn Kathīr stresses that this verse stands as a clear testimony of their virtue, as it singles them out for divine approval and guarantees them everlasting success.
He explains that the foremost among the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār were those who pledged their allegiance to the Prophet at al-Ḥudaybiyyah, known as the pledge of al-Riḍwān. Reports from early authorities such as Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, al-Ḥasan, and Qatādah identify them as those who stood by the Messenger through the pivotal tests of early Islam, including prayer toward both qiblahs, first Jerusalem and then the Kaʿbah. Their readiness to follow the Prophet without hesitation reflected their deep sincerity and faith, and Allah affirmed His eternal pleasure with them.
Ibn Kathīr then draws out the implications of this divine approval. He warns against those who curse, revile, or show enmity toward the Companions, noting that such behavior is a sign of deviation and spiritual corruption. He singles out the Rāfiḍah, (a sect of Shiites) whom he describes as a misguided sect that hated the best of the Companions, especially Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, the truthful and rightly guided caliph. For Ibn Kathīr, this hostility toward those whom Allah has declared His pleasure upon reveals a twisted disposition and an opposition to the very testimony of the Qur’an. To oppose the Companions is, in his view, to oppose Allah Himself, for they are His chosen servants.
By contrast, he praises the followers of the Sunnah who align themselves with Allah’s decree. These are the believers who love those whom Allah loves and disassociate from those whom Allah despises. They remain loyal to the Prophet’s companions and allies, while showing hostility only to the enemies of God. Ibn Kathīr underscores that true followers of the Sunnah are not innovators but rather maintain continuity with the path of the earliest generations, faithfully transmitting their legacy without alteration.
The commentary closes with a reinforcement of the Qur’an’s verdict: that the Muhājirūn, the Anṣār, and those who followed them in faith and goodness are the truly successful, the chosen servants of Allah, and the ones upon whom divine pleasure rests forever. To honor them, therefore, is to honor Allah’s word; to revile them is to contradict revelation itself. Ibn Kathīr thus uses this verse to establish not only their eternal status but also the foundational principle of loyalty to the first generations of Islam as the bedrock of authentic faith.
Source: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Abridged). Translated by Ṣafī al-Raḥmān. Vol. 4 (Chapter 9, Verse 100) Riyadh: Maktaba Dār-us-Salām, 2003.
Al-Qurṭubī
In his commentary on the verse , al-Qurṭubī highlights both the status of the earliest Muslims and the virtues of those who followed in their path.
He begins by noting that the verse comes after the mention of the desert Arabs, contrasting their varied states with the lofty rank of the Muhājirūn and Anṣār. These earliest companions are praised for their precedence in embracing Islam and their sacrifices in migration and support of the Prophet (s.a.w.). The Qur’an explicitly distinguishes them as “the foremost”, though scholars differed over who exactly fell into this category. Some held that it referred to those who prayed facing both the two qiblahs, while others restricted it to the people of Badr, or to those who pledged allegiance at Ḥudaybiyyah. There was, however, consensus that whoever migrated before the change of the qiblah belonged to the class of the foremost.
Al-Qurṭubī also records the debates about the very first person to embrace Islam. Among the various reports, many scholars affirmed that Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq was the first man, Khadījah the first woman, ʿAlī the first child, Zayd ibn Ḥāritha the first freedman, and Bilāl the first slave. The disagreement, he notes, stems more from perspective than from contradiction, as each source emphasized a particular category.
The question of precedence further extends to the order of merit among the companions. According to al-Qurṭubī, the scholars of his school agreed that the best of them were the four rightly-guided caliphs, followed by the rest of the ten promised Paradise, then the veterans of Badr, then the people of Uḥud, and then those who pledged allegiance at Ḥudaybiyyah. Within this hierarchy, Abū Bakr is unanimously given primacy as the most virtuous of the companions.
Al-Qurṭubī then reflects on the nature of “precedence.” He cites Ibn al-ʿArabī, who explained that precedence can be by time, by place, or by quality of faith and obedience. Of these, the highest is the precedence of faith, for it is not mere chronology but the depth of submission and surrender to God that matters. Thus the Prophet (s.a.w.) himself said that his community, though last in time, was foremost in truth and guidance.
