["But whoever of you is obedient to Allah and His Messenger and does good deeds, Allah will double her reward.[1] We have prepared for her a generous provision.###[1] The reason for giving a double punishment for a sin and a double reward for a good work is that those whom Allah honors with a high rank in society generally become the leaders of men and the majority of the people follow them for good or for evil. Thus, their evil does not remain their own evil but becomes the cause of a people’s degeneration, and their goodness does not remain their own goodness but becomes the cause of the true success of many other people also. Therefore, when they commit evil they are punished for their own as well as for others degeneration, and when they do good they are not only rewarded for their own good works but also for this that they also guided others to do good.","Wives of the Prophet, you are not like other women.[1] If you fear Allah, do not be too complaisant in your speech lest those with diseased hearts should covet you; but speak in a straight forward manner.[2]###[1] The verses from here to the end of the paragraph are those with which the commandments of hijab were introduced in Islam. In these verses, though, only the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him) have been addressed, the intention is to enforce reforms in all the Muslim houses. The object of addressing the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) wives in particular is that when a pure way of life will start from his house, it will be followed by the women of all other Muslim houses as well, because this house was looked upon by the Muslims as a model to follow. Some people, when they see that these verses have been addressed only to the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him), assert that these commandments were only meant for them. But when one reads what follows in these verses, he feels that there is nothing which might have been meant particularly for the wives and not for the other Muslim women. Could Allah have intended only this that the wives alone should be free from un-cleanliness and they alone should obey Allah and His Prophet (peace be upon him) and they alone should offer the Salat and pay the Zakat? If this could not be the intention, then how could the command for them to stay in their houses and avoid displaying the fineries and abstain from talking to the other men in an alluring voice be meant particularly for them to the exclusion of all other Muslim women? Is there any rational proof on the basis of which some commands in one and the same context and series be regarded as general and some others as particular and special? \t [2] As for the sentence, “You are not like any other women,” it also does not mean that the other women should come out in full makeup and should talk to the other men coquettishly and flirt with them, but “as for you, you should not adopt such a conduct.” The style, to the contrary, is such as if a gentleman would tell his child, “You are not like the common children of the street: you should not use abusive language.” From this no sensible person would ever conclude that the speaker regarded only his own child using abusive language as bad; as for others he would not mind if they used abusive language.","And stay in your homes[1] and do not go about displaying your allurements as in the former Time of Ignorance.[2] Establish Prayer, give Zakah, and obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah only wishes to remove uncleanness from you, O members of the (Prophet's) household, and to purify you completely.[3]###[1] The word qarna in the original is derived from qarar according to some lexicographers and from waqar according to others. In the first sense, it will mean: “settle down, stick firmly” and in the second sense: “live peacefully, sit with dignity.” In both the cases the verse means to impress that the woman’s real sphere of activity is her home; she should carry out her functions within that sphere peacefully, and she should come out of the house only in case of a genuine need. This meaning is clear from the words of the verse itself and the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) Ahadith also impress it even more forcefully. Hafiz Abu Bakr Bazzar has related on the authority of Anas that the women made a submission to the Prophet (peace be upon him), saying: “All kinds of virtues have been secured by the men: they fight and accomplish great deeds in the way of Allah. What should we do that we may also get a reward equal to that of the warriors?” The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: “The one who sits in her house from among you; will attain the reward of the warriors.” What he meant was: The warrior can fight confidently and with full peace of the mind in the way of Allah only when he is sure that all is well at home. His wife is there to look after the house and the children, and there is no cause for him to worry that she will betray him in his absence. The woman who will provide him this satisfaction and peace of the mind will be an equal partner with him in his fighting though she will be sitting back at home. According to another tradition that Bazzar and Tirmidhi have related on the authority of Abdullah bin Masud, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “The woman must remain veiled and concealed. When she comes out of her house, Satan stares at her. And she is closer to Allah’s mercy when she is inside her house.” See (E.N. 49 of Surah An-Nur). \t [2] In the presence of such a clear and express command of the Quran, it is not at all permissible that the Muslim women should seek membership of the councils and parliaments; that they should run after social activities outside the house; that they should work side by side with men in the government offices, should get education along with boys in the colleges, serve as nurses in the male wards of hospitals, should be employed as hostesses in the airplanes and rail cars, and should be sent abroad for education and training. The greatest argument that is given in support of the permissibility of the women’s outdoor activities is that Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) had taken part in the battle of the Jamul. But the people who present this argument perhaps do not know what was Aishah’s own opinion in this regard. Abdullah bin Ahmad bin Hanbal has related in his Zawa id az-Zuhd and Ibn Mundhir, Ibn Abi Shaibah and Ibn Saad in their own books the tradition from Masruq, saying that when Aishah during her recitation of the Quran would reach this verse (wa qarna fi buyut-i kunna), she would start crying involuntarily; so much so that her head-wrapper would become wet, for this reminded her of the error that she had committed in the battle of the Jamul. \t [3] In this verse two important words have been used, which must be understood for the proper understanding of its intention. They are tabarruj and jahiliyyat al-ula.","Remember the Signs of Allah and the words of wisdom which are rehearsed in your homes.[1] Verily Allah is All-Subtle,[2] All-Aware.###[1] The word wadhkurna in the original has two meanings: Remember and mention. According to the first meaning the verse would mean: “O wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him), you should never forget that yours is the house from where the world is being instructed in divine revelations and wisdom, therefore, your responsibility is very great. Let it not happen that the people might see specimens of ignorance in this very house.” According to the second meaning, it would mean: “O wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him), you should mention and relate before the people whatever you hear and see, for by virtue of your close and constant social association and attachment with the Prophet (peace be upon him) you will know and experience many such things which the other people. will not be able to know by any other means than you.” \t [2] Two things have been mentioned in this verse: (1) The Revelations of Allah; and (2) the wise sayings. The revelations of Allah are the verses of Allah’s Book, but hikmat (wisdom) is a comprehensive word which includes all those wise things which the Prophet (peace be upon him) taught the people. This word may also imply the teachings of the Book of Allah, but there is no reason why it should be made exclusively applicable to them. It inevitably includes the wisdom that the Prophet (peace be upon him) taught by his pure character and by his sayings besides reciting the verses of the Quran. Some people, only on the basis that the word ma yutla (that which is recited) has been used in the verse, make the assertion that the “Revelations of Allah” and \"Wisdom\" imply only the Quran, for the word “recitation” as a term is specifically used for the recitation of the Quran. But this reasoning is absolutely wrong. The use of the word “recitation” specifically as a term for the recitation of the Quran or the Book of Allah is the work of the people of the later ages. The Quran has not used this word as a term. In  (Surah Al-Baqarah: Ayat 102), this same word has been used for the incantation of the magical formulas which the satans falsely attributed to the Prophet Solomon and taught the people. (“They followed that which the satans recited attributing it to the kingdom of Solomon.”) This shows that the Quran uses this word in its lexical meaning, and does not specify it for reciting the verses of the Book of Allah.","Surely[1] the men who submit (to Allah) and the women who submit (to Allah),[2] the men who have faith and the women who have faith,[3] the men who are obedient and the women who are obedient,[4] the men who are truthful and the women who are truthful;[5] the men who are steadfast and the women who are steadfast,[6] the men who humble themselves (to Allah) and the women who humble themselves (to Allah),[7] the men who give alms and the women who give alms,[8] the men who fast and the women who fast,[9] the men who guard their chastity and the women who guard their chastity,[10] the men who remember Allah much and the women who remember Allah much:[11] for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and a mighty reward.[12]###[1] Presentation of this theme immediately after the foregoing paragraph contains a subtle allusion to the fact that the instructions given above to the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) wives are not exclusively meant for them but the Muslim society as a whole should reform itself in accordance with them. \t [2] Who have surrendered themselves to Allah: Who have accepted Islam as a code of life for themselves, and have decided to follow it in their lives, and who have no wish to resist the Islamic way of life and thought, but have adopted the way of obedience and submission to it. \t [3] Who are believing: Whose obedience is not merely outward, nor unwilling but who sincerely regard the guidance given by Islam as based on the truth. Whose faith is that the way shown by the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the only right and straight way. And in following which alone lies their true success. That which has been declared as wrong by Allah and His Prophet (peace be upon him) is certainly wrong. And that which has been declared as right by Allah and His Prophet (peace be upon him) is certainly right. Also, psychologically and intellectually, they do not regard as improper any injunction that has been enjoined by the Quran and Sunnah, and do not remain on the lookout to change it somehow to suit their own desires or mold it according to the current trends of the world, avoiding at the same time the blame that they have effected a change in the command given by Allah and His Prophet (peace be upon him). The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) has described the true state of faith in a Hadith in these words: \t [4] “He who reconciled himself to Allah as his Lord and to Islam as his way of Life and to Muhammad as his Messenger, has the true taste of faith.” (Sahih Muslim). \t [5] In another Hadith, he has explained it thus: \t [6] “None of you becomes a believer until the desires of his self become subordinate to what I have brought.” (Sharh-as- Sunnah). \t [7] That is, they do not rest content with mere belief but are obedient practically also. They are not the sort of the people who would honestly believe that what Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him) have commanded was true but would violate it in practice: that they would sincerely regard what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden as bad but would go on following the same in practical life. \t [8] That is, hey are truthful in their speech and honest in thou dealings. They do not deal in lies, deceptions, frauds and forgeries. They utter with their tongues only what their conscience approves as true. They practice and perform only what they honestly find to be in accordance with righteousness and truth, and they are honest in all their dealings with others. \t [9] That is, they patiently and steadfastly bear and face all the obstacles, dangers, difficulties and losses that they might have to encounter in following the right way taught by Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him) and in establishing Allah’s religion in the world; no fear and no temptation and no desire of the self can succeed in diverting them from the right way. \t [10] That is, they are free from pride, vanity and haughtiness: they have full understanding of the reality that they arc servants and they have no other position than that of servitude. Therefore, their hearts as well as their bodies remain bowed before Allah, dominated by fear of Him. They never display the attitude which is the hallmark of the lives of those who are fearless of God and arc involved in arrogance. From the sequence it appears that the mention of Khushu (expression of humility) in particular along with the general attitude of the fear of God implies the Prayer, for the mention of the practice of charity and fast has been made just after it. \t [11] This does not only imply payment of the obligatory Zakat, but it also includes general charity. It means to say that they spend their wealth freely in the way of Allah and they are not at all niggardly in the matter of helping the servants of Allah as much as they can. No orphan and no sick or afflicted person, no weak or disabled person, no poor and needy one remains deprived of their support in their dwelling; and if there arises the need for monetary help for promoting the cause of Allah’s religion, they are never miserly in spending their wealth for that purpose. \t [12] This includes both the obligatory and the voluntary fasts.","It[1] does not behove a believer, male or female, that when Allah and His Messenger have decided an affair they should exercise their choice. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has strayed to manifest error.[2]###[1] From here begin the verses which were revealed in connection with the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) marriage with Zainab (may Allah be pleased with her). \t [2] Ibn Abbas, Qatadah, Ikrimah and Muqatil bin Hayyan say that this verse was revealed at the time when the Prophet (peace be upon him) proposed to Zainab for Zaid, and Zainab and her relatives did not agree. According to Ibn Abbas, when the Prophet (peace be upon him) made the proposal, Zainab said, “I am better than him in lineage.” Ibn Saad says that she also said, \"I do not approve him for myself. I am a Quraishite by birth. The same sort of disapproval was expressed by her brother, Abdullah bin Jahsh, because Zaid was a freed slave of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and Zainab was the daughter of his paternal aunt, Umaimah bint Abdul Muttalib. They did not like the Prophet (peace be upon him) to propose a girl of a noble Quraishite family, who was none other than his own first cousin, for his freed slave. At this, this verse was sent down and on hearing it Zainab and all her relatives yielded to the proposal at once. Then the Prophet (peace be upon him) married them, paid ten diners and 60 dirhams from his own pocket as dower on behalf of Zaid, provided the bridal dress and sent some articles of food for domestic use.","(O Prophet),[1] call to mind when you said to him[2]whom Allah had favoured and you had favoured: “Cleave to your wife and fear Allah,”[3] and you concealed within yourself for fear of people what Allah was to reveal, although Allah has greater right that you fear Him.[4] So when Zayd had accomplished what he would of her,[5] We gave her in marriage to you[6] so that there should not be any constraint for the believers regarding the wives of their adopted sons after they had accomplished whatever they would of them.[7] And Allah's command was bound to be accomplished.###[1] The discourse from here to ( verse 48) was sent down after the Prophet (peace be upon him) had married Zainab, and the hypocrites, the Jews and the mushriks had started a relentless propaganda campaign against him. While studying these verses one should bear in mind the fact that this divine discourse was not meant for the instruction of the enemies who were engaged in a willful campaign of vilification and slander and falsehood to defame the Prophet (peace be upon him) intentionally and to satisfy their rancor. But its real object was to protect the Muslims against the influence of their campaign and to safeguard them against doubts and suspicions. Evidently, the word of Allah could not satisfy the unbelievers. It could give peace of mind only to those who knew and believed it to be Allah’s word. There was a danger that those righteous people also might be confused and influenced by the objections that were being raised by their enemies. Therefore, on the one hand, Allah removed all possible doubts from their minds, and on the other, taught the Muslims as well as the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself how they should conduct themselves under the circumstances. \t [2] It refers to Zaid as has been mentioned clearly below. In order to understand how Allah and the Prophet (peace be upon him) had favored him, it is necessary here to relate his story briefly. He was the son of Harithah bin Shurahbil, a person of the Kalb tribe, and his mother, Suda bint Thalabah, was from the Bani Maan, a branch of the Tay tribe. When he was eight years old, she took him along to her parents. There the people of Bani Qain bin Jasr raided their camp, plundered their goods and took some men prisoners including Zaid. Then they sold Zaid at the fair of Ukiiz near Taif. His buyer was Hakim bin Hizam, a nephew of Khadijah (may Allah be pleased with her). Hakim brought him to Makkah and presented him to his paternal aunt. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) married Khadijah, he found Zaid in her service and was so impressed by his good manners and conduct that he asked her to give Zaid to him. Thus, this fortunate boy entered the service of the best of men, whom Allah, after a few years, was going to appoint a Prophet (peace be upon him). Zaid at that time was 15 years old. Afterwards, when his father and uncle came to know that their child was at Makkah, they came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and requested him to return him in exchange for a payment. