The Quran

وَالَّذينَ صَبَرُوا ابتِغاءَ وَجهِ رَبِّهِم وَأَقامُوا الصَّلاةَ وَأَنفَقوا مِمّا رَزَقناهُم سِرًّا وَعَلانِيَةً وَيَدرَءونَ بِالحَسَنَةِ السَّيِّئَةَ أُولٰئِكَ لَهُم عُقبَى الدّارِ

Muhammad Asad

and who are patient in adversity out of a longing for their Sustainer's countenance, and are constant in prayer, and spend on others, secretly and openly, out of what We provide for them as sustenance, and [who] repel evil with good.¹ It is these that shall find their fulfilment in the hereafter:²

Some of the commentators take this to mean that "if they have committed a sin, they repel it [i.e., its effect] by repentance" (Ibn Kaysan, as quoted by Zamakhshari), while others think that the "repelling" connotes the doing of a good deed in atonement of a - presumably unintentional - bad deed (Razi), or that it refers to endeavours to set evil situations to rights by word or deed (an alternative interpretation mentioned by Zamakhshari). But the great majority of the classical commentators hold that the meaning is "they repay evil with good"; thus Al-Hasan al-Basra (as quoted by Baghawi, Zamakhshari and Razi): "When they are deprived [of anything], they give; and when they are wronged, they forgive." Tabari's explanation is very similar: "They repel the evil done to them by doing good to those who did it"; and "they do not repay evil with evil, but repel it by [doing] good". See also 41:34-36.
Lit., "For them there will be the end-result [or "fulfilment"] of the [ultimate] abode". The noun 'uqba is regarded by almost all the philological authorities as synonymous with 'aqibah ("consequence" or "end" or "end-result"; hence also "recompense" and, tropically, "destiny" or "fulfilment"). The term ad-dar stands for ad-dar al-dkhirah, "the ultimate abode", i.e., life in the hereafter.