Revile, and they will revile in return
وَلَا تَسُبُّوا۟ ٱلَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ فَيَسُبُّوا۟ ٱللَّهَ
lā tasubbū alladhīna yadʿūna min dūni llāhi fa-yasubbū llāha — do not revile those whom they call upon apart from Allah, so they would revile Allah
In 6:108 the verb sabba appears twice in one verse: the addressees are forbidden to revile others' deities, with the stated consequence that those others would then revile Allah — the same action rebounding from one party onto the other.
The verse builds a single sentence around one verb root used twice. The first occurrence, lā tasubbū, is a second-person masculine plural jussive: the addressees are told not to revile 'those whom they call upon apart from Allah'. The second occurrence, fa-yasubbū, is third-person masculine plural in the subjunctive, introduced by fā': it names what those others would then do — revile Allah — 'in hostility, without knowledge'. The two verbs are the same action with the parties reversed: what the addressees direct at the others' objects of worship would be returned, directed at Allah. The fā' prefix makes the second reviling a consequence of the first, and the verse gives the avoidance of this return as the reason for the prohibition. The verse then widens the frame: 'Thus We have made every community's deed seem fair to them', presenting the reciprocal reviling as one instance of a pattern in which each community views its own conduct favourably, before the closing statement that all return to their Lord, who will inform them of what they had been doing. The mirror structure is thus the verse's own argument: the prohibition is grounded not in the act of reviling itself but in the stated effect — that the same verb would come back, from them, upon Allah.
Where it occurs
- 6:108 Both occurrences sit in one verse: tasubbū forbids the addressees to revile others' deities, and fa-yasubbū states that those others would then revile Allah in return.
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