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “I shall call the boy and leave it to him whether he would like to go with you or stay with me. If he chose to go, I would take no payment but would let him go with you. However, if he chose to stay back, I am not the one who would send away a person who would like to stay with me.” They said, “This is perfectly right and just. Please ask the boy.” The Prophet (peace be upon him) called Zaid and asked him: “Do you know these two gentlemen?” He said, “Yes, this is my father and this is my uncle.” The Prophet (peace be upon him) then said, “Well, you know them as well as me. You have the choice to go with them, or stay with me if you so desire.” He said, “I have no wish to leave you and go with anyone else.” His father and uncle said: “Zaid, will you prefer slavery to freedom, and choose to stay with others in preference to your parents and family?” He replied, “After what I have seen of this person, I cannot prefer anything else of the world over him.” Hearing this reply, the father and uncle of Zaid were reconciled to his remaining with the Prophet (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace be upon him) set Zaid free immediately and proclaimed before a gathering of the Quraish in the Kabah, “Bear witness that hence forth Zaid is my son: he will receive inheritance from me and I from him.” Thereafter, he began to be called Zaid bin Muhammad by the people. All this happened before the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) advent as a Prophet. Then, when he was blessed with Prophethood by Allah, there were four persons who accepted his claim to it without a moment’s hesitation as soon as they heard of it from him. They were Khadijah, Zaid, Ali and Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with them all). Zaid was 30 years old then, and had already spent 15 years in the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) service. In the fourth year after Hijrah, the Prophet (peace be upon him) married him to his first cousin Zainab, paid her dower on his behalf and provided them with necessary articles for setting up the house. \t [3] This is to what Allah has alluded in the verse, saying: “Upon whom Allah has bestowed favor, and upon whom you (O Muhammad) have done favor.” \t [4] These words were said when the relations between Zaid and Zainab had become very strained, and after making repeated complaints Zaid had finally told the Prophet (peace be upon him) that he intended to divorce her. Although Zainab had accepted to be married to him in obedience to Allah and His Messenger’s command, she could not overcome her feeling that Zaid was a freed slave, who had been brought up by her own family, and she in spite of being the daughter of a noble Arab family, had been wedded to him. Due to this feeling she could never regard Zaid as her equal in matrimonial life, and this caused more and more bitterness between them. Thus after a little more than a year the marriage ended in divorce. \t [5] Some people have misconstrued this sentence to mean this: The Prophet (peace be upon him) desired to marry Zainab and wanted that Zaid should divorce her. But when Zaid came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said that he wanted to divorce his wife, the Prophet (peace be upon him) stopped him from this only half heartedly. At this Allah said: “You were keeping hidden in your heart that which Allah intended to reveal.” The real meaning, however, is contrary to this. If this the sentence is read with (verses 1, 2, 3 and7 of this Surah), one can clearly see that in the very days when bitterness was increasing between Zaid and his wife, Allah had hinted to His Prophet (peace be upon him) that when Zaid had divorced his wife, he would have to marry the divorced lady. But since the Prophet (peace be upon him) knew what it meant to marry the divorced wife of the adopted son in the contemporary Arab society, and that too at a time when apart from a handful of the Muslims the entire country had become jealous of him, he was hesitant to take any step in that direction. That is why when Zaid expressed his intention to divorce his wife, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said to him, “Fear Allah and do not divorce your wife.” What he meant by this was that Zaid should not divorce his wife so that he was saved from facing the trial, otherwise in case the divorce was pronounced he would have to comply with the command, and thus provoke a severe storm of criticism and vilification against himself. But when the Prophet (peace be upon him) deliberately forbade Zaid to divorce his wife so that he himself might be saved from what he feared would cause him defamation, Allah found this below the high position that He wanted His Prophet to enjoy, whereas Allah intended to effect a great reform through this marriage of the Prophet. The words “And you feared the people, while Allah has more right that you should fear Him,” clearly point to the same theme. \t [6] The same explanation of this verse has been given by Imam Zain-ul-Aabedin Ali bin Husain (may Allah be pleased with him). He says, Allah had indicated to His Prophet (peace be upon him) that Zainab would be included among his wives. But when Zaid complained about her to him, the Prophet (peace be upon him) admonished him to fear Allah and keep his wife. At this Allah said to His Prophet, “I had informed you that I would give Zainab you to in marriage. But when you were forbidding Zaid to divorce his wife, you were hiding that which Allah was going to reveal.” (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir on the authority of Ibn Abi Hatim). \t [7] Allama Alusi in his Ruh-al-Maani has also given the same meaning of it. He says, “This is an expression of displeasure on abandoning the better course, which was that the Prophet (peace be upon him) should have kept quiet, or should have told Zaid to do as he liked. The displeasure amounted to this: “Why did you tell Zaid to keep his wife, whereas I had informed you beforehand that Zainab would be included among your wives?”","There could be no hindrance to the Prophet regarding what Allah ordained for him.[1] Such has been Allah's Way (with the Prophets) who went before. Allah's command is a decree firmly determined.[2]###[1] These words show that for the other Muslims such a marriage is just permissible but for the Prophet (peace be upon him) it was a duty which Allah had imposed on him. \t [2] That is, for the Prophets it has always been a law that whatever command they receive from Allah, they have to act on it as a duty which they cannot in any case avoid. When Allah enjoins something on His Prophet (peace be upon him), he has to accomplish it even if the entire world is deadly opposed to it.","(This is Allah's Way) regarding those who deliver the Messages of Allah and who fear Him, and fear no one else than Allah. Allah is Sufficient as a Reckoner.[1]###[1] The words in the text have two meanings:","Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of Allah and the seal of the Prophets. Allah has full knowledge of everything.[1]###[1] This one sentence was at the root of all those objections which the opponents were raising in connection with this marriage of the Prophet (peace be upon him).","Believers, remember Allah much","and glorify Him morning and evening.[1]###[1] This is meant to instruct the Muslims to the effect: When the Messenger (peace be upon him) of Allah is being showered with taunts and abuses by the enemies and his person being made the target of a propaganda campaign to frustrate his mission, the believers should neither listen to these absurd things unconcerned, nor should become themselves also involved in the doubts and suspicions spread by the enemies, nor should resort to abusive language in retaliation, but they should turn to Allah and remember Him more than usual as a special measure. The meaning of remembering Allah much has been explained in (E.N. 63) above. “Glorify Him morning and evening” means to glorify Allah constantly, to express His holiness and purity by word of mouth and not merely by counting beads on the rosary.","It is He Who lavishes His blessings on you and His angels invoke blessings on you that He may lead you out of darkness into light. He is Most Compassionate to the believers.[1]###[1] This is meant to make the Muslims realize this: The jealousy and malice of the disbelievers and hypocrites towards you is only due to the mercy that Allah has shown you through His Messenger (peace be upon him). It is through him that you have been blessed with the faith, that you have come out from the darkness of unbelief and ignorance into the light of Islam, that you have developed the high moral and social qualities by virtue of which you stand distinguished above others. It is this which has filled the jealous people with malice and rage against the Messenger (peace be upon him) of Allah. However, in this state you should not adopt any unbecoming attitude which might alienate you from the mercy of Allah.","On the Day they meet Him they will be greeted with: “Peace.”[1] He has prepared for them a generous reward.###[1] This can have three meanings:","O Prophet,[1] We have sent you forth as a witness,[2] a bearer of good tidings, and a warner,[3]###[1] After admonishing the Muslims, Allah now addresses a few words of consolation to His Prophet (peace be upon him), as if to say: “We have blessed you with such and such a high rank and raised you to an exalted place of honor. Your opponents will not be able to harm you in any way by their propaganda campaign of slander and calumny. Therefore, you should not take their mischief to heart, nor give any weight to their propaganda. You should continue doing the duties of your mission, and let them utter whatever nonsense they like.” Along with this, incidentally, the other people, both the believers and the unbelievers, also have been told that the person they have to deal with is not an ordinary man but a great personality, whom Allah has raised to the highest ranks of honor and glory. \t [2] The meaning of the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) being a “witness” is very vast. It includes three kinds of evidence: \t [3] (1) Verbal evidence, i.e. the Prophet (peace be upon him) should bear out the truth of the realities and principles on which Allah’s religion is based and tell the world plainly that they are the truth and all that is opposed to them is falsehood. He should rise to proclaim without hesitation and fear the Being of Allah and His Unity, the existence of the angels, the coming down of revelation, the occurrence of life-after-death, the Hell and Heaven, all are realities, even if they appear strange to the world, and the people mock the one presenting them, or call him a madman. Likewise, the Prophet (peace be upon him) should openly present before the people the concepts, values, principles and rules pertaining to morality and civilization and social life that God has revealed to him, and reject as wrong all the concepts and ways which are prevalent and are opposed to them, even if the whole world rejects them as wrong and violates them in practice. Similarly, the Prophet (peace be upon him) should proclaim as lawful what is lawful in Allah’s law even if the whole world regards it as unlawful, and should proclaim as unlawful whatever is unlawful in Allah’s law even if the world regards it as lawful and pure.","as one who calls people to Allah by His leave,[1] and as a bright, shining lamp.###[1] Here also the same difference as pointed out above exists between the preaching of a common man and of a Prophet. As for the invitation to Allah, it is given, and can be given, by every preacher, but he is not appointed by Allah to do so. Contrary to this, a Prophet rises to call the people towards Allah by the leave of Allah. His call is not mere preaching but has also the support of the authority of the Lord of the universe, Who sent him. That is why resistance and opposition to the inviter to Allah amounts to rebellion against Allah Himself precisely as resistance to a government official when he is performing official duty is regarded as hostile to the government itself.","Announce to the believers the good tidings that Allah has kept bounteous blessings in store for them.","Do not yield to the unbelievers and the hypocrites, and disregard the hurt that comes from them, and put your trust in Allah. Allah suffices as the Guardian to entrust one's affairs to.","Believers, when you marry believing women and then divorce them before you have touched them,[1] you may not require them to observe a waiting period that you might reckon against them. So make provision for them and release them in an honourable manner.[2]###[1] This sentence is explicit that the word nikah here has been used for the contract of marriage only. The lexicographers have greatly disputed over the real meaning of the Arabic word nikah. One group of them says that as a word it is common both for intercourse and for the contract of marriage. The second group says that in its meaning it is common for both. The third group opines that its real meaning is the contract of marriage and for intercourse it is used only figuratively. And the fourth group expresses the opinion that its real meaning is intercourse and for the contract of marriage it is used only figuratively. Each group has cited Arabic poetry in support of its view. But Raghib Isfahani has emphatically asserted this: “The real meaning of the word nikah is contract of marriage; it has been used for intercourse metaphorically. It is impossible that its real meaning be intercourse and may have been used for the contract of marriage only metaphorically.” The argument he gives is that all the words that have been actually coined for intercourse in Arabic, or in other languages of the world, are obscene and vulgar. No gentleman would like to utter them in a civilized gathering. Therefore, it is not possible that a society should use the word which has actually been coined for this act for marriage as a metaphor. For conveying this meaning only chaste words have been used in every language of the world and not obscene words. \t [2] As far as the Quran and Sunnah arc concerned, nikah is a term, which either implies only contract of marriage, or intercourse after the contract of marriage; but it has nowhere been used for intercourse outside marriage. This kind of intercourse has been called zina (adultery) by the Quran and Sunnah and not nikah.","O Prophet, We have made lawful for you your wives whose bridal dues you have paid,[1] and the slave-girls you possess from among the prisoners of war, and the daughters of your paternal uncles and paternal aunts, and the daughters of your maternal uncles and maternal aunts who have migrated with you, and a believing woman who gives herself to the Prophet and whom he wants to take in marriage.[2] (O Prophet), this privilege is yours alone to the exclusion of other believers.[3] We know well what restrictions We have imposed upon them as regards their wives and those whom their right hands possess, (and have exempted you from those restrictions) that there may be no constraint upon you.[4] Allah is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.###[1] This, in fact, is an answer to the objection of the people who said that Muhammad (peace be upon him) forbade others to keep more than four wives at a time but had himself taken a fifth wife. This objection was raised because at the time the Prophet (peace be upon him) married Zainab, he already had four wives with him: \t [2] (1) Saudah, whom he had married in the 3rd year before the Hijrah, \t [3] (2) Aishah, whom he married in the 3rd year before the Hijrah but who came to live with him in Shawwal, A.H. 1, \t [4] (3) Hafsah, whom he married in Shaban, A.H. 3, and,","Of them you may put off any of them you wish, and you may take any of them whom you wish, and you may call back any of those whom you had (temporarily) set aside: there will be no blame on you (on this account). It is likelier that they will thus be comforted, and will not grieve, and every one of them will be well-pleased with what you give them.[1] Allah knows what is in your hearts. Allah is All-Knowing, All-Forbearing.[2]###[1] This verse was meant to relieve the Prophet (peace be upon him) of the domestic worries and anxieties so that he could carry out his duties with full peace of mind. When Allah clearly gave him the power and the authority to treat any of his wives as he liked, there remained no chance that those believing ladies would trouble him in any way, or would create complications for him by their mutual rivalries and domestic squabbles. But in spite of having this authority from Allah the Prophet (peace be upon him) meted out full justice to his wives. He did not prefer one to the other and would visit each of them regularly by turns. Only Abu Razin from among the traditionalists has said that the Prophet (peace be upon him) visited only four of his wives, Aishah, Hafsah, Zainab and Umm Salamah by turns and no turn had been fixed for the other wives. But all other traditionalists and commentators contradict this and prove by authentic traditions that even after having this authority the Prophet (peace be upon him) visited all his wives in turn and treated there alike. Bukhari, Muslim, Nasai, Abu Daud and others have reported on the authority of Aishah that even after the revelation of this verse the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) practice was that whenever he wanted to visit any of us, his wives, on the turn of another wife, he would first ask her permission for it. Abu Bakr al-Jassas relates from Urwah bin Zubair that Aishah told him, “As to our rants the Prophet (peace be upon him) never preferred any of us to the other, although it seldom happened that he did not visit all his wives on the same day, but he never touched a wife unless it was her day by turn.” And this also is a tradition from Aishah that during his last illness when it became difficult for him to move about he asked for his other wives’ permission to stay with her, and only on their approval he passed his last days in her apartment. Ibn Abi Hatim has cited this from Imam Zuhri that the Prophet (peace be upon him) is not known to have deprived any of his wives of her turn. To this only Saudah was an exception, who on account of her advanced age had willingly surrendered her turn in favor of Aishah. \t [2] Here, nobody should entertain the doubt that Allah had, God forbid, shown an undue privilege to His Prophet (peace be upon him) and deprived his wives of their rights. As a matter of fact, the great objectives for the sake of which the Prophet (peace be upon him) had been made an exception to the general rule in respect of the number of wives, also demanded that he should be afforded full peace in domestic life and anything that could cause him distraction and embarrassment should be eradicated. It was a unique honor for the wives that they were privileged to be the life-partners of the greatest of all men like the Prophet (peace be upon him), and by virtue of this they got the opportunity to become his companions and helpers in the great task of reform and invitation that was to become the means of true success for mankind till the end of time. Just as the Prophet (peace be upon him) was offering every kind of sacrifice for the sake of this objective and the companions were also following his example according to their capabilities, so it was also the duty of his wives to display selflessness in every way. Therefore, all the wives accepted Allah’s decision with regard to themselves happily and willingly.","Thereafter women will not be lawful for you, and it will not be lawful for you to take other wives in place of them, even though their beauty might please you,[1]unless they be those whom your right hand owns.[2] Allah is watchful over everything.###[1] This has two meanings: \t [2] (1) “No other woman except those made lawful to you in  (verse 50 )above, is any more lawful to you” and,","Believers, enter not the houses of the Prophet without his permission,[1]nor wait for a meal to be prepared; instead enter when you are invited to eat,[2] and when you have had the meal, disperse. Do not linger in idle talk.[3] That is hurtful to the Prophet but he does not express it out of shyness; but Allah is not ashamed of speaking out the Truth. And if you were to ask the wives of the Prophet for something, ask from behind a curtain. That is more apt for the cleanness of your hearts and theirs.[4] It is not lawful for you to cause hurt to Allah's Messenger,[5] nor to ever marry his wives after him.[6] Surely that would be an enormous sin in Allah's sight.