The verse also extends divine approval to “those who followed them with excellence”. Al-Qurṭubī reports that ʿUmar once read the verse without the conjunction “and,” believing the privilege to be restricted to the Anṣār alone, but Ubayy ibn Kaʿb corrected him, pointing to other Qur’anic passages which clearly include later generations. The condition of “with excellence” is key: one must follow the companions in their virtues, not in their errors, for they were not infallible.
In discussing the followers, al-Qurṭubī turns to the concept of the tābiʿūn. He explains that the people of hadith generally count every Muslim who saw the Prophet (s.a.w.) as a companion, while anyone who met a companion is considered a tābiʿī. Within the tābiʿūn there were ranks, the greatest of whom were the seven jurists of Madinah, like Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib and ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr. He also notes a special group called the mukhaḍramūn, those who lived in both the Jāhiliyyah and the time of the Prophet but never met him, though they later accepted Islam.
Finally, al-Qurṭubī closes by reminding that this verse is part of a larger Qur’anic affirmation of the honor of this ummah: {You are the best nation brought forth for mankind} () and {Thus We have made you a middle nation} (). The Prophet (s.a.w.) himself longed to meet his “brothers,” meaning those who would come later yet follow him with sincerity. Thus, for believers of every age, the path to Allah’s pleasure and Paradise lies in emulating the way of the first generation and their righteous followers.
Source: Al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qur’ān (Tafsīr al-Qurṭubī), Vol. 10, under Surah Al-Tawba, Ayah 100, Pub. by Al-Risalah Foundation, Beirut.
Al-Ṭabarsī
Al-Ṭabarsī presents both grammatical and exegetical reflections, as well as reports concerning its occasion of revelation. He begins by discussing the variant readings, where some recited al-Anṣār (the Helpers) in the nominative, connecting them with al-Sābiqūn (the foremost), while others read it in the genitive, linking them with al-Muhājirīn (the Emigrants). Both readings convey the meaning that the verse speaks of those who preceded others in faith and obedience, whether from among the Emigrants who left Mecca or the Helpers who supported the Prophet in Medina.
The exegete then moves to the context, explaining that after Allah had mentioned the hypocrites and disbelievers in preceding verses, He contrasted them here with those who were the earliest to embrace Islam. The foremost are described as those who hastened to belief and obedience, thus securing precedence and greater merit. Their superiority lies in their willingness to endure hardship and persecution at a time when the Prophet’s mission was fragile and opposed by the majority of Quraysh. Those who follow them in goodness are also included, showing that the path of righteousness remains open to later generations, provided they emulate the sincerity and obedience of the first Muslims.
Al-Ṭabarsī also records differing reports about who the very first to accept Islam was. Many traditions hold that Khadījah was the first to believe, followed by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, who was still a young boy but is reported to have prayed alongside the Prophet for several years before anyone else joined them. Some traditions emphasise Abū Bakr as the first adult man to accept Islam, while others mention Zayd ibn Ḥārithah or companions such as ʿUthmān, al-Zubayr, Ṭalḥah, and Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ. Within the Shīʿī reports, particular emphasis is placed on ʿAlī’s precedence, with traditions in which he refers to himself as “the servant of Allah, the brother of His Messenger, and al-Ṣiddīq al-Akbar,” declaring that he prayed with the Prophet for seven years before anyone else. In some narrations, Abū Ṭālib is portrayed as affirming and encouraging his son’s loyalty to the Prophet, recognizing that Muhammad called only to goodness.
The verse is thus seen as both a commemoration of those earliest believers and as an affirmation of their eternal reward. Allah’s pleasure is described as the greatest gift they receive, while their contentment lies in the certainty of His promise. The preparation of gardens beneath which rivers flow signifies their eternal felicity, contrasted with the fleeting trials of their worldly struggle. Al-Ṭabarsī concludes that this is the “great triumph,” for it marks the culmination of faith, sacrifice, and perseverance in the path of God.
Source: Majmaʿ al-Bayān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, vol. 5 (Qom: Dār al-ʿIlm), commentary on Q. 9:100.
ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī
Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s exegesis of Qur’an begins with a discussion of the variant Qurʾānic readings. The standard recitation, which connects “the Emigrants” with “the Helpers,” restricts the reference to the sābiqūn awwalūn (the early vanguard) among both groups. An alternative reading from Yaʿqūb, however, makes “the Helpers” independent, thus including all of them within the scope of the verse.
