Wala tufsidoo fee al-ardi baAAda islahiha wadAAoohu khawfan watamaAAan inna rahmata Allahi (surah Araf: 56)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(7:56) Anddo not make mischief in the earth after it has been set in order, *44 and call upon Him with fear and longing. *45 Surely Allah's mercy is close to those who do good.

Wa laa tufsidoo fil ardi ba`da islaahihaa wad`oohu khawfanw wa tama`aa; inna rahmatal laahi qareebum minal muhsineen

*44). The command not to make mischief in the earth means not to vitiate the right order of life. What basically, constitutes 'mischief-making' is to surrender oneself to one's lusts, to commit acts in subservience to other human beings and to subscribe to base morals, social orders, civilizations, principles and laws derived from sources other than God's Guidance. This is the essential mischief from which innumerable evils issue and which the Qur'an seeks to eradicate. The Qur'an also emphasizes that sound order is the original condition, and disorder and mischief occurred later as accidents resulting from man's ignorance and transgression. In other words, man's life on earth did not start with ignorance, savagery, polytheistic beliefs, rebellion against God and moral disorder whereafter reforms were gradually introduced. On the contrary, man's life began with good order and was later corrupted because of man's perversity and folly. God sent Prophets from time to time in order to eradicate the disorder that had set in and to restore the original, good order. These Prophets constantly ehorted people to refrain from disrupting the original order and creating mischief.
Thus the Qur'anic view on this question is altogether different from that of the proponents of the false doctrine of evolution, who postulate that man has gradually come out of darkness into light; that life has advanced in a unilinear fashion, towards increasinly better conditions. The Qur'an rather postulates that human life began in the full light of Divine Guidance, that the original state of affairs was in accord with the Right Way prescribed by God. The blame for corruption goes to man who, failing victim to Satan's allurements, veered towards darkness and corrupted the right order of human life again and again. As for God, He continually sent Prophets in order to summon men from darkness to light, and to ask them to eschew evil and wickedness. (See Towards Understanding the Qur'an, al-Baqarah 2, n. 230, pp. 165-6 - Ed.)
*45). This clearly shows what the expression 'mischief-making' in the verse signifies. It consists of man's turning to others than God as his guardian, patron and helper, and calling them to his aid and support. To bring about reform, therefore, consists of man's turning exclusively to God as his guardian and helper.
'Calling upon Allah with fear and longing' conveys the idea that man should fear God alone, and to Him alone he should look for the fulfilment of his wishes. While calling upon God man should realize that he is totally dependent on God's favour and that he can attain success only if God helps and guides him to it. Similarly, man should also bear in mind that once he is deprived of God's support, he is doomed to utter failure and undoing.