###[1] This is an introduction to the general command that was given in (Surah An-Nur, Ayat 27) about a year later. In the ancient times the Arabs would enter one another’s house unceremoniously. If a person had to see another person he did not think it was necessary to call at the door or take permission for entry, but would enter the house and ask the womenfolk and children whether the master was at home or not, This custom of ignorance was the cause of many evils and would often give rise to some serious evils. Therefore, in the beginning a rule was made in respect of the houses of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that no person, whether a close friend or a distant relative, could enter there without permission. Then in Surah An-Nur a general command was given to enforce this rule for the houses of all the Muslims. \t [2] This is the second command in this connection. An uncivilized practice prevalent among the Arabs was that the visitors would call on a friend or acquaintance right at the time of the meals, or would come and prolong their stay till the meals time approached. This would often cause the master of the house great embarrassment. He could neither be so discourteous as to tell the visitors to leave because it was his meals time, nor could feed so many unexpected guests together. For it is not always possible for a person to arrange meals immediately for as many visitors as happened to call on him at a time. Allah disapproved of this practice and commanded that the visitors should go for meals to a house only when invited. This command did not in particular apply to the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) house only but the rules were in the beginning enforced in that model household so that they become general rules of etiquette in the houses of the other Muslims as well. \t [3] This was to reform yet another foolish practice. The guests at a feast, after they had finished eating, would sit down to endless gossip and discussions much to the inconvenience of the people of the house. They would often embarrass the Prophet (peace be upon him) also by this practice, but he would forbear and forget. At last on the day of the marriage feast of Zainab the embarrassment thus caused crossed all limits. According to the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) special attendant, Anas bin Malik, the feast was held at night. Most of the people left after taking food but a couple or two of them got engaged in gossip. Disconcerted the Prophet (peace be upon him) rose and went round to his wives. When he returned he found the gentlemen still sitting. He turned back and sat in Aishah’s apartment. When a good deal of the night had passed he came to know that the gentlemen had left. Then he returned and went to the apartment of Zainab. After this it became inevitable that Allah Himself should warn the people of these evil practices. According to Anas these verses were revealed on this occasion. (Muslim, Nasai, Ibn Jarir). \t [4] This is the verse which is called “the verse of the veil”. Bukhari has related on the authority of Anas that before the coming down of this verse, Umar had made a suggestion several times to the Prophet (peace be upon him) to the effect: O Messenger of Allah, all sorts of the people, good and bad, come to visit you. Would that you commanded your wives to observe hijab. According to another tradition, once Umar said to the holy wives, “If what I say concerning you is accepted, my eyes should never see you.” But since the Prophet (peace be upon him) was not independent in making law, he awaited divine revelation. At last, this command came down that except for the mahram males as being stated in ( Ayat 55) below no other man should enter the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) houses, and whoever had to ask some thing from the ladies, should ask for it from behind a curtain. After this command curtains were hung at the doors of the apartments of the wives, and since the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) house was a model for the Muslims to follow, they too hung curtains at their doors. The last sentence of the verse itself points out that whoever desire that the hearts of the men and women should remain pure, should adopt this way. \t [5] Now whosoever has been blessed with understanding by Allah can himself see that the Book which forbids the men and women to talk to each other face to face and commands them to speak from behind a curtain because “That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts,” could not possibly permit that the men and women should freely meet in mixed gatherings, educational and democratic institutions and offices, because it did not affect the purity of the hearts in any way. For him who does not want to follow the Quran, the best way would be that he should disregard its commands and should frankly say that he has no desire to follow it. But this would be the height of meanness that he should violate the clear commandments of the Quran and then stubbornly say that he is following the spirit of Islam which he has extracted. After all, what is that spirit of Islam which these people extract from sources outside the Quran and the sunnah? \t [6] The allusion is to the false allegations that were being made in those days against the Prophet (peace be upon him), and some weak-minded Muslims also were joining the disbelievers and the hypocrites in doing this.","(It does not matter) whether you disclose something or conceal it, for Allah certainly knows everything.[1]###[1] That is, “If a person entertains an evil thought in his heart against the Prophet (peace be upon him), or harbors an evil intention about his wives, it will not remain hidden from Allah, and he will be punished for it.”","It will not be blameworthy for the wives of the Prophet if their fathers, their sons, their brothers, their brothers' sons, their sisters' sons,[1] and the women with whom they have social relations,[2] and the persons whom their right hands possess enter their houses.[3] (O women), shun disobeying Allah. Allah is watchful over everything.[4]###[1] For explanation, see (E.Ns 38 to 42 of Surah An-Nur). Allama Alusi’s commentary in this connection is also noteworthy. He says, “Brothers and sons of brothers and sisters include all those relatives who are unlawful for a woman, whether they are blood relations or foster relations. This list does not mention the paternal and maternal uncles because they are like the parents to the woman, or perhaps they have been left out because there was no need to mention them after mentioning their sons, For the reason for not observing hijab from the brother’s son and sister’s son is the same as of not observing it from the paternal and maternal uncles.” (Ruh al-Maani). \t [2] For explanation, see( E. N. 43 of Surah An-Nur). \t [3] For explanation, see (E. N. 44 of Surah An-Nur). \t [4] It means this: “After the coming down of this absolute command no person outside the circle of the relatives, who have been made an exception, should be allowed to enter the houses without hijab being observed from them,” Another meaning is: “The woman should never adopt the attitude that they should observe hijab when the husband is present, but should appear without hijab before the other men, when he is away. Such a conduct may remain hidden from the husband but not from Allah.”","Allah and His angels bless the Prophet.[1] Believers, invoke blessings and peace on him.[2]###[1] Allah’s sending His blessings on His Prophet, means this: Allah is very kind to His Prophet (peace be upon him): He praises him, blesses his work, exalts his name, and showers His mercy on him. Blessings of the angels, means: They love the Prophet (peace be upon him) most dearly and pray to Allah to bless him with the highest ranks, cause his religion and Shariah to flourish and exalt him to the laudable position. One can clearly see from the context, why this thing has been said here. This was the time when the enemies of Islam were making all sorts of false allegations against the Prophet (peace be upon him) in order to satisfy their jealousy on the success of faith. By sullying him, they thought they would destroy his moral influence through which Islam and the Muslims were gaining more and more ground every day. Such were the conditions when Allah sent down this verse, as if warn the people: “However hard the disbelievers and the hypocrites and the polytheists might try to vilify and slander My Prophet (peace be upon him) with a view to frustrating his mission, they are bound to suffer disgrace and humiliation in the end, for I am kind to him, and the angels, who are administering the entire universe, are his supporters and admirers. His enemies cannot gain anything by their condemnation of him because I am exalting his name and My angels are adoring him constantly. They cannot harm him by their mean machinations when My mercy and blessings are with him, and My angels pray for him day and night to the effect: “O Lord of the worlds, raise Muhammad (peace be upon him) to even higher ranks and make his religion flourish and prosper.” \t [2] In other words, it means this: O people, who have found the right path through Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Messenger of Allah, you should recognize his true worth and be grateful to him for his great favors to you. You were lost in the darkness of ignorance, he afforded you the light of knowledge. You had become morally bankrupt, he raised you high on the moral level so that the people now feel envious of you. You had sunk to barbarism and savagery, he adorned you with the most refined human civilization. The disbelievers everywhere have turned his enemies only because he has done you these favors; otherwise personally he has not done any harm to anyone. Therefore, the inevitable demand of your gratitude to him is that you should regard him with an equal, or even greater love than the malice and grudge these people display against him; that you should show a greater attachment to him than the hatred these people show towards him; that you should praise and adore him even more fervently than they condemn him; that you should wish him well even more heartily than they wish him ill, and pray for him just as the angels do day and night, saying: “O Lord of the worlds: Just as Your Prophet has done us countless and endless favors, so do You also show him endless and limitless mercy, raise him to the highest ranks in the world and bless him with the greatest nearness to Yourself in the hereafter.”","Verily those who cause annoyance to Allah and His Messenger � Allah has cursed them in this world and in the Hereafter and has prepared for them a humiliating chastisement.[1]###[1] “To cause harm to Allah” implies two things: That Allah should be disobeyed, that an attitude of disbelief and shirk and atheism be adopted with regard to Him, and that things made unlawful by Him be made lawful; and (2) that His Messenger be troubled, for just as obedience to the Messenger is obedience to Allah, so is opposition and disobedience of the Messenger opposition and disobedience of Allah.","Those who cause hurt to believing men and to believing women have invited upon themselves a calumny[1] and a manifest sin.###[1] This verse determines the definition of slander. It is to ascribe a fault to a person which he does not have, or an error which he has not committed. The Prophet (peace be upon him) also has explained it. According to Abu Daud and Tirmidhi, when he was asked as to what is ghibat (backbiting), he replied: “It is to make mention of your brother in a manner derogatory to him.” The questioner said, “And if the fault is there in my brother?” The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: “If the fault that you mentioned is there in him, you backbite him; if it is not there, you slandered him.” Such an act is not only a moral sin, which will entail punishment in the Hereafter, but this verse also requires that also in the law of an Islamic State false allegation should be held as a culpable offense.","O Prophet, enjoin your wives and your daughters and the believing women, to draw a part of their outer coverings around them.[1] It is likelier that they will be recognised and not molested.[2] Allah is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.[3]###[1] Jilbab is a large sheet and adna is to draw close and wrap up, but when this word is used with the associating particle ala, it gives the meaning of letting something down from above. Some modern translators, under the influence of the West, have translated this word “to wrap up” so as to avoid somehow the command about covering of the face. But if Allah had meant what these gentlemen want to construe, He would have said: yudnina ilai-hinna and not yudnina alai-hinna. Anyone who knows Arabic knows that yudnina alai-hinna cannot merely mean “wrapping up.” Moreover, the words min jalabib-i hinna also do not permit of this meaning. It is obvious that the preposition min here signifies a part of the sheet, and also that wrapping up is done by means of a whole sheet and not merely by a part of it. The verse, therefore, clearly means: “The women should wrap themselves up well in their sheets, and should draw and let down a part of the sheet in front of the face.” \t [2] This same meaning was understood by the major commentators who lived close to the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Ibn Jarir and Ibn al-Mundhir have related that Muhammad bin Sirin asked Ubaidah as- Salmani the meaning of this verse. (Ubaidah had become a Muslim in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) but had not been able to visit him. He came to Madinah in the time of Umar and settled down there. He was recognized as equal in rank with Qadi Shuraih in jurisprudence and judicial matters). Instead of giving a verbal reply Ubaidah put on his sheet and gave a practical demonstration by covering his head and forehead and face and an eye, leaving only the other eye uncovered. Ibn Abbas also has made almost the same commentary. In his statements which have been reported by Ibn Abi Hatim and Ibn Marduyah, he says: “Allah has commanded the women that when they move out of their houses for an outdoor duty, they should conceal their faces by drawing and letting down over themselves a part of their sheets, keeping only the eyes uncovered.” The same explanation of this verse has been given by Qatadah and Suddi. \t [3] All the great commentators who have passed after the period of the companions and their immediate followers have given the same meaning of this verse. Imam Ibn Jarir Tabari, in his commentary of this verse, says: “The respectable women should not look like the slave-girls from their dress when they move out of their houses, with uncovered faces and loose hair; they should rather draw and let down over them a part of their sheets or outergarments so that no evil person may dare molest them.” (Jamial Bayan, vol. xxii, p. 33).","If the hypocrites and those in whose hearts there is a sickness,[1] and the scandal mongers in Madinah[2] do not desist from their vile acts, We shall urge you to take action against them, and then they will hardly be able to stay in the city with you.###[1] “Having diseased hearts” points to two kinds of evils: \t [2] (1) That a person should be an ill-wisher of Islam and the Muslims although he gets himself counted among the Muslims; and","They shall be cursed from all around and they shall be ruthlessly killed wherever they are seized.","This has been Allah's Way with those who have gone before, and you shall find no change in Allah's Way.[1]###[1] That is, “This is a permanent law of Allah’s Shariah that in an Islamic society and state such mischief-mongers are never given an opportunity to flourish and prosper. Whenever the system of society and state is established on divine law, such people will be warned to mend their ways and if they still persisted in their evil ways they would be severely dealt with and exterminated.”","People ask you concerning the Hour (of Resurrection).[1] Say: “Allah alone has knowledge of it. What do you know? Perhaps the Hour is nigh.”###[1] The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was generally asked this question by the disbelievers and the hypocrites. By this they did not mean to obtain any knowledge but they did so out of fun and jest. As a matter of fact, they did not believe in the coming of the Hereafter at all; they regarded its concept as an empty threat only. They did not ask about the time of its coming so that they could set their affairs right, but what they really meant was: “O Muhammad (peace be upon him), we have been doing everything to frustrate your mission, and you have not been able to do any harm to us so far; now let us know as to when will Resurrection take place when we will be taken to task by Allah.”","Allah has cursed the unbelievers and has prepared for them a Blazing Fire;","therein they shall abide for ever. They shall find none to protect or help them.","On that Day when their faces shall be turned around in the Fire, they will say: “Would that we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Messenger.”","They will say: “Our Lord, we obeyed our chiefs and our great ones, and they turned us away from the Right Way.","Our Lord, mete out to them a double chastisement and lay upon them a mighty curse.”[1]###[1] This thing has been stated at several places in the Quran. For instance, see (Surah Al-Aaraf: Ayat 187); (Surah An-Naziyat: Ayats 42-46); (Surah Saba: Ayats 3-5); (Surah Al- Mulk: Ayats 24-27); (Surah Al-Mutaffifin: Ayats 10-17); (Surah AI-Hijr: Ayats 2-3);(Surah Al-Furqan: Ayats 27-29);(Surah Ha Mim As-Sajdah: Ayats 26-29).","Believers,[1] do not be like those who distressed Moses and then Allah declared him quit of the ill they spoke about him; and he had a high standing with Allah.[2]###[1] One should note that the Quran has at some places addressed the true Muslims with: “O you who have believed,” and at others places the Muslim community as a whole, which includes the believers as well as the hypocrites and the Muslims of the weak faith, and at still others places only the hypocrites. When the hypocrites and the Muslims of the weak faith are addressed with: “O you who have believed,” it is meant to put them to shame, as if to say, “You claim to have affirmed faith, but your acts and deeds do not support your claim.” A little study of the context can easily show which class of the people has been addressed at a particular place. Here, obviously, the common Muslims are being addressed. \t [2] In other words, it means: “O Muslims, do not behave like the Jews. You should not behave towards your Prophet (peace be upon him) as the children of Israel behaved towards the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him).” The Israelites themselves admit that the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) was their greatest benefactor. Whatever they achieved as a nation was only due to him: otherwise in Egypt they would have been doomed to a worse fate than that of the Shudras in India. But how the Israelites treated the greatest benefactor of theirs can be judged by a cursory glance at the following places of the Bible: Exodus, 5: 20-21, 14: 12, 16: 2-3, 17: 3-4. Numbers, 11:1-15, 14:1-10, 16 (the whole chapter), 20: 1-5.","Believers, fear Allah and speak the truth:","Allah will set your deeds right for you and will forgive you your sins. Whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has achieved a great triumph.","We offered the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it and were afraid of doing so; but man carried it. Surely he is wrong-doing, ignorant.[1]###[1] In the end, Allah wants man to realize his real position in the world; if in that position he regarded the life of the world as mere fun and sport and adopted a wrong attitude carelessly, he would only be working for his own doom.","(The consequence of man's carrying the trust is) that Allah may chastise hypocritical men and hypocritical women and accept the repentance of believing men and believing women. He is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful.","All praise be to Allah to Whom belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth,[1] and all praise be to Him in the World to Come.[2] He is Most Wise, All-Aware.[3]###[1] The Arabic word hamd is used both for praise and for gratitude and both the meanings are implied here. When Allah alone is the Owner of the whole universe and of everything in it, then inevitably He alone deserves to be praised for every beauty, perfection, wisdom, power and excellent skill and design shown and manifested by it. Therefore, every inhabitant of the world must thank Allah alone for any benefit and pleasure that he draws from anything here. For when no one else is a partner in the ownership of these things, no one else deserves to be praised or thanked. \t [2] That is, “Just as every blessing in this world is granted by Allah alone, so also in the Hereafter whatever a person will get, he will get from His treasures and by His grace. Therefore, in the Hereafter too, Allah alone deserves to be praised as well as thanked.” \t [3] That is, “All His works are based on perfect wisdom and knowledge. Whatever He does, He does right. He has full knowledge about every creation of His as to where it is, in what state it is, what are its requirements, what precisely needs to be done for its well-being, what it has done so far and what it will do in the future. He is not unaware of the world created by Him, but is fully aware of the condition and state of every particle in it.”","He knows what penetrates into the earth and what goes forth from it, what descends from the heaven and what ascends to it. He is the Most Merciful, the Most Forgiving.[1]###[1] That is, “If a person (or persons) is not being seized in spite of rebellion against Him in His Kingdom, it is not because this world is a lawless kingdom, but because Allah is All-Merciful and All-Forbearing. Although it is in His power to seize the sinner and the wrongdoer immediately on the commission of sin, to withhold his sustenance, to paralyze his body, and to put him to death suddenly, yet He does not do it so. It is the demand of His Beneficence that in spite of being All-Powerful, He gives the disobedient servant plenty of time and enough respite to mend his ways and as soon as he desists from his evil ways, He pardons and forgives him.”","The unbelievers say: “How come the Hour is not coming upon us!”[1] Say to them: “Yes indeed, by my Lord, by Him Who fully knows the realm beyond the ken of perception, that the Hour shall inevitably come upon you.[2]Nothing escapes Him, not even the smallest particle in the heavens or the earth; nor is anything smaller or bigger than that but is in a Manifest Book.”[3]###[1] This they said satirically and mockingly. What they meant was: “This Prophet (peace be upon him) has been giving us the news of his coming of Resurrection for along time now, but Resurrection has not overtaken us so far although we have openly denied and rejected him as a Prophet, have been insolent to him and have ridiculed him in every way. \t [2] The use of the attribute “Knower of the unseen” for Allah while swearing by him by itself points to the fact that the coming of Resurrection is certain, but no one knows except Allah, Knower of the unseen, when exactly it will come. This same theme has been explained at different places in the Quran in various ways. For details, see (Surah Al-Aaraf: Ayat 187),  (Surah TaHa: Ayat 15),  (Surah Luqman: Ayat 34),  (Surah Al-Ahzab: Ayat 63),(Surah Al-Mulk: Ayats 25-26),(Surah An-Naziyat: Ayats 42-44). \t [3] This is one of the arguments for the possibility of the Hereafter as is being stated in (verse 7) below. One of the reasons why the deniers of the Hereafter regarded the lifeafter- death as irrational was; They said that when all human beings will have become dust after death, and scattered away in particles, how it will be possible to bring all the countless particles together and combine them to be re-created as the same human bodies once again. This doubt has been dispelled, saying, “Every particle wherever it is, is recorded in God’s register, and God knows where a particle is. Therefore, when He wills to recreate, He will not face any difficulty in gathering together all the particles of the body of each and every man.”","(The Hour shall come) that He may reward those who believe and do righteous deeds. Theirs shall be forgiveness and a generous provision.","As for those who worked against Our Signs in order to frustrate them, they shall suffer a painful chastisement.