He then surveys the different interpretations that earlier exegetes gave for sābiqūn awwalūn: some said it referred to those who prayed both towards Jerusalem and Mecca; others restricted it to those at the Pledge of Ḥudaybiyyah, those at the Battle of Badr, or those who converted before the Prophet’s emigration. Ṭabāṭabāʾī, however, rejects these specific identifications as too narrow. Instead, he argues from the language of the verse that the “early vanguard” refers more generally to the Emigrants who left their homes for the Prophet’s sake, and the Helpers who came to his aid when Islam was still fragile and persecuted. Thus, it includes those who laid the foundations of Islam—those who endured harassment, exile, and loss of property for the sake of faith, and those who sheltered and defended the Prophet before the religion became dominant.
The phrase that follows, “and those who followed them in virtue”, introduces a third group. Ṭabāṭabāʾī stresses that the Qurʾan does not restrict this group to a particular generation; rather, it encompasses all believers until the Day of Judgment who follow the vanguard truthfully and virtuously. Importantly, he highlights that the word iḥsān (“virtue”) is indefinite in the verse, indicating a special quality of following—the following must be done with sincerity and in pursuit of the truth, not out of ignorance, prejudice, self-interest, or whim. Just as the Qurʾan criticizes those who follow forefathers blindly or submit to the Devil, it praises those who “listen to the word and follow the best of it” (). Thus, true “following” is itself a form of direct allegiance to the truth, not merely imitation of predecessors.
Ṭabāṭabāʾī further clarifies the relational dimension of the terms “vanguard” and “followers.” Each generation of Muslims is, in one sense, a “vanguard” for those who come later and “followers” of those who came before. The adjective awwalūn (“early”) therefore specifies that this verse speaks of the very first generation—the companions who established Islam at its inception. The three classes of believers are thus reduced to: (1) the early vanguard among the Emigrants, (2) the early vanguard among the Helpers, and (3) all those who follow them virtuously throughout history.
From this analysis, several principles emerge. First, the superiority of the early vanguard is affirmed: they are praised because they were the first to believe, to endure hardship, and to establish the religion when it was weak. Second, the Qurʾanic wording “of the Emigrants and the Helpers” employs the preposition min in the sense of division (tabʿīḍ), not exposition (bayān). This means that not all Emigrants and Helpers are included, but only those among them who truly met the conditions of faith and righteousness. The Qurʾan itself records that among the Emigrants and Helpers were hypocrites, transgressors, and those whom the Prophet disavowed—God cannot be said to be pleased with such people. Thus, divine pleasure here is conditional, not absolute.
Third, this conditionality is reinforced by the Qurʾan’s own system of reward and punishment. Numerous verses make clear that God is never pleased with wrongdoers or hypocrites and does not reconcile with the transgressing lot. If this verse were taken as an unconditional blanket approval of all Emigrants, Helpers, and Followers, it would undermine the entire Qurʾanic doctrine of accountability. Instead, Ṭabāṭabāʾī insists that the divine pleasure promised here applies only to those who had genuine faith and performed righteous deeds.
Finally, he reflects on the theological meaning of “God is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him.” God’s pleasure is not an essential attribute (ṣifat al-dhāt), which would imply change in the Divine Essence, but an attribute of action (ṣifat al-fiʿl). It refers to how God treats His servants: His “pleasure” is manifested in bestowing mercy and reward, just as His “displeasure” is manifested in withholding it. Hence, while God’s pleasure may vary in temporal instances (as in the pledge of Ḥudaybiyyah, where God was pleased at that moment), the pleasure described in verse is enduring and permanent. It refers to those who are truly the best of the Muslim community across generations, whose faith and righteous conduct secure God’s eternal satisfaction with them.
Source: Al-Mīzān fī Tafsīr al-Qur'ān, Eng. Vol. 18 under Chapter 9, Verse 100 (Tawheed Institute, Australia).
Read ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s full commentary in Tafsir al-Mizan: 9:97–106 on almizan.org ↗
Our reflection
This is our own reflection on the readings above. It is one way of reading the comparison, offered to encourage further thought rather than as the final word.
