54وَأَنيبوا إِلىٰ رَبِّكُم وَأَسلِموا لَهُ مِن قَبلِ أَن يَأتِيَكُمُ العَذابُ ثُمَّ لا تُنصَرونَAli UnalTurn to your Lord in penitence and submit to Him wholly before the punishment comes upon you (when it will be too late, and an acknowledgment of faith will no longer avail you); for after (that), you will not be helped.1The last two verses establish three essential principles concerning faith:God may forgive whom He wills; but in effect, He has made forgiveness dependent on repentance and mending one’s ways.For eternal salvation, belief and submission are both necessary. There is a difference between being a believer and being a Muslim. There are two aspects to being a Muslim. One is that if one sincerely confirms the essentials of faith, one is a believer and expected to live according to the rules of Islam. A true believer and Muslim is one who sincerely confirms the essentials of faith and fulfills the commandments of Islam. The other aspect is that one is a Muslim according to law if one does not pronounce anything contrary to faith and performs some Islamic acts, such as, in particular, performing the Jumu’ah Prayer in a mosque and paying the Prescribed Purifying Alms (Zakāh). Although such a person may be a hypocrite, he or she must be treated as a Muslim by law.The punishment mentioned in verse 54 may be either the punishment in the Here after, or one which will cause repentance to be of avail no longer (40: 85). When the decisive signs of death appear, or when God’s punishment, after many warnings (such as of the kind that came upon many bygone peoples), comes, repentance for unbelief or associating partners with God, and coming to belief, will not be acceptable.