[1]###[1] The above was an argument for the possibility of the Hereafter: this is an argument for its need and necessity. It means: A time must come when the wicked should be requited for their wickedness and the righteous rewarded for their righteousness. Reason wants and justice demands that a worker of goodness should be rewarded and a worker of evil punished. Now when you see that in the present worldly life neither is an evildoer fully requited for his evil nor a worker of goodness for his goodness, rather there are opposite results of evil and goodness in most cases, you should admit that this necessary demand of both reason and justice must be fulfilled at some time in the future. Resurrection and the Hereafter will be the same time. It is not its coming but its not coming which is contrary to reason and against justice.","(O Prophet), those who have knowledge see clearly that what has been revealed to you from your Lord is the Truth and directs to the Way of the Most Mighty, the Immensely Praiseworthy Lord.[1]###[1] That is, “These antagonists cannot succeed in their object to prove the truth presented by you false, however hard they may try, for they can only delude and misguide the ignorant people by their designs. Those possessed of knowledge cannot be deceived by them.”","The unbelievers say: “Shall we direct you to the man who tells you that when you have been utterly broken to pieces, you will be raised to life again?","Has he forged a lie against Allah, or is he afflicted with madness?”[1] Nay, but those who do not believe in the Hereafter are doomed to be chastised and are far gone in error.[2]###[1] The chiefs of the Quraish knew well that it was extremely difficult for the common people to accuse Muhammad (peace be upon him) of being a liar, for the entire nation knew that he was completely a truthful person, and no one had ever heard a lie from him all his life. Therefore, they presented their charge against him before the people like this: “When this person utters an impossible thing like the life-after-death from his mouth, he is either uttering (God forbid) a falsehood deliberately, or he is mad.” But this accusation of madness also was as absurd as of falsehood, for a stupid person only could admit that such a wise and intelligent man as the prophet (peace be upon him) could be mad. That is why Allah did not feel it was necessary to refute their absurd charge by an argument, and only made mention of their wonder which they expressed at the possibility of the life-after-death. \t [2] This is the first answer to their charge. It means: “O foolish people, it is you who have lost your reason. For you do not listen to the one who is informing you of the truth and are recklessly galloping on the way that leads to Hell. But the height of your stupidity is that you are calling the one who is anxious for your salvation, a mad peron.”","Do they not see how the heavens and the earth encompass them from the front and the rear? We could, if We so wished, cause the earth to swallow them or let fragments of the sky fall upon them.[1] Verily there is a Sign in this for every servant (of Allah) who penitently turns to Him.[2]###[1] This is the second answer to their charge. To understand it well one should bear in mind the fact that three things were most prominent among the reasons for which the disbelieving Quraish denied the life-after-death: (1) They did not want to believe in any kind of accountability before God, for after believing in such a thing they would be left with no freedom whatsoever to behave and act as they pleased in the world. (2) They thought it was inconceivable that Resurrection would take place and the present material order of the universe would be destroyed and replaced by a new order. (3) They thought it was impossible that the people who had died hundreds of thousands of years in the past and whose bones even had decayed and disintegrated, would be raised back to life. With the same body and soul. The answer given above covers all these three aspects, and contains a severe warning as well. The details of the theme contained in these brief sentences are given below: \t [2] (1) If you ever had observed this earth and the heavens with clear sightedness, you would have seen that it is not a plaything nor has its creation come into being by accident. Everything in this universe points to the fact that it has been created by an All-Powerful Being with great wisdom. In such a wise system it would be highly absurd to think that somebody could be left to live an irresponsible and unaccountable life after he had been given the faculties of intellect and discrimination and authority.","We bestowed Our favour upon David.[1] (We commanded): “O mountains, sing Allah's praises with him”; (and so did We command) the birds.[2] We softened the iron for him, (saying):###[1] This is an allusion to the countless favors with which Allah had blessed the Prophet David (peace be upon him). He was an ordinary young man of the tribe of Judah, living at Bethlehem. In a campaign against the Philistines he slew the giant Goliath, the great enemy of Israel, and suddenly grew in esteem of the Israelites. With this event began his rise to prominence; so much so that after the death of Saul he was first elected king of Judah in Hebron, and then a few years later he was made king over all the tribes of Israel. He took Jerusalem and made it the capital of the kingdom of Israel. It was under his leadership that for the first time in history a God-worshipping kingdom was established, whose boundaries extended from the Gulf of Aqabah to the western banks of the River Euphrates. In addition to these favors, he was further graced with Divine bounties in the form of knowledge and wisdom, and the qualities of justice and mercy and devotion to the truth. (For details, see (E.N. 273 of Surah Al-Baqarah )and (E.N. 7 of Surah Bani Israil). \t [2] For this refer to (Surah Al-Anbiya, Ayat 79 and E.N. 71) thereof.","“Fashion coats of mail and measure their links with care[1] and act righteously. I am watching over whatever you do.”###[1] For this refer to( Surah Al-Anbiya, Ayat 80 and E.N. 72) thereof.","And We subdued the wind to Solomon: its morning course was a month's journey and its evening course was a month's journey.[1] We gave him a spring flowing with molten brass,[2] and We subdued for him jinn who, by his Lord's permission,[3] worked before him. Such of them as swerved from Our commandment, We let them taste the chastisement of the Blazing Fire.###[1] For this refer to( Surah Al-Anbiya, Ayat 81 and E.N. 74) thereof. \t [2] Some former commentators have taken this to mean that a spring from the earth had erupted for the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) from which molten copper flowed out instead of water. But another interpretation of this verse can be that in the time of the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) the work of melting and molding copper for different uses was done on a very large scale and the same has been referred to here as the flowing of a spring of molten copper for him. (See(E.N. 74 of Surah Al- Anbiya). \t [3] The question whether the jinns who had been subdued to the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) were human beings of the mountain tribes or really the jinns who are well known by this name as the hidden creation has been discussed in detail in our commentary of Surah Al-Anbiya and Surah An-Naml. (See(E.N. 75 of Surah Al-Anbiya) and (E.Ns 23, 45) and (52 of Surah An-Naml).","They made for him whatever he would desire: stately buildings, images,[1] basins like water-troughs and huge, built-in-cauldrons:[2] “Work, O house of David, in thankfulness (to your Lord).[3] Few of My servants are truly thankful.”###[1] The word tamatheel in the text is the plural of timthal, which in Arabic is used for every such thing as is made to resemble a natural thing, whether it is a human being, an animal, a tree, a flower, a river, or some inanimate object. Timthal is the name of every artificial thing which may have been made to resemble something made by God. (Lisan al-Arab). Timthal is every such picture which may have been made to resemble the likeness of something else, whether living or dead.” (The commentary, Al-Kashshaf). On this basis the statement of the Quran does not necessarily imply that the images made for the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) were the pictures or images of human beings and animals. They might have been floral designs or natural landscape or different kinds of decorations with which the Prophet Solomon might have decorated his buildings and works. \t [2] The misunderstanding has been created by some commentators who have stated that the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) had gotten the pictures of the Prophets and the angels made for himself. They took such things from the Israelite traditions and then explained them saying that in the former Shariahs it was not forbidden to make the pictures. But while accepting and citing these traditions without question, these scholars did not keep in mind the fact that the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) was a follower of the Mosaic law and in that law making of the pictures and images of human beings and animals was also forbidden as it is in the Shariah of Muhammad (peace be upon him). And they also did not remember that because of the enmity which a section of the Israelites bore against the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him), they have accused him of crimes like polytheism, idolatry, sorcery and adultery. Therefore. one should not place reliance on the Israelite traditions and accept anything about this great Prophet, which might contradict any Shariah enjoined by God. Everyone knows that all the Prophets who came after the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) till the Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) among the Israelites were the followers of the Torah, and none of them had brought forth a new law, which might have abrogated the law of the Torah. Now the Torah clearly enjoins repeatedly that making of the pictures and images of human beings and animals is absolutely forbidden. \t [3] “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exod. 20: 4) “Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, nor rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it.” (Levit. 26: 1).","When We executed Our decree of death on Solomon, nothing indicated to the jinn that he was dead except a worm eating away his staff. So when Solomon fell down, the jinn realised[1] that had they known what lies in the realm beyond perception, they would not have continued to be in this humiliating chastisement.[2]###[1] Another meaning of the sentence can be: \"The true state and condition of the jinns became clear and exposed. \"According to the first meaning, it will mean: “The jinns realized that their claim to have the knowledge of the unseen was wrong.” According to the second, it will mean: “The people who thought that the jinns possessed the knowledge of the unseen, came to know that they had no such knowledge.” \t [2] Some modern commentators have interpreted it as follows: As the Prophet Solomon’s (peace be upon him) son, Rehoboam, was unworthy and given to luxurious living and surrounded by flatterers, he could not sustain the heavy burden of responsibility that fell on his shoulders after the death of his great father. A short time after his succession, the kingdom collapsed, and the frontier tribes (i.e. of the jinns), whom the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) had subdued by his mighty power, rebelled and broke away. But this interpretation does not at all conform to the words of the Quran. The scene depicted by the words of the Quran is somewhat like this: Death came to the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) in a state when he was standing or sitting with the support of a staff. His body stood in place due to the staff, and the jinns continued to perform their duties and services, thinking that he was living. At last, when the wood louse started eating away the staff and it became hollow from within, the Prophet Solomon’s (peace be upon him) body fell down; then the jinns realized that he had died. After all, why should this clear and unambiguous description of the event be construed to mean that the wood louse implied the unworthiness of the Prophet Solomon’s son, and the staff implied his power and authority and the falling down of his body implied the disintegration of his kingdom? Had Allah meant to say all this, there was no shortage of the words in the vast Arabic language. The Quran, in fact, has nowhere used such enigmatic language. How could the common Arabs, who were its first addressees, have solved this riddle?","For Sheba[1] there was also a Sign in their dwelling place:[2] the two gardens[3] to the right and to the left.“ Eat of your Lord's provision, and render thanks to Him. Most pleasant is your land and Most Forgiving is your Lord.”###[1] To understand the continuity of the subject matter one should keep in view the theme as expressed in( Ayats 1-9). There it has been pointed out that the pagans of Arabia regarded the coming of the Hereafter as irrational, and declared openly that the Messenger (peace be upon him) who was presenting this doctrine was either a mad man or deliberately was fabricating falsehood. In reply to this, Allah first gave some rational arguments, which we have elaborated in (E.Ns 7, 8 and 12 )above. Then in (Ayats 10-21) the story of the Prophets David and Solomon and of Saba has been related as an historical argument, which is meant to impress the reality that the history of the human species on the earth itself testifies to the law of retribution. If man studies his own history carefully, he will see that this world is not a lawless kingdom, which might be functioning blindly, but it is being ruled by an All-Hearing and All- Seeing Being, Who treats and deals with His grateful servants in one way and with the ungrateful and thankless people in quite another way. If one wants one can learn this lesson from the same history that in the Kingdom of God which has such a character, goodness and evil cannot have one and the same result. The necessary demand of its justice is that a time must come when goodness should be fully rewarded and evil fully punished. \t [2] That is, a sign of this that whatever they have is the gift of some one else and not of their own creation, and a sign of this that the one worthy of their service and worship and gratitude is that God who has blessed them with these favors and not those who have no share in bestowing these, and a sign of this that their wealth is not imperishable but can perish even as it has been amassed. \t [3] This does not mean that there were only two gardens in the whole country, but that the entire land of Saba was like a garden. Wherever a man stood, he could see a garden on his right and a garden on his left.","But they turned away[1] and so We let loose upon them a devastating flood[2] that swept away the dams and replaced their gardens by two others bearing bitter fruits, tamarisks, and a few lote trees.[3]###[1] That is, they adopted the way of disobedience and ingratitude instead of obedience and gratefulness. \t [2] The word arim as used in sayl al-arim in the text is derived from the South Arabic word ariman, which stands for a dam. In the ancient inscriptions that have been unearthed in the ruins of the Yaman, this word has been commonly used in this meaning. For example, in an inscription dated 542 or 543 A.D. which Abraha, the Abyssinian governor of the Yaman, had gotten installed after the repairs to the great dam of Maarib, this word has been used repeatedly in the meaning of a dam. Therefore, sayl al- arim implies a flood that comes when a dam breaks. \t [3] That is, as a result of the flood that came after the dam burst, the whole land was laid waste. The canals which the Sabaeans had dug out by building dams between the mountains were ruined and the irrigation system destroyed. Then the same land which had been like a garden before became a jungle of wild growth and no eatable plants were left in it except the small plume like fruit of the lote bushes.","Thus did We retribute them for their ingratitude. And none do We retribute in this manner except the utterly ungrateful.","We placed other prominent towns between them, the towns that We had blessed and had set well-measured stages between them.[1] Move back and forth between them, night and day, in perfect security.###[1] “Towns which We had blessed”: The lands of Syria and Palestine, which have been generally mentioned in the Quran by this title. For instance, in  (Surah Al-Aaraf, Atyat 137),   (Surah Bani-Israil, Ayat 1),    (Surah Al-Anbiya, Ayats 71, 81).","But they said: “Lord, make the stages of our journeys longer.”[1] They wronged their own selves so We reduced them to bygone tales, and utterly tore them to pieces.[2] Verily there are Signs in this for everyone who is steadfast and thankful.[3]###[1] They may not have prayed thus in so many words. As a matter of fact, whoever is ungrateful to Allah for His blessings, tells Allah, as if to say that he is not worthy of those blessings. Likewise, the nation which abuses the bounties of Allah, in fact, prays to Him, as if to say, “Our Lord, withdraw Your blessings from us, we are not worthy of these.” Moreover, the words in the text also seem to suggest that the Sabaeans perhaps regarded their large population as a calamity for themselves, and they also wanted like the other foolish people that their population should fall. \t [2] That is, the people of Saba were so dispersed in all directions that their dispersion became proverbial. Even today when the Arabs have to mention the complete dispersion of any people they refer to the people of Saba as an example. When Allah caused His blessings to be withdrawn from them, the different tribes of the Sabaeans started leaving their homes and migrating to other parts of Arabia. The Banu Ghassan went to settle in Jordan and Syria, the Aus and Khazraj in Yathrib, and the Khuzaah in Tihamah near Jeddah. The Azd left for Uman and the Bani Lakhm and Judham and Kindah were also forced to give up their homes for other places. Thus, the Sabaeans ceased to exist as a nation and became a mere legend. \t [3] In this context the “steadfast and grateful” implies every such person (or persons) who does not lose his balance after he has received blessings from Allah, nor exults at prosperity, nor becomes heedless of God Who has blessed him with these. Such a person can learn great lessons from the history of those people who adopted the way of disobedience after attaining opportunities for progress and prosperity and ultimately met with their doom.","Iblis found his estimate of them to be true, and they followed him, except a party of the believers.[1]###[1] History shows that in ancient times there lived among the Sabaeans a small group of the people, who believed in one God, apart from all other gods. The inscriptions that have been discovered in the ruins of Yaman as a result of modern archaeological research point to the existence of this small element. Some inscriptions of the period about 650 B.C. indicate that at several places in the kingdom of Saba there existed such houses of worship as were exclusively meant for the worship of dhu-samavi or dhusamaavi (i.e. Rabb as-samaa: Lord of the heavens). In some places this Deity has been mentioned as Malikan dhusamavi (the King who is the Owner of the heavens). This remnant of the Sabaeans continued to live in Yaman for centuries afterwards. Thus, in an inscription of 378 A.D. there is also mention of a house of worship built in the name of Ilah dhu-semevi. Then, in an inscription dated 465 A.D. the words are; Bi-nasr wa rida ilah-in baal samin wa ardin (i.e. with the help and support of that God who is the Owner of the heavens and the earth). In another inscription of the period dated 458 A.D., the word Rahman has been used for the same God, the actual words being bi-rida Rahmanan (i. e. with the help of Rahman.","Iblis had no authority over them and whatever happened was in order that We might know him who believes in the Hereafter as distinct from him who is in doubt about it.[1] Your Lord is watchful over everything.