The four exegetes presented verse through a shared lens of reverence for the earliest believers, yet they part company over who exactly is embraced by the verse and on what grounds. Ibn Kathīr takes the most expansive—and polemical—line: “the early vanguard” are the Companions par excellence, especially the Emigrants and the Helpers, and God’s stated pleasure functions as a blanket, permanent ratification of their virtue. He cites competing identifications of the sābiqūn al-awwalūn (people of Badr, those who prayed toward both qiblahs, those who pledged at Ḥudaybiyyah), but the taxonomy matters less to him than the theological outcome: honoring the Companions is a touchstone of orthodoxy, while reviling them (he singles out the Rāfiḍah) is deviation. In this frame, “those who followed them” are the Sunnī faithful who love whom God loves. What this reading gains in communal solidarity it loses in textual nuance: Ibn Kathīr does not probe the Qur’an’s conditional “with excellence” (bi-iḥsān), nor does he reconcile blanket approval with other passages that expose hypocrisy and moral failure among some Emigrants and Helpers.
Al-Qurṭubī is closer to Ibn Kathīr in spirit than to the later philosophical precision of Ṭabāṭabāʾī, but he is more careful with the internal debates. He canvasses views on who counts as the early vanguard and, true to his legal-linguistic temperament, treats the clause “and those who followed them with excellence” as programmatic rather than merely honorific: later generations enter the circle of divine pleasure only insofar as they emulate the pioneers’ faith, sacrifice, and sincerity. He even preserves reports about first-embracers across social strata—Khadījah, Abū Bakr, ʿAlī, Zayd, Bilāl—using them to illustrate how precedence was earned in adversity. Yet his conditionality is applied mainly to the Followers, not explicitly to the Emigrants and Helpers themselves; the result is a largely celebratory hierarchy (four caliphs → ten promised Paradise → Badr, Uḥud, Ḥudaybiyyah) that leaves unresolved how the Qur’an’s censure of hypocrites within those cohorts squares with an apparently categorical “God is pleased with them.”
Al-Ṭabarsī keeps the historical canvas but re-centers the criterion: the merit praised here is tested sincerity under pressure, not mere group identity. He notes variant readings that either pair the Anṣār with the Muhājirūn as co-pioneers or read them as a subset of the foremost, and he includes both Sunni reports (that highlight Abū Bakr and others) and Shīʿī narrations that foreground ʿAlī’s precedence. Still, his through-line is ethical: divine pleasure extends to “those who followed them” only on the condition of iḥsān; it cannot be taken as a blanket acquittal of every individual labeled Emigrant or Helper given the Qur’an’s own exposure of hypocrisy. In this he stands nearer to Ṭabāṭabāʾī than to Ibn Kathīr or al-Qurṭubī: the praise is real and immense, but it is tethered to sincerity, not to labels.
Ṭabāṭabāʾī presses that conditionality into a coherent system. He begins at the level of grammar: the preposition min (“of the Emigrants and the Helpers”) indicates some of, not all of, thereby harmonizing with other verses that record hypocrites and wrongdoers among both groups. He resists restrictive historical identifications of the sābiqūn (Badr alone, the two qiblahs, Ḥudaybiyyah), arguing instead that the “early vanguard” encompasses all who laid Islam’s foundations before its ascendancy—those who migrated, protected, and sacrificed when the Prophet’s mission was most fragile. He then defines following “with excellence” as truth-seeking free of whim and blind imitation, aligning it with the Qur’an’s praise of those who “listen to the word and follow the best of it” (). Most distinctively, he treats “God’s pleasure” as an attribute of action, not essence: it attaches to the sincere because of their faith and deeds and is therefore fully consistent with the Qur’an’s universal rule that God is not pleased with wrongdoers. In his hands, the verse honors three enduring classes—the genuine pioneers among the Emigrants, the genuine pioneers among the Helpers, and every later believer who follows them bi-iḥsān—and it does so without collapsing into either partisan ranking or blanket absolution.
Viewed together, the four readings trace a spectrum. Ibn Kathīr and, to a lesser degree, al-Qurṭubī use to solidify communal reverence for the Companions, sometimes at the cost of the verse’s built-in condition; Al-Ṭabarsī integrates early Sunni and Shīʿī reports but keeps the accent on sincerity rather than identity; and Ṭabāṭabāʾī supplies the tightest reconciliation between praise and accountability, grounding the scope of the verse in grammar, Qur’anic cross-references, and a theology of divine pleasure as contingent reward. The common denominator is uncontroversial—the pioneers are praised and those who emulate them in virtue share their promise—while the fault line is whether that praise is categorical for whole cohorts or reserved for the sincere within them. On that decisive point, Ṭabāṭabāʾī’s conditional reading offers the most internally coherent bridge between and the Qur’an’s wider doctrine that honor with God is always tethered to faith, righteousness, and iḥsān.
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