(… إِنَّ الَّذِينَ تَوَفَّاهُمُ الْمَلَائِكَةُ ) (Indeed, those whom the angels take [in death] …): In other verses, it is mentioned that Allah (swt) takes the souls at the time of their death:
} اللَّهُ يَتَوَفَّى الْأَنفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَالَّتِي لَمْ تَمُتْ فِي مَنَامِهَ{
(Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die [He takes] during their sleep.) (Az-Zumar: 42)
So who takes the souls at death, Allah (swt) or the angels?
There is no doubt that Allah (swt) is the One who gives the command and is the One who decides the terms, for He Who takes the souls and has entrusted the angel of death with that, assisted by other angels.
(… ظَالِمِي أَنفُسِهِمْ قَالُوا فِيمَ كُنتُمْ …) (…while wronging themselves – [the angels] will say, “In what [condition] were you?”…): A person may wrong others and wrong himself, while wronging people is the most severe darkness for a person. The Prophet said in a Holy (Qudsi) Hadith that he (saws) reported from Allah (swt):
“O MY slaves, I have made oppression unlawful for myself and I have made it unlawful among you, so do not oppress one another.”[1]
There is no screen between the invocation of the oppressed and Allah (swt), the Prophet (saws) said:
“There are three whose supplication is not rejected:
one who has just ended a fast, a just imam, and one who has been wronged whose supplication is raised by God above the clouds and for which the gates of heaven are opened. The Lord says, ‘I swear by my might that I will certainly help you, though it be after some time’.”[2]
A person who wrongs himself by committing sins such as theft and others, then he prioritizes immediate pleasure over permanent bliss, and this pleasure will be followed by regret, heartbreak and punishment in the Hereafter.
(… قَالُوا أَلَمْ تَكُنْ أَرْضُ اللَّهِ وَاسِعَةً فَتُهَاجِرُوا فِيهَا …) (…The angels will say, “Was not the earth of Allah spacious [enough] for you to emigrate therein?” …): The talking here is about the issue of immigration. The first migration was from Mecca to Abyssinia and the second from Mecca to Medina. The real reason for migration is that Muslims in Mecca were subjected to the most severe forms of abuse, torment, cruelty, terror and oppression, to the extent that some of them were dragged on the sands of the desert, such as Bilal, Sumaya, Ammar bin Yasir (Allah mab be pleased with them) and other companions. Just as the Prophet (saws) was sieged in the field of his uncle Abu Talib and was prevented from water and food, so he permitted the believers to emigrate and did not allow them to fight and gave them the reason for emigrating to Abyssinia, so he said:
“If you went out to Abyssinia; For there is a king in whose presence no one is wronged.”[3]
The King is Negus, who was Christian, he welcomed the emigrated Muslims and protected them from the oppression of Quraish and the polytheists of that time. The second migration was to Madinah, where the civilizational shift took place, as the Islamic society and civilization began to form, and the Prophet (saws) was laying down the general rules and foundations for building a symbiotic, solidarity and unified society, not afflicted by sectarian and ethnic diseases or religious tendencies. So he (saws) wrote the treaty, which stipulated that the Jews, the polytheists and the People of the Book in Medina had one hand over others, but later the Jews betrayed and broke the covenants and the treaty.
Migration was demanded at that time, and these words of the verse is addressing those who feared and refused to migrate for the sake of their money.
[1] Sahih Muslim, Book of Virtue, Enjoining Good Manners and Joining of the Ties of Kindship, Chapter of Forbidding the oppression, Hadith No. 2577.
[2] Sunan at-Tirmidhi, The Book of supplication, Chapter of forgiving, Hadith No. 3598.
[3] ar-Rawd al-anif, Vol.2, Page. 90.