[2]###[1] That is, Iblis did not have the power to have forcibly misled these people to the way of God’s disobedience although they had wanted to adopt His obedience. Allah had only given him the power that he may seduce and mislead them and make all such people his followers, who may like to follow him of their own accord. And Iblis was provided these opportunities for seduction so that the believers of the Hereafter were distinguished from those who entertained doubts about its coming. \t [2] In other words, this divine statement makes the truth explicit that nothing in this world other than belief in the Hereafter can ensure man’s adherence to the right way. If a man disbelieves that he is to be raised back to life after death and has to render an account of his deeds before his God, he will certainly be misled and go astray, for he will never be able to develop in himself the sense of responsibility which alone can make him adhere to the right way. That is why the artifice of Satan by which he ensnares man is that he makes him heedless of the Hereafter. The one who escapes this satanic enticement can never agree that he should sacrifice the interests of his real everlasting life to the interests of the transient life of the world. On the contrary, the one who disbelieves in the Hereafter under the evil influence of Satan, or at least entertains doubts about it, can never be induced to withdraw from the cash bargain being made in this world only due to the apprehension that it might cause loss in some later life. Whoever has gone astray in the world, has gone astray only due to the denial of the Hereafter, or some suspicion about it; and whoever has adopted righteousness has done so because his righteous deeds have issued from his belief in the Hereafter.","(O Prophet),[1] say to those who associate others with Allah in His Divinity: “Call upon those whom you fancied to be deities beside Allah.[2] They own not even the smallest particle, neither in the heavens nor on the earth; nor do they have any share in the ownership of either of them. Nor is any of them even a helper of Allah.###[1] Until now the mushriks’ wrong notions about the Hereafter have been dealt with. From here the discourse turns to the refutation of shirk itself. \t [2] That is, Allah makes and un-makes the destinies of individuals and nations and kingdoms in ways as you have seen from the stories of the Prophets David and Solomon (peace be upon them) and the people of Saba. Now, you may invoke, if you so like, these self-made gods of yours to see whether they also possess the power to change someone’s good fortune into misfortune and misfortune into good fortune.","No intercession can avail with Allah except for him whom Allah permits (to intercede).[1] When their hearts are relieved of fright they will ask the intercessors: “What did your Lord say?” They will reply: “(He said) what is right, and He is the High, the Great.”[2]###[1] That is, not to speak of owning something, or being a partner in the ownership of something, or being a helper of Allah in any way, there exists no one in the universe, who of his own accord, may intercede for someone before Allah. You are involved in the misunderstanding that there are some beloved ones of God, or some such powerful personalities, who can force and press God to accept their intercession, whereas the fact is that no one will dare utter a word of recommendation there without Allah’s permission. Only such a one will be able to make his submissions who is permitted by Allah to do so, and will intercede for him alone for whom permission for intercession is granted. (To understand the distinction between the Islamic concept of intercession and the polytheistic concept, see (Surah Yunus, Ayats 3, 18);  (Surah Hud, Ayats 76, 105); (Surah TaHa, Ayat 109);  (Surah Al- Anbiya, Ayat 28);  (Surah Al-Hajj, Ayat 76).” \t [2] Here a graphic picture has been drawn of the time when, on the Day of Resurrection, an intercessor will be seeking permission to intercede on behalf of someone. It presents this scene: “After submitting the application for permission, both the intercessor and the person for whom intercession is being provided are awaiting the reply in a state of restlessness and awe. At last, when the permission is granted and the person perceives satisfaction in the face of the intercessor, he feels a little comforted and asks the intercessor: “What has your Lord said?” The intercessor says, “The truth”: permission has been granted. What is meant to be impressed is this: “O foolish people! Such will be the awe of the great court of Allah! How dare you entertain the notion that anybody will have you forgiven by his own power, or dare behave stubbornly and tell Allah: These are my favorites: they will have to be forgiven!”","Ask them, (O Prophet): “Who provides you sustenance from the heavens and the earth?” Say: “Allah.[1] Now, inevitably only one of us is rightly guided, either we or you; and the other is in manifest error.”[2]###[1] There is a subtle gap between the question and the answer. The addressees were the mushriks who not only did not disbelieve in the existence of Allah but also knew and believed that the keys of the provisions are in His hand. But in spite of this they also held others as Allah’s associates in His work. Now when they were confronted with the question: Who gives you sustenance from the heavens and the earth, they were put in a tight corner. If they mentioned another besides Allah, they would say a thing contrary to their own and their people’s creed. If they showed stubbornness and said such a thing, they feared that their own people would immediately refute them. And if they acknowledged that Allah alone is their Sustainer, they would immediately be confronted with the next question: Then, why and what for have you made these others as your gods? When Allah is the Sustainer, why should these others be served and worshipped? Thus they stand confused and bewildered. Neither can they say that Allah alone is the Sustainer nor that another god is the sustainer. When the questioner sees that they do not make any answer, he himself answers his question and says, Allah. \t [2] This sentence contains an important point of the wisdom of preaching. The logical conclusion of the question and answer cited above would be that the one who serves and worships Allah should be on right guidance and the one who worships others beside Him should be misguided. Therefore, apparently, the conclusion should have been: “Then, we are rightly guided and you are misguided.” But such a plain and straight reply, although correct and true, would not have been a wise thing from the point of view of preaching. For when a person is addressed and told plainly that he is misguided and the speaker claims to be rightlyguided himself, he will become obdurate and will never be inclined to accept and acknowledge the truth. As the Messengers of Allah are not sent only for the sake of speaking the plain truth, but are also entrusted with the duty of reforming the wrongdoers as tactfully as possible. Allah has not asked His Prophet (peace be upon him) to tell them plainly, after the question and answer, that they are all misguided and that he alone is rightly-guided. Instead of this, it was said: Tell them: it has become clear that we regard as our Deity only Him Who is the Sustainer, and you have taken as deities those who are not sustainers. Now, it is not possible that both you and we should be on right guidance simultaneously. Only one of us can be rightly-guided, and the other inevitably will be misguided. Now it is for you to consider and judge who is being proved by reason to be in the right and who in the wrong.","Tell them: “You will not be called to account about the guilt we committed, nor will we be called to account for what you did.”[1]###[1] The about question had already made the listeners to think seriously, This additional sentence was meant to make them think even more seriously, as if to say, “It is in our own interest individually that we should consider and decide the question of guidance and misguidance rightly. For if we are misguided, we shall ourselves bear the consequences of our error; you will not be held answerable for it. Therefore, it is in our own interest that we should consider seriously, before adopting a creed, that we are not following a wrong way. Likewise, you also should think seriously for your own sake, not for our sake in any way, and make sure that you are not investing your life’s capital in a false creed. For if you committed an error in this regard, you would be harming only your own selves and not us.","Say: “Our Lord will bring us together and then He will rightly judge between us. He is the Great Judge, the All-Knowing.”[1]###[1] This is the last and the strongest motive for the consideration of which the listeners’ attention has been invited. It means to impress: The thing is not only that there is the difference of the truth and the falsehood between you and us, but that both we and you have to be presented before our Lord, the Being who knows the truth and is also fully aware of the affairs of each of us. There before Him not only will this thing be decided who, between you and us, was in the right and who in the wrong, but this issue also will be settled how we made every possible effort to make the truth plain to you, and how you opposed and resisted us in your antagonism to the truth.","Say: “Show me those whom you have attached to Him as His associates (in Divinity).”[1] Nay, Allah alone is Most Mighty, Most Wise.###[1] That is, before you take the great risk due to your reliance on these deities, just tell me here who among them is so powerful as to arise in the court of Allah as your supporter and save you from His punishment.","(O Prophet), We have not sent you forth but as a herald of good news and a warner for all mankind. But most people do not know.[1]###[1] That is, you have not been sent as a Prophet for the people of this city, or this country, or this age alone, but for the people of the entire world and for all times, but your compatriots do not recognize your worth and they do not realize how great a person has been raised among them as a Prophet (peace be upon him) and how uniquely they have been blessed by Allah.","They ask you: “When will this promise (of Resurrection) be fulfilled, if what you say is true?”[1]###[1] That is, “When will the time come about which you say: Our Lord will gather you together, then He will judge between us rightly? We have been denying you persistently and opposing you openly for so long. Why is not then the judgment being passed against us?","Say: “Your day is appointed, you can neither hold back its coming by an hour, nor hasten it by an hour.”[1]###[1] In other words, the reply means: Allah’s judgments are not subject to your whims that He should be bound to do a thing at the time which you have fixed for it. He carries out His designs only according to His own discretion. You cannot understand how long is mankind to be allowed to function in this world in the scheme of Allah, how many individuals and how many nations are to be put to the test in different ways, and what will be the right time for the Day of Judgment and summoning mankind of all ages for rendering their accounts. All this will be accomplished only at the time which Allah has fixed for it in His scheme of things. Your demands can neither hasten it on by a second nor your supplications can withhold it by a second.","The unbelievers say: “We shall never believe in this Qur'an, nor in any Scripture before it.”[1] If you could only see the wrong-doers arrayed before their Lord, each bandying charges against the other. Those who were suppressed will say to those who waxed arrogant: “Had it not been for you, we would have been believers.”[2]###[1] The allusion is to the pagans of Arabia, who did not believe in any divine Book. \t [2] That is, the common people who are following their leaders, chiefs, saints and rulers blindly, and are not prepared to listen to any word of advice from a well-wisher against them. When the same people will sec the actual reality and will also remember how their religious leaders used to misrepresent things, and when they will realize what doom they are going to meet on account of following their leaders, they will turn on them, and say, “O wretched people, you led us astray: you are responsible for all our afflictions. Had you not misguided us, we would have listened to the Messengers of Allah and believed in what they said.","The arrogant ones will retort to those who were suppressed: “What! Did we bar you from the guidance after it came to you? Not at all; rather you yourselves were evil-doers.”[1]###[1] That is, they will say: We had no power by which a few of us could have compelled hundreds of thousands of the people like you to follow us. If you had the will to believe, you could have deposed us from leadership and power and authority and government. In fact, you were our army, you were the source of our wealth and power. But for your offerings and gifts and taxes we should have been paupers. Had you not sworn allegiance to us, we could not have flourished as saints even for a day. Had you not appreciated and applauded us as leaders, we would have remained unknown. Had you not become our army and fought against the whole world for our sake, we could not have ruled over a single individual. Now why don’t you admit that you yourselves did not want to follow the way that the Messengers had presented before you. You were the slaves of your own lusts and desires, and the demands of your selves could not be fulfilled by the righteous way of life presented by the Messengers but by what we presented before you. You were heedless of the lawful and the unlawful and craved for the luxuries of life, which we only could provide you. You were in search of such guides as could give you the license to commit any sin, any crime, and take on themselves the responsibility to have you forgiven by God, in exchange for gifts. You wanted to listen to such religious scholars only who could please you by proving every kind of shirk and every innovation in religion and every lust of your self to be the very truth. You needed such forgers who could invent a new religion by altering the religion of God after your desires. You wanted to follow such leaders who could help you become prosperous in this world, no matter how you fared in the Hereafter. You wished to have such rulers who were immoral and dishonest so that under their patronage you also could have the freedom to indulge in any sin, any immorality. Thus, you and we were equal partners in the bargain. Now you cannot delude anyone by saying that you were absolutely innocent and that we had spoiled and corrupted you against your will.","Those who were suppressed will say to those who waxed arrogant: “By no means; it was your scheming, night and day, when you would enjoin us to disbelieve in Allah and set up others as equals to Him.”[1] When they are confronted with the chastisement, they will be remorseful in their hearts. We shall put fetters around the necks of the unbelievers. Can people be requited except for their deeds?###[1] In other words, the common people’s reply will be: “How can you hold us as equal partners in this responsibility? Do you also remember what sort of trickeries and deceptions and false propaganda you practiced and what efforts you used to make to tempt and entice the people day and night. It is not just that you presented the world before us and we were allured, but this is also a fact that you used to befool us by your frauds and deceptions and each one of you brought a new bait every day to tempt and lure the simple people.”","We never sent a warner to any town but its wealthy ones said: “We disbelieve in the Message you have brought.”[1]###[1] That the message of the Prophets was first of all opposed and resisted by the well-to-do people who possessed wealth and influence and authority. This has been stated at many places in the Quran. For instance, see (Surah Al-Anaam, Ayat 123);  (Surah Al-Aaraf, Ayats 60,  66,   75,  88,  90);  (Surah Hud, Ayat 27);  (Surah Bani-Israil, Ayat 16); (Surah Al-Muminun, Ayats 24,  33 to 38, 46, 47);  (Surah Az- Zukhruf, Ayat 23).","They always said: “We have more wealth and children than you have, and we shall not be chastised.”[1]###[1] Their reasoning was: “We are greater favorites of Allah than you. That is why He has favored us with the blessings of which you are deprived, or have received them in lesser measure. Why should Allah have given us all these provisions and wealth and power, had He not been pleased with us? Now, how can we believe that Allah Who is showering us with all kinds of His blessings here will punish us in the Hereafter? He will punish only those who are deprived of His favors here,”","(O Prophet), say to them: “My Lord grants provision abundantly to whomsoever He pleases and straitens it for whomsoever He pleases. But most people do not know this.[1]###[1] They do not understand the wisdom on which the system of the distribution of provisions is based in the world, and are thus involved in the misunderstanding that whoever is being given abundantly is a beloved of Allah and whoever is being given sparingly is under His wrath. The fact, however, is that if a person looks around with open eyes he will see that in most cases the people with filthy and repulsive character are prosperous, and many good and noble people, who are known and recognized as morally pure, are found living in poverty. Now, how can a sensible person say that Allah dislikes the people of pure character and favors the wicked wrongdoers?","It is not your riches nor your children that make you near-stationed to Us, except for him who has faith and acts righteously;[1] it is they who will receive double the recompense for their deeds. They shall live in lofty mansions in perfect peace.[2]###[1] This can have two meanings and both are correct: \t [2] (1) That which brings the people nearer to Allah is not wealth and children but faith and righteous deeds; and,","As for those who work against Our Signs so as to frustrate them, they shall be arraigned into the chastisement.","Say, (O Prophet): “Verily, my Lord grants provision abundantly to whomsoever He pleases and straitens it for whomsoever He pleases.[1] Whatever you spend, He will replace it. He is the Best of all Providers.”[2]###[1] The repetition of this theme is meant to impress this: The abundance or restriction of the provisions is connected with Allah’s will, not with His pleasure and approval. Under the will of Allah every good or evil person is receiving his provision. Both, those who believe in Him and those who do not believe, are getting their provisions. Neither is abundance of the provisions a proof that one is Allah’s favorite servant nor is its restriction a sign that one is under His wrath. Under His will a wicked and dishonest person prospers, although wickedness and dishonesty are disliked by Allah. On the contrary, under the same divine will a truthful and honest man suffers losses and undergoes hardships although these qualities are liked by Allah. Hence, the person who regards the material gains and benefits as the criterion for the good and evil is grossly mistaken. The real criterion is Allah’s pleasure and approval which is attained through the moral qualities liked and approved by Him. With these qualities if a person gets the worldly blessings as well, it will certainly be Allah’s bounty for which he should be grateful to Him. But if from the moral point of view a person is Allah’s rebel and is disobedient to Him and in spite of that is being favored with worldly blessings, it would mean that he is preparing himself for a strict accountability and a most severe punishment. \t [2] Sustainer, Creator, Inventor, Donor and many other such attributes are in fact the attributes of Allah, but are metaphorically applied to men also. For example, about a person we may say, He provided a job for so-and-so, or he made or invented such and such a thing, or he made a gift to so-and-so. Accordingly, Allah has used the word Khair ar Raziqin (the Best of Providers) for Himself. It means to impress the fact that Allah is the best of providers among all those about whom you think that they are in any way connected with arranging the provisions.","And on the Day when He will muster them all and will ask the angels: “Are they the ones who worshipped you?”[1]###[1] Since the earliest times the polytheists in every age have been looking upon the angels as gods and goddesses and carving their idols and worshipping them. One has been regarded as the god of rain, another of lightning and another of wind; one is the goddess of wealth, another of knowledge and another of life and death. About this Allah says that on the Day of Resurrection the angels will be asked: Were you being worshipped as deities by these people? This question is not meant merely to find out the truth, but to ask: Did you approve of their worship? Did you tell the people that you were their deities, so they should worship you? Or, did you wish that the people should do obeisance to you? This question will not only be asked of the angels but of all those beings who have been worshipped as gods in the world. In Surah Al-Furqan it has been said: “On that Day (Allah) will gather all these people together as well as their deities, whom they worship beside Allah. Then he will ask them: Did you mislead these servants of Mine, or did they themselves go astray? (Ayat 17).","They will reply: “Glory to You! You are our Protector, not they.[1] Nay, they rather used to worship the jinn. Most of them believe in them.”###[1] That is, they will answer: You are Pure and Exalted far above that another should be made a partner in Godhead with you. We have no connection with these people. We are not responsible for them nor for what they did. We are Your servants only.","Today none of you has the power to benefit or harm another;[1] and We shall say to the evil-doers: “Taste now the chastisement of the Fire which you used to deny, calling it a lie.”###[1] In this sentence, jinn implies the satans among the jinns. The answer means: Apparently these people worshipped us, by mentioning our names and by making our images according to their imaginations. But, in fact, they did not worship us but worshipped the satans, for the satans only had shown them the way that they should regard others than Allah as fulfillers of their needs, and should make offerings before them.","When Our Clear Signs are rehearsed to them they say: “This is a person who wants to turn you away from the deities whom your ancestors worshipped.” They say: “This is nothing but an invented falsehood.” And when the Truth came to the unbelievers they declared: “This is nothing but plain sorcery,”","whereas We gave them no Books that they could study nor sent to them any warner before you.[1]###[1] That is, neither a book from God has come to them before this nor a messenger, who might have taught them to worship and serve others than God. Therefore, they are denying the invitation to Tauhid given by the Quran and Muhammad (peace be upon him) due to sheer ignorance, and not on the basis of any knowledge. They have in fact no authority for this.","Those who went before them also denounced (Allah's Messengers) as liars. They have not attained even a tenth of what We had given them. But when they rejected My Messengers, calling them liars, how terrible was My chastisement![1]###[1] That is, the people of Makkah have not attained even one-tenth of the power and grandeur and prosperity that was possessed by those people. But just see how they went to their doom ultimately and their power and wealth could not avail them anything, when they refused to believe in the realities presented before them by the Prophets, and founded their system of life on falsehood.","Say to them, (O Prophet): “I give you but one counsel: stand up (for heaven's sake), singly and in pairs, and then think: what is it in your companion(to wit, Muhammad) that could be deemed as madness?”[1] He is nothing but a warner, warning you before the coming of a grevious chastisement.[2]###[1] That is, free yourselves of selfish interests and whims and prejudices and consider this sincerely for the sake of Allah: consider this singly as well as jointly in two and three and four in an objective manner and consider it well and deeply. What after all can be the reason that the person whom you call a madman today was, until yesterday, being looked upon as a very wise man among you? The incident that happened a little before his appointment to Prophethood is well known among you. When after the reconstruction of the Kabah the different clans of the Quraish were going to clash among themselves on the question as to who should place the Black Stone in the wall, you yourselves had unanimously agreed to accept Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the arbitrator, and he had settled the question amicably to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. Now, how is it that you have started calling the same person mad, whose wisdom and sagacity has been thus tested and experienced by your whole nation? What is it if not stubbornness? Do you really mean the same that you say with your tongues? \t [2] That is, do you call him mad only for this reason? Do you regard someone wise who finds you following the path of ruin and applauds you. Do you regard someone mad who warns you beforehand of the coming of a disaster and shows you the way to safety and well-being?","Say to them: “Whatever recompense I might ask of you, it shall be yours.[1] My recompense is with Allah, and He is witness over everything.”[2]###[1] Another meaning of this can be: “I do not ask anything but your well-being: My only recompense is that you should be reformed.” This thing has been expressed at another place thus; “O Prophet, say to them: I do not ask of you any recompense for this: I only ask of the one, who will, to adopt the way of his Lord.”  (Surah Al-Furqan, Ayat 57). \t [2] That is, “The accusers may say whatever they like but Allah knows everything. He is a witness that I am a selfless person. I am not perforating this mission for any selfish motive.”","Say to them: “My Lord hurls down the Truth (upon me).[1] He knows fully all that lies beyond the range of perception.”###[1] The words yaqdhifu bil-haqq give two meanings:","Say: “The Truth has come and falsehood can neither originate nor recreate anything.”","Say: “If I go astray then the hurt of straying will come only upon me. But if I am rightly-guided, that is only because of the revelation that my Lord makes to me. He is All-Hearing, Ever Nigh.”[1]###[1] From this verse some people of the modern age have argued thus: According to it the Prophet (peace be upon him) also could go astray: rather used to go astray. That is why Allah has made the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself say: “If I have gone astray, I am myself responsible for this. And I am on right guidance only when my Lord sends down revelation (i.e. verses of the Quran) to me.” By this wrong interpretation these unjust people in fact want to prove that the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) life was, God forbid, a combination of guidance and error, and Allah had made him confess this before the disbelievers lest one should adopt his obedience completely, taking him to be wholly on right guidance. The fact however is that whoever considers the theme in its correct context will know that here the words, if I have gone astray, are not meant to give the meaning that the Prophet (peace be upon him) actually used to go astray, but it means: “If I have gone astray, as you accuse that I have, and my claim to Prophethood and my this invitation to Tauhid are the result of the same deviation, as you seem to imagine, then the burden of my going astray, will be on me alone; you will not be held responsible for it. But if I am on right guidance, as in fact I am, it is because I receive revelation from my Lord, by virtue of which I have obtained the knowledge of the guidance. My Lord is near at hand and is hearing everything. He knows whether I have gone astray or I am on right guidance from Him.”","If you could only see when the unbelievers will go about in a state of terror. They will have no escape and will be seized from a place near at hand.[1]###[1] That is, “On the Day of Resurrection, every culprit will be seized in a way as though he lay in hiding close by. As he will try to flee, he will be seized immediately.”","They will then say: “We believe in it”;[1] but whence can they attain it from so far-off a place?[2]###[1] “We do believe (now) in it”: “We believe in the message presented by the Messenger in the world.” \t [2] That is, “They should have believed when they lived in the world; they have come a long way away from it. After having arrived in the next world how can they get a chance to repent and believe?”","They disbelieved in it before and indulged in conjectures from far away.[1]###[1] That is, they used to charge the Messenger (peace be upon him) and the believers with false accusations and used to taunt and mock his message. Sometimes they said he was a sorcerer or a madman; sometimes they ridiculed Tauhid and the concept of the Hereafter; sometimes they invented the story that someone has taught him everything; and sometimes they said that the believers had started following him only on account of folly and ignorance.","A barrier will be placed between them and what they desire, as was done with the likes of them before. Surely they were in a disquieting doubt.[1]###[1] As a matter of fact, no one adopts shirk and atheism and denial of the Hereafter by conviction, nor can he, for conviction comes from knowledge. And no one has the knowledge that there is no God, or that many others have a share in divine authority, or that there should be no Hereafter. Thus, whoever has adopted these beliefs in the world, has raised a structure on mere conjecture, which has no basis except doubt and suspicion, and this suspicion has led him to sheer error. Consequently, they doubted God’s existence, they doubted the truth of Tauhid, they doubted the coming of the Hereafter; so much so that they made this doubt their faith and did not listen to the Prophets and expended and wasted their entire lifetime indulging in a wrong creed and wrong way of life.","All praise be to Allah, the Fashioner of the heavens and earth, Who appointed angels[1] as His message bearers, having two, three, four wings.[2] He adds to His creation whatever He pleases.[3] Verily Allah has power over everything.###[1] This can have two meanings: \t [2] (1) That these angels perform the service of communicating messages between Allah and His Prophets. \t [3] (2) That it is the duty of these angels to convey and enforce the commands of Allah Almighty throughout the universe.","Whatever Mercy Allah accords to people, none can withhold; and whatever He withholds, no other will be able to release after Him.[1] He is Most Mighty, Most Wise.[2]###[1] This is also meant to remove the misunderstanding of the polytheists, who believed that from among the servants of Allah, someone gave them the provision, someone the children and someone health to their patients. All these superstitions of shirk are baseless, and the pure truth is just that whatever of mercy reaches the people, reaches to them only through Allah Almighty’s bounty and grace. No one else has the power either to bestow it or to withhold it. This theme has been expressed at many places in the Quran and the Ahadith in different ways so that man may avoid the humiliation of begging at every door and at every shrine and may realize that making or marring of his destiny is in the power of One Allah alone and of none else. \t [2] “He is the All-Mighty”: He is dominant and the owner of Sovereignty: none can stop His judgments from being enforced. Also “He is All-Wise”: every act of His is based on wisdom. When He gives somebody something He gives because it is demanded by wisdom, and when He withholds something from somebody, He withholds it because it would be against wisdom to give it.","O people, remember Allah's favour upon you.[1] Is there any creator, apart from Allah, who provides you your sustenance out of the heavens and earth? There is no god but He. Whither are you, then, being misdirected?[2]###[1] “Remember Allah’s favor upon you”: Do not be ungrateful: do not forget that whatever you have, has been given by Allah. In other words, this sentence is meant to warn that whoever worships other than Allah, or regards a blessing as a favor done by other than Allah, or thanks other than Allah for a favor received, or prays to other than Allah for the grant of a blessing, is ungrateful. \t [2] There is a subtle gap between the first and the second sentence, which is being filled by the context itself. To understand this, one may visualize the scene like this: The polytheists are being addressed. The speaker asks the audience: “Is there another creator beside Allah, who might have created you, and might be arranging provisions for you from the earth and heavens?” After this question the speaker waits for the answer. But there is no reply from anywhere. No one replies that there is another one beside Allah, who is their creator and sustainer. This by itself shows that the audience also believe that there is none beside Allah, who could be their creator and sustainer. Then the speaker says: “If so, then He alone can also be the Deity and no one else. How have you been so deceived? Why have you taken these others as your deities, when Allah alone is your Creator and Sustainer?”","(O Prophet), (there is nothing novel in it) if they cry lies to you;[1]Messengers before you were also cried lies to. To Allah shall all matters be sent back.[2]###[1] “If they deny”: If they do not believe that there is no one worthy of worship but Allah, and accuse you of having made a false claim to Prophethood. \t [2] That is, it is not for the people to give the verdict that whomsoever they call a liar should in fact become a liar. The judgment rests with Allah. He shall in the end decide who was the liar, and shall bring the real liars to their evil end.","O people, assuredly Allah's promise is true.[1] So let the life of the world not delude you,[2] and let not the Deluder delude you concerning Allah.[3]###[1] “The promise” implies the promise of the Hereafter to which allusion was made in the preceding sentence, saying: “And to Allah return all matters.” \t [2] “Let not deceive you”: Deceive you that the world is an end in itself: that there is no Hereafter when one will have to render an account of one’s deeds: or that even if there is the Hereafter, the one who is enjoying life here will enjoy life there, too. \t [3] “Great deceiver”: Satan, as is evident from the next sentence. And “deceive you concerning Allah” means:","Surely Satan is an enemy to you. Therefore, do take him as an enemy. He calls his followers to his way so that they may be among the inmates of the Fire.","A severe chastisement lies in store for those that disbelieve,[1] but there is pardon and a great reward for those that believe and work righteous deeds.[2]###[1] “Those who disbelieve”: those who will refuse to believe in this invitation of Allah’s Book and His Messenger. \t [2] That is, Allah will overlook their errors and will reward them for their good deeds not merely with what they will just deserve but much more richly and generously.","(How[1] awful is the straying of the person) for whom his evil deed has been embellished so that it looks fair to him?[2] The fact is that Allah causes whomsoever He will to fall into error and shows the Right Way to whomsoever He will. So, (O Prophet), let not your life go to waste sorrowing over them.[3] Allah is well aware of all that they do.[4]###[1] (Verses 3-7) were addressed to the common people. In this paragraph mention has been made of the standard bearers of error and deviation, who were exerting their utmost to frustrate and defeat the mission of the Prophet (peace be upon him). \t [2] That is, one kind of perverted person is he who commits evil but knows and understands that he is committing evil. Such a person can be reformed by counsel and advice, and sometimes his own conscience also pricks and brings him to the right path, for his habits only are perverted, not his mind. But there is another kind of a person whose mentality has been perverted, who has lost the discrimination between good and evil, for whom the life of sin has become alluring and lustrous, who abhors good and takes evil for civilization and culture, who regards goodness and piety as things of the past, and sinfulness and wickedness as progressiveness, and for whom guidance becomes error and error becomes guidance. Such a person is not amenable to any advice and any admonition. He neither takes warning from his own follies nor listens to a well wisher. It is useless to waste ones time and energy for the reformation of such a person. Instead, the inviter to the truth should turn his attention towards those whose consciences may still be alive and who may still be inclined to listen to the truth. \t [3] The insertion of the words “Then indeed, Allah sends astray whom He wills, and guides whom He wills” between the preceding and this sentence, clearly gives the meaning that Allah deprives, of the grace of guidance, those who become so perverted mentally, and leaves them to wander aimlessly in the ways in which they themselves wish to remain lost. After making the Prophet (peace be upon him) realize this fact Allah exhorts him to the effect: It is not within your power to bring such people to the right path; therefore, have patience in their regard. Just as Allah is indifferent about them, so should you also avoid being unduly anxious about their reformation. \t [4] Here, one should bear in mind two things very clearly. First, the people being mentioned here were not the common people, but the chiefs of Makkah, who were employing every falsehood, every fraud and every trick to defeat the mission of the Prophet (peace be upon him). These people were, in fact, not involved in any misunderstanding about the Prophet (peace be upon him). They knew well what he was calling them to and what were the evils and moral weaknesses which they themselves were striving to maintain. After knowing and understanding all this, they had firmly resolved not to let him succeed in his object. And for this purpose they did not feel any hesitation in using any mean or petty device. Now, evidently the people who deliberately and after annual consultation invent a new falsehood every next day and spread it against a person, can deceive the whole world but as for themselves they know that they are the liars and that the person whom they have accused is free of every blame. Then, if the person against whom the false propaganda is being made also does not react and respond in a way opposed to truth and righteousness, the unjust people also cannot help realizing that their opponent is a truthful and honest man. If in spite of this the people do not feel ashamed of their misconduct and continue to oppose and resist the truth with falsehood, their conduct itself testifies that they are under Allah’s curse and they can no longer discriminate between good and evil.","It is Allah Who sends forth winds which then set the clouds in motion, which We drive to some dead land giving a fresh life to earth after it had become dead. Such will be the resurrection of the dead.[1]###[1] That is, these ignorant people think that the Hereafter is impossible. That is why they are living under the delusion that they may do whatever they like in the world, the time will never come when they will have to appear before their God and render an account of their deeds. But this is no more than a delusion. On the Day of Resurrection, the dead men of all ages will suddenly rise back to life at one call of Allah just as the dead earth comes back to life at one shower of the rain and the roots, lying dead for ages, become green and start sprouting up from the layers of the earth.","He who seeks glory, let him know that all glory belongs to Allah alone.[1] To Him do good words go up, and righteous action uplifts them.[2] But those who contrive evil deeds,[3] a severe punishment lies in store for them, and their contriving will come to naught.###[1] It should be noted that whatever the chiefs of the Quraish were doing against the Prophet (peace be upon him), they were doing it for the sake of their honor and dignity. They thought that if the Prophet (peace be upon him) succeeded in his mission, their greatness and glory would fade away, their influence would die out and their honor among the Arabs would be ruined. At this it is being said: The honor that you have attained for yourselves by your disbelief and rebellion against Allah is a false honor, which is destined to be ruined. The real and enduring honor, which can never suffer debasement, can be attained only through service of Allah. If you turn sincerely and faithfully to Him, you will attain it. And if you turn away from Him, you are bound to live an abject and wretched life. \t [2] This is the real means of attaining the honor. In the sight of Allah, the false, vicious and mischievous can never rise and flourish. In His sight only such a word can rise and flourish which is honest and pure and is based on the truth, and in which a righteous creed and a correct point of view may have been expressed and presented. Then the thing which makes the pure word to rise and prosper is the action which conforms to it. Wherever the word is pure but the action is opposed to it, the purity of the word suffers a blemish. The mere extravagant rise of the tongue does not exalt a word: the power of the righteous action is needed to exalt and raise it high. Here, one should also note that the Quran presents the righteous word and the righteous action as interdependent. No action can be righteous merely on the basis of its external and apparent form unless it has a righteous creed behind it. And no righteous creed can be reliable unless it is supported and confirmed by a person’s action. For instance, if a person says that he regards Allah, the One, alone as his Deity, but worships others than Allah in practical life, his action belies his word. If a person says that he regards the wine as unlawful but drinks it, his mere word can neither be acceptable to the people nor deserve approval in the sight of Allah. \t [3] “Those who plot evil”: Those who propagate false and evil words by means of cunning tricks, deceit and deceptive reasoning, and do not feel any hesitation in employing any device, however mean and depraved, to frustrate and defeat the word of the truth.","Allah[1] created you from dust, then from a drop of sperm,[2] then He made you into pairs. No female conceives, nor delivers (a child) except with His knowledge. None is given a long life nor is any diminished in his life but it is written in a Book.[3] Surely that is quite easy for Allah.[4]###[1] From here again the discourse is directed to the common people. \t [2] That is, man in the first instance was created from the dust directly. Then his race was perpetuated through the sperm-drop. \t [3] That is, it is pre-ordained for everyone who is born in this world how long he will live. If a person lives a long life, he does so by Allah’s decree, and if another one lives a short life, he too lives so by Allah’s decree. Some ignorant people give the argument that in the past the death rate of the newly born children used to be high, and now it has been checked by the advancement of the medical science. And the people used to live short lives in the past, now due to better medical facilities the life span has increased. But this argument could be presented in refutation of the Quranic argument only when it could be ascertained that Allah, for instance, had preordained a two year life for a certain person, and the modern medical facilities have enhanced it by a day. If a person has no such knowledge, he cannot refute this Quranic statement on any rational grounds. Only on the basis of the statistics that the death rate among children has fallen, or that the people now are living longer lives, it cannot be argued that man has now become able to change the decrees of Allah. Rationally it is not impossible that Allah might have fixed different life spans for the people born in different periods, and this might also be Allah Almighty’s decree that man in such and such an age would be granted curative power to treat such and such diseases, and in such and such a period man would be given greater means for longevity. \t [4] That is, it is not at all difficult for Allah to give commands and pass judgments about each individual of His countless creations when He possesses detailed and perfect knowledge about them.","The two masses of water are not alike.[1] The one is sweet, sates thirst, and is pleasant to drink from, while the other is salt, bitter on the tongue. Yet from both you eat fresh meat,[2] and extract from it ornaments that you wear;[3] and you see ships cruising through it that you may seek of His Bounty and be thankful to Him.###[1] That is, the body of water in the oceans, and the body of water in the rivers and springs and lakes. \t [2] “Fresh meat”: Meat of water animals. \t [3] That is pearls and corals and, in some rivers, diamonds and gold.","He causes the night to phase into the day and the day into the night,[1] and He has subjected the sun and the moon, each running its course to an appointed term.[2] That is Allah, your Lord; to Him belongs the Kingdom; but those whom you call upon, apart from Allah, possess not so much as the skin of a date-stone.[3]###[1] That is, the light of the day starts diminishing and the darkness of the night increasing gradually so as to cover up everything completely. Likewise, towards the end of the night, in the beginning, a streak of the light appears on the horizon, and then the bright day dawns. \t [2] “Subjected ”: means subjected to a law. \t [3] The word qitmir in the original means the thin skin that covers the stone of the date fruit; but what is meant to be said is that the gods of the mushriks do not own anything whatever. That is why we have translated it “a blade of grass”, which is an insignificant thing.","If you call upon them, they cannot hear your prayer. And if they hear it, they cannot answer it.[1] On the Day of Resurrection they will disown you for associating others with Allah in His Divinity.[2] No one can inform you of the truth save the All-Aware.[3]###[1] This does not mean that they cannot tell aloud, in answer to your prayer whether your prayer has been accepted or not, but it means that they cannot take any action on your supplications. If a person sends his application to someone who is not a ruler, his application miscarries. For, the person to whom it has been sent, who has no authority whatever: he can neither reject it nor accept it. However, if the same application is sent to the one who is really a ruler, one or the other action will certainly be taken on it. \t [2] That is, they will plainly say: We had never told them that we are Allah’s associates and that they should worship us. On the contrary, we were not at all aware that they regarded us as Allah’s associates and were invoking us for help. None of their prayers has reached us, nor has any of their gifts and offerings. \t [3] “All-Knower”: Allah Almighty Himself. It means this: The other person can at the most refine shirk and prove the powerlessness of the gods of the polytheists by rational arguments only, but We are directly aware of the absolute truth. We are telling you, on the basis of knowledge, that all those whom the people believe to be possessing some powers in Our Godhead are absolutely powerless. They have no authority whatsoever by which they might do somebody good or harm. And We know this directly that on the Day of Resurrection, these gods of the mushriks will themselves refute their shirk.","O people, it is you who stand in need of Allah;[1] as for Allah, He is Self-Sufficient, Immensely Praiseworthy.[2]###[1] That is, you should not remain under the delusion that Allah stands in need of your help. If you do not accept Him as God, His Godhead will fail, and if you do not serve and worship Him, He will incur some loss. Nay, but the fact is that you stand in need of Him. You cannot remain alive for a moment if He does not keep you alive, and does not provide you with the means by which you remain alive in the world and function. Therefore, when you are told to adopt His service and obedience, it is not because Allah stands in need of it, but because upon it depends your own success here as well as in the Hereafter. If you do not do so, you will be harming your own selves only, and not Allah in any way. \t [2] The word Ghani implies that He is the Owner of everything: He is Self-sufficient and Independent of all. He does not stand in need of anyone’s help. The word Hamid implies that He is Self-Praiseworthy: someone may praise Him, or may not, but He alone is worthy of hamd (praise and gratitude). These two attributes have been used together because one would be ghani even if one did not do any good to anyone by one’s wealth. In such a case one would be ghani but not hamid One will be hamid only in case one does not draw any benefit for oneself but benefits others in every way from the treasures of his wealth and resources. Since Allah is perfect in these two attributes, it has been said: “He is not just Ghani (self-sufficient) but such Ghani as is worthy of every kind of praise and gratitude, for He is fulfilling your needs as well as the needs of all other creatures.","If He wishes, He can remove you and put in your place a new creation.","That surely is not difficult for Allah.[1]###[1] That is, you are not enjoying life on Allah’s earth solely by dint of your own power and might. He has the power to remove you from here in no time and raise another people to take your place. Therefore, you should understand your true worth, and should desist from adopting the conduct which has been causing the downfall of the nations. When Allah wills to send someone to his doom, there is no one in the universe, who can stop Him and withhold His decree from being enforced.","No one can bear another's burden.[1] If a heavily laden one should call another to carry his load, none of it shall be carried by the other, even though he be a near of kin.[2] (O Prophet), you can warn only those who fear their Lord without seeing Him and establish Prayer.[3] Whoever purifies himself does so to his own good. To Allah is the final return.###[1] “Burden”: the burden of the responsibilities of actions. It means: In the sight of Allah every one is responsible for his own actions and for no one else’s. There is no possibility that Allah will place the burden of one man’s responsibility upon the other, nor is there the possibility that a person will take the burden of another’s responsibility upon himself and get himself seized for the crime committed by the other. This thing has been said here because the polytheist kinsmen and relatives of the people who were embracing Islam in Makkah, used to urge them, saying, Give up Islam and return to your ancestral faith. We take the responsibility of any punishment etc. on ourselves. \t [2] In the preceding sentence, Allah’s law of justice has been enunciated, according to which He will not seize any person for the sin committed by another, but will hold everyone responsible for his own sin. In this sentence the Muslims have been told: Those who urge you to give up faith and commit evil on the assurance that they will take on themselves the burden of your sins on the Day of Resurrection, are in fact giving you a false hope. When Resurrection comes and the people see what fate they are going to meet in consequence of their misdeed, everyone will be concerned only about himself. Brother will turn away from brother and father from son, and no one will be prepared to take even an atom’s weight of another’s burden on himself. \t [3] In other words, your warnings cannot have any effect on obstinate and stubborn people. Your admonitions can bring only such people to the right path who have fear of God in their hearts and who are inclined to bow before their real Master.","The blind and the seeing are not alike,","nor darkness and light;","nor cool shade and torrid heat;","nor are the living and the dead alike.[1] Allah makes to hear whomsoever He wishes, but you, (O Prophet), cannot cause to hear those who are in their graves.[2]###[1] In these comparisons the present and the future of a believer and a disbeliever have been contrasted. There is a person who has closed his eyes to the realities and does not care to see as to what truth the whole system of the universe and his own existence itself are pointing. There is the other person, whose eyes are open and who clearly sees that everything outside and inside himself bears evidence to the Unity of God and to man’s answerability before him. There is a person, who is wandering blindly in the superstitions of ignorance and the darkness of presumptions and speculations, and is not inclined to benefit by the light of the candle lit by the Prophet. There is the other person, whose eyes are open and who, as soon as the light spread by the Prophet appears before him, comes to realize that all the ways being followed by the polytheists and the disbelievers and the atheists lead to destruction, and the way to success is only that which has been shown by the Messenger of God. Now how can it be possible that the attitude of the two persons be the same in the world and the two may follow one and the same path together? And how can this also be possible, either that the two should meet the same end and should both end up in the dust after death? Neither should one be punished for his wrongdoings, nor the other be rewarded for his righteous conduct. The sentence, “the cool shade and the heat of the sun are not alike” points to the same fate. The one will be provided shelter under the shade of Allah’s mercy and the other will burn in the fire of Hell. Thus, the notions that the two will ultimately meet the same end, is utterly false. In the end, the believer has been likened to the living and the stubborn disbeliever to the dead. That is, the believer is he whose feeling, understanding and perception are alive and whose conscience is making him aware of the distinction between the good and the evil every moment. Contrary to this, the person who has been, wholly lost in the prejudices of disbelief is even worse than the blind person who is wandering about in darkness. Nay, he is like a dead person who has no sense or feeling left in him. \t [2] That is, as for the powers of Allah, they are unlimited. He can even make the stones to hear. But it is not within the power of the Messenger to make those people to listen to him whose consciences have become dead and whose ears deaf to every call to the truth. He can only make those people to hear him, who are inclined to listen to every reasonable thing.","You are no more than a warner.[1]###[1] That is, your only duty is to warn the people and nothing else. If even after this a person does not come to his senses, and remains lost in his deviations, you are not to blame for that, for you have not been entrusted with the duty of making the blind to see and the deaf to hear.","We have sent you with the Truth to proclaim good news and to warn. Never has there been a nation but a warner came to it.[1]###[1] That there has been no community in the world for whose guidance Allah did not appoint the Prophets. This has been stated at several places in the Quran. In (Surah Ar- Raad, Ayat 7), it was said: “Every people has its guide”. In  (Surah Al-Hijr, Ayat 10): “O Prophet, We have already sent Messengers before you among many of the ancient peoples”. In  (Surah An-Nahl, Ayat 36): “We sent to every community a Messenger” and in  (Surah Ash-Shuara, Ayat: 208): “We have never destroyed a habitation unless it had its warners to administer admonition”. But, in this connection, one should note two things so that there remains no misunderstanding. First, one and the same Prophet is enough for the lands to which his message may reach. It is not necessary that Prophets be sent to every separate habitation and to every separate community. Second, no new Prophet needs to be sent as long as the message and teaching and guidance given by a previous Prophet remains safe and intact. It is not necessary that a separate Prophet be sent for every race and every generation.","If they give the lie to you now, those that went before them also gave the lie to their Messengers when they came to them with Clear Proofs,[1] with Scriptures, and with the Illuminating Book.[2]###[1] “Clear proofs”: Proofs which clearly testified that they were Allah’s Messengers. \t [2] “Scriptures” probably consisted of good counsels and moral precepts and “the Book” comprised a complete code of the law.","Then I seized those who denied the Truth, and how terrible was My punishment!","Do you not see that Allah sent down water from the sky with which We brought forth fruits of diverse hues? In the mountains there are white and red, of diverse hues, and pitchy black;","and human beings too, and beasts, and cattle � diverse are their hues.[1]From among His servants, it is only those who know that fear Allah.[2] Verily Allah is Most Mighty, Most Forgiving.[3]###[1] This is meant to impress that in the universe created by Allah nowhere is there homogeneity and uniformity; there is variety everywhere. From the same earth and by the same water different kinds of trees are appearing. Even the two pieces of the fruit of the same tree are not uniform in color and size and taste. In the same mountain one will see a variety of colors and a great difference in the material composition of its different parts. Even among human beings and animals one will not see two offspring of the same parents exactly alike. If a person seeks uniformity of the temperaments and dispositions and mentalities in this universe and is bewildered at the differences which have been alluded to in( verses 19-22) above, it will be his own perception and understanding to blame. This same variety and difference, in fact, point to the reality that this universe has been created by a Wise Being with great wisdom; its Maker is a Unique Creator and a Matchless Fashioner, Who does not have the same model of everything before Him, but has a variety of countless and limitless designs of everything. Then if one ponders over the differences in human temperaments and minds, in particular, one will see that it is not a mere accident, but in fact the masterpiece of the wisdom of creation. If all human beings had been created with the uniform temperaments and desires and feelings and inclinations and ways of thinking, and no room had been left for any difference, it would have been absolutely useless to bring about a new creation like man in the world. When the Creator decided to bring into existence a responsible creation, a creation having power and authority, the necessary inevitable demand of the nature of the decision was that room for all sorts of differences should be provided in its nature and structure. This is the main proof of the fact that the creation of man is not the result of an accident, but the result of a wonderful and wise plan and design. And obviously, wherever there is a wise plan and design, there must necessarily be a Wise Being working behind it, for the existence of wisdom without a Wise Being would be un-imaginable. \t [2] That is, the more a person is unaware of the attributes of Allah, the more he will be fearless of Him. Contrary to this, the more a person is aware and conscious of Allah’s powers, His knowledge, His wisdom, His vengeance and His omnipotence and His other attributes, the more he will fear His disobedience. Thus, in fact, knowledge in this verse does not imply knowledge of academic subjects like philosophy and science and history and mathematics, etc. but the knowledge of divine attributes, no matter whether one is literate or illiterate. The one who is fearless of God is illiterate merely as regards to this knowledge even if he has all the knowledge of the world. And the one who knows the attributes of God and fears Him in his heart, is learned even if he is illiterate. In the same connection, one should also know that in this verse the ulama does not imply the scholars in the technical sense, who are termed as religious scholars because of their knowledge of the Quran and Hadith and Fiqh and philosophy. They will prove true to this verse only when they possess fear of God in their hearts. The same thing has been said by Abdullah bin Masud, thus: Knowledge is not due to much narration of Hadith but due to much fear of Allah. And also by Hassan Basri, thus: The scholar is he who fears Allah though he has not seen Him, and turns to what is approved by Him and keeps away from what makes Him angry. \t [3] That is, He is All-Mighty, and therefore, can seize the disobedient as and when He likes: no one can escape His grasp. But He is All-Forgiving also and is, therefore, giving respite to the wrongdoers.","Surely those who recite the Book of Allah and establish Prayer and spend, privately and publicly, out of what We have provided them, look forward to a trade that shall suffer no loss;","(a trade in which they have invested their all) so that Allah may pay them their wages in full and may add to them out of His Bounty.[1] He is Most Forgiving, Most Appreciative.[2]###[1] This kind of conduct and practice of the believers has been likened to a trade bargain because in trade a man invests his money and labor and capabilities in the hope that he will not only get his capital back and his wages for the time and energy spent but in addition some profit as well. Likewise, a believer also invests his wealth and his time and his labor and capabilities in carrying out Allah’s commands and in His service and worship and in the struggle to promote the cause of His religion in the hope that he will not only get his full rewards for it but Allah will bless him with much more from His bounty as well. But there is a great difference between the two kinds of bargains. In the worldly trade bargains there is the risk of loss also along with the hope of profits. Contrary to this, in the bargain that a sincere servant makes with his God there is no risk of any loss whatever. \t [2] That is, Allah’s relation with the sincere believers is not that of a miserly master who checks his servant on trivialities and brings all his services and loyalties to naught on account of a minor error. But Allah is the Most Beneficent and Generous Master. He overlooks the errors of His obedient servant and appreciates whatever service he might be able to render.","(O Prophet), the Book We have revealed to you is the Truth, confirming the Books that came before it.[1] Verily Allah is well aware of His servants and sees everything.[2]###[1] It means: This Book is not presenting anything new which might be opposed to the teaching brought by the former Prophets, but it is presenting the same eternal truth which all the Prophets have been presenting from the very beginning. \t [2] The object of mentioning these attributes of Allah here is to arouse the people to the aims and ideals in which their true well being lies, to the principles which alone can afford the right guidance and to the rules and regulations which are precisely in accordance with them. None can know these except Allah, because He alone is aware of the nature of His servants and its demands, and He alone watches over their well-being and affairs. The people do not know their own selves as much as their Creator knows them. Therefore, the truth is that, and can only be that, which He has taught by revelation.","Then We bequeathed the Book to those of Our servants that We chose.[1]Now, some of them wrong themselves and some follow the medium course; and some, by Allah's leave, vie with each other in acts of goodness. That is the great bounty.[2]###[1] This implies the Muslims, who have been sorted out from all mankind so that they may become heirs to the Book of Allah, and convey its message to others after the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Though this Book has been presented before all human beings, those who accepted it in the first instance, were chosen for the honor to become heirs to a great Book like the Quran and the trustees of the teaching and guidance imparted by a great Messenger like the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). \t [2] That is, All these Muslims are not alike but are divided into three classes:","They shall enter the everlasting Gardens,[1] shall be adorned with bracelets of gold and with pearls, and their apparel therein shall be silk.###[1] One section of the commentators has held the view that this sentence is related with the two sentences immediately preceding it. That is, the ones who excel in good deeds are the best of the people and they alone will enter the Gardens. As for the first two groups, nothing has been stated about them so that they became worried concerning their fate and try to improve their lot. This view has been presented by Allama Zamakhshari forcefully and supported by Imam Razi. But the majority of the commentators opine that it is related with the whole preceding discourse, which means that all the three classes of the ummah shall eventually enter Paradise, whether without accountability, or after the accountability, whether remaining secure from every punishment, or after receiving some punishment. This commentary is supported by the Quranic context, for a little below about those who are contrasted with the heirs of the Book, it has been said: “And for those who have disbelieved, there is the fire of Hell.” This shows that there is Paradise for all those who have believed in the Book, and Hell for all those who have refused to believe in it. The same has been supported by the Hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him), which Imam Ahmad, Ibn Jarir, Ibn Abi Hatim, Tabarani, Baihaqi and some other traditionalists have related on the authority of Abu ad- Darda. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said:","They will say: “All praise be to Allah Who has taken away all sorrow from us.[1] Surely our Lord is Most Forgiving, Most Appreciative;[2]###[1] “Sorrow”: Sorrow of every kind: sorrows and griefs and worries of the world and of the Hereafter with regard to the final end. It means: Now we have nothing to worry about: now there can be no question of any sorrow and trouble afflicting us here. \t [2] That is He has forgiven us our errors, has appreciated whatever little provision of deeds we had brought and blessed us with His Paradise as a reward.","(the Lord) Who, out of His Bounty, has made us dwell in an abode[1]wherein no toil, nor fatigue affects us.[2]###[1] That is, the world was a stage in our journey of life, which we have crossed, and the plain of Resurrection also is a stage of the same journey, which we have also crossed. Now we have reached a place which is our eternal abode: we have not to go elsewhere from here. \t [2] In other words, all our toils and afflictions have come to an end. Now we do not have to perform any work here in carrying out which we might have to experience any rigor or hardship and after carrying out which we might be fatigued.","As for those who disbelieved,[1] the Fire of Hell awaits them. There they shall not be finished off and die; nor will the torment (of Hell) be lightened for them. Thus do We requite every thankless being.###[1] “Who disbelieved”: Who have refused to believe in the Book which Allah has sent down on Muhammad (peace be upon him).","They will cry out in Hell and say: “Our Lord, let us out so that we may act righteously, different from what we did before.” (They will be told): “Did we not grant you an age long enough for anyone to take heed if he had wanted to take heed?[1]Besides, there came a warner to you. So have a taste of the torment now. None may come to the help of the wrong-doers.”###[1] This implies every such age of life in which a person may be able to distinguish between good and evil, truth and falsehood, if he likes to, and turn to right guidance instead of deviation, if he wishes. If a person has died before attaining such an age, he will not be called to any account according to this verse. However, the one who has attained this age will certainly be held answerable for his actions. Then, as long as he lives after attaining this age and gets more and more opportunities for choosing and adopting the right path, his responsibility also will increase accordingly; so much so that the one who does not adopt right guidance even in old age will have no chance left for making any excuse. This same thing has been reported by Abu Hurairah and Sahl bin Saad as-Saidi in a Hadith, saying: The one who lives a short life has an excuse to offer, but there is no room for making an excuse for him who lives for 60 years or more.” (Bukhari Ahmad, Nasai, Ibn Jarir, Ibn Abi Hatim).","Surely Allah knows the Unseen in the heavens and the earth. He even knows the secrets hidden in people's breasts.","It is He Who made you vicegerents in the earth.[1] So whoever disbelieves will bear the burden of his unbelief.[2] The unbelievers' unbelief adds nothing but Allah's wrath against them. The unbelievers' unbelief adds nothing but their own loss.###[1] This can have two meanings: \t [2] (1) Now He has settled you on His earth after the passing away of the previous generations and nations.","Say to them (O Prophet): “Have you ever seen those of your associates[1] upon whom you call apart from Allah? Show me what have they created in the earth? Or do they have any partnership (with Allah) in the heavens? Or have We given them a Book so that they have a clear proof (for associating others with Allah in His Divinity)?”[2] Nay, what these wrong-doers promise each other is nothing but delusion.[3]###[1] “Associates of yours”, because they are not in fact the associates of Allah, but the ones whom the polytheists themselves have made associates of Allah. \t [2] That is, do they possess a written sanction from Us in which We might have indicated that We have given such and such persons the powers to heal the sick, or to get jobs for the jobless, or to fulfill needs of the needy, or that We have made such and such beings Our representatives in such and such parts of the earth and now it is in their hands to make or mar the destinies of the people of those parts; therefore, Our servants now should pray to them and present gifts and offerings before them, and for whatever blessings they receive they should thank those demigods only? If you possess any such sanction, produce it. And if you have no such sanction, you should consider on what grounds you have invented these polytheistic creeds and practices. When you are asked as to what sign is there in the heavens and the earth that may point to your self invented gods as being God’s associates, you cannot point out any. When you are asked to produce any divine sanction from any Book of Allah, or from your own possession, or from the possession of your self-invented gods, which may testify to God s having Himself delegated to them those powers which you assign to them, you do not produce any. What then is the basis of your these creeds and concepts? Are you the owners of the divine rights and powers that you may assign and distribute them to whomsoever you please? \t [3] That is, these religious guides, saints, priests, sorcerers, preachers and attendants of shrines and their agents are fooling the people for selfish motives, and are concocting stories to give them false hopes that if they became the followers of such and such personalities, apart from God, they would have all their wishes and needs fulfilled in the world, and all their sins, no matter-how grave and numerous, forgiven by Allah in the Hereafter.","Surely Allah holds the heavens and the earth, lest they should be displaced there, for if they were displaced none would be able to hold them after Him.[1]Surely He is Most Forbearing, Most Forgiving.[2]###[1] That is, this limitless universe is being sustained by Allah alone. No angel, or jinn, or prophet, or saint can sustain it. Not to speak of sustaining the universe these helpless creatures do not even have the power to sustain their own selves. Each one of them is entirely dependent on Allah Almighty for his birth and survival every moment. To think that any one of them has any share in the attributes and powers of divinity is sheer folly and deception. \t [2] That is, it is Allah’s Clemency and Forbearance that He is not seizing the culprits immediately in punishment in spite of All kinds of disobedience which are being shown towards Him.","Swearing by Allah their strongest oaths they claimed that if a warner came to them they would be better-guided than any other people.[1] But when a warner did come to them, his coming only increased their aversion (to the Truth).###[1] Before the advent of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the same thing used to be said by the Arabs, in general, and by the Quraish, in particular, when they witnessed the moral degeneration of the Jews and the Christians. Mention of this saying of theirs has also been made in( Surah Al-Anaam, Ayats 156-157) and in (Surah As-Saffat, Ayats 167-169).","They began to wax even more proud on earth and contrived evil designs although the contriving of evil designs only overtakes their authors. Are they waiting, then, for anything except what happened to the nations before them?[1] You shall not find any change in the Way of Allah; and you shall not find anything that can ever alter the Way of Allah.###[1] That is, this Law of Allah that the nation which repudiates its Prophet, is destroyed should be applied in their case as well.","Have they not journeyed in the earth to behold the end of those who went before them though they were stronger than them in might? Nothing in the heavens nor on earth can frustrate Him in the least. He is All-Knowing, All-Powerful.","If Allah were to take people to task for their deeds, He would not leave any living creature on earth, but He grants them respite to an appointed time. When their appointed time comes to an end, surely Allah fully observes His servants.","Ya'. Sin.[1]###[1] Ibn Abbas, Ikrimah, Dahhak, Hasan Basri and Sufyan bin Uyainah have opined that it means, “O man”, or “O person”. Some other commentators have regarded it as an abbreviation of “Ya Sayyid” as well, which, according to this interpretation, would be an address to the Prophet (peace be upon him).","By the Wise Qur'an,","you are truly among the Messengers,[1]###[1] To begin a discourse like this does not mean that the Prophet (peace be upon him), God forbid, had some doubt about his Prophethood, and Allah had to say this in order to reassure him of it. But the reason is that the disbelieving Quraish at that time were most vehemently refusing to believe in his Prophethood. Therefore, Allah at the very beginning of the discourse has said: You are indeed one of the Messengers, which implies that the people who deny your Prophethood are misled and mistaken. To further confirm the same, an oath has been taken by the Quran and the word “wise” has been used as an epithet of the Quran, which means this: An obvious proof of your being a Prophet is this Quran, which is full of wisdom. This itself testifies that the person who is presenting such wise revelations is most surely a Messenger of God. No man has the power to compose such revelations. The people who know Muhammad (peace be upon him) can never be involved in the misunderstanding that he is himself forging these discourses, or reciting them after having learned them from another man. For further explanation, see(Surah Yunus, Ayats 16-17, 37-39); (Surah Bani-Israil, Ayat 88);(Surah An-Naml, Ayat 75);(Surah Al-Qasas, Ayats 44-46, 85-87);(Surah Al-Ankabut, Ayats 49-51); (Surah Ar-Rum, Ayats 1-5) and the relevant E.Ns.","on a Straight Way,","(and this Qur'an) is a revelation from the Most Mighty, the Most Compassionate[1]###[1] Here, two of the attributes of the Sender of the Quran have been mentioned. First, that He is All-Mighty; second, that He, is All-Merciful. The first attribute is meant to impress the reality that the Quran is not the counsel of a powerless preacher, which if you overlook or ignore, will not bring any harm to you; but this is the Edict of that Owner of the Universe, Who is All-Mighty, Whose decrees cannot be withheld from being enforced by any power, and Whose grasp cannot be avoided by anyone. The second attribute is meant to make one realize that it is all due to His kindness and mercy that He has sent His Messenger for your guidance and instruction and sent down this great Book so that you may avoid errors and follow the right path which may lead you to the successes of the world and the Hereafter.","so that you may warn a people whose ancestors were not warned before wherefore they are heedless.[1]###[1] Another translation can be: You should warn the people of the same of which their forefathers had been warned, because they live in heedlessness. If the first meaning, as given above in the text, is taken, the forefathers would imply the forefathers of the immediate past, for in the ancient time several Prophets had appeared in Arabia. And if the second meaning is adopted, it would imply this: Revive and refresh the message that had been conveyed to the forefathers of this nation by the Prophets in the past, for these people have forgotten it. Obviously, there is no contradiction between the two translations, and, as to meaning, each is correct in its own place.","Surely most of them merit the decree of chastisement; so they do not believe.[1]###[1] This is about those people who were being obstinate and stubborn with regard to the message of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and had made up their minds not to listen to him at all. This is because: They have already deserved the torment; therefore, they do not believe. It means: The people who do not heed the admonition, and persist in their denial and hostile attitude to the truth in spite of the final warning from Allah conveyed through the Prophets, are themselves overwhelmed by the evil consequences of their misdeeds and deprived of every opportunity to believe. The same thing has been expressed more clearly in (verse 11 )below: You can only warn him who follows the admonition and fears the Merciful God though he cannot see Him.","We have put fetters around their necks which reach up to their chins so that they are standing with their heads upright,[1]###[1] “Shackles” in this verse implies their own stubbornness which was preventing them from accepting the truth. “Reaching to chins” and “so they are made stiff-necked” implies the stiffness of the neck which is caused by pride and haughtiness. Allah means to impress this: We have made their obstinacy and stubbornness the shackles of their neck, and their pride and haughtiness has made them so stiff-necked that they will not pay heed to any reality, however clear and evident it may be.","and We have put a barrier before them and a barrier behind them, and have covered them up, so they are unable to see.[1]###[1] Setting a barrier before them and a barrier behind them, means that the natural result of their stubbornness and pride is that they neither learn any lesson from their past history nor ever consider the consequences of the future. Their prejudices have so covered them from every side and their misconceptions have so blinded them that they cannot see even those glaring realities which are visible to every right-thinking and unbiased person.","It is all the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them for they shall not believe.[1]###[1] This does not mean that it is futile to preach, but it means: Your preaching reaches every kind of people. Some of them are the ones mentioned above, and some others those who are being mentioned in the next verse. When you come across the people of the first kind and you see that they continue to persist in their denial, pride and antagonism, you should leave them alone, but at the same time you should not feel disheartened so as to give up your mission, for you do not know exactly where among the multitudes of the people are those sincere servants of God, who would heed your admonition and fear God and turn to the right path. The real object of your preaching, therefore, should be to search out and collect this second kind of the people. You should ignore the stubborn people and gather this precious element of the society about you.","You can warn only him who follows the Admonition and fears the Merciful Lord without seeing Him. Give such a one good tidings of forgiveness and a generous reward.","We shall surely raise the dead to life and We record what they did and the traces of their deeds that they have left behind.[1] We have encompassed that in a Clear Book.###[1] This shows that three kinds of the entries are made in the conduct-book of men. First, whatever a person does, good or bad is entered in the divine register. Second, whatever impressions a man makes on the objects of his environment and on the limbs of his own body itself, become recorded, and all these impressions will at one time become so conspicuous that man’s own voice will become audible and the whole history of his ideas and intentions and aims and objects and the pictures of all of his good and bad acts and deeds will appear before him. Third, whatever influences he has left behind of his good and bad actions on his future generation, on his society and on mankind as a whole, will go on being recorded in his account as far as they reach and as long as they remain active and operative. The full record of the good and bad training given by him to his children, the good or evil that he has spread in the society, and its impact on mankind as a whole, will go on being maintained till the time that it goes on producing good or evil results in the world.","Recite to them, as a case in point, the story of the people of the town when the Messengers came to them.[1]###[1] The early commentators, generally, have expressed the opinion that the habitation implies the Syrian city of Antioch, and the messengers mentioned here were the ones sent by the Prophet Jesus for the preaching of his message there. Another thing that has been mentioned in this connection is that Antiochus was the king of this land at that time. But historically this story which Ibn Abbas, Qatadah, Ikrimah, Kaab Ahbar and Wahb bin Munabbih, and others have related on the basis of unauthentic Christian traditions is baseless. There have been 13 kings of the Seleucid dynasty named Antiochus who reigned in Antioch, and the rule of the last king of this name, rather the rule of this dynasty itself, came to an end in 65 B.C. At the time of the Prophet Jesus, the whole land of Syria and Palestine, including Antioch, was under the Romans. Then, no proof is forthcoming from any authentic tradition of the Christians that the Prophet Jesus might himself have sent any of his disciples to Antioch for preaching his message. On the contrary, the Acts of the Apostles (N.T.) shows that the Christian preachers had reached Antioch for the first time a few years after the event of the crucifixion. Now, evidently, the people who were neither appointed messengers by Allah nor sent by His Messenger cannot be regarded as messengers of Allah by any interpretation even if they might have travelled for the purpose of preaching of their own accord. Moreover, according to the Bible, Antioch was the first city where the non-Israelites embraced Christianity in large numbers and where the Christian faith met with great success; whereas the habitation mentioned by the Quran was some such habitation which rejected the invitation of the messengers, and was consequently punished with a divine torment. History also does not bear any evidence that Antioch was ever afflicted with a destruction, which might be regarded, as the result of denying the Prophethood.","We sent to them two Messengers and they rejected both of them as liars. Then We strengthened them with a third (Messenger).","They said: “We have been sent to you as Messengers.” The people of the town said: “You are only human beings like ourselves,[1] and the Merciful Lord has revealed nothing.[2] You are simply lying.”###[1] In other words, what they wanted to say was: Since you are human beings, you cannot be the messengers of God. The same was the view of the disbelievers of Makkah. They also said: Muhammad cannot be a messenger because he is a man. \t [2] They say: What sort of a Messenger is he that he eats food and moves about in the streets. (Surah Al-Furqan, Ayat 7).","The Messengers said: “Our Lord knows that we have indeed been sent to you","and our duty is no more than to clearly convey the Message.”[1]###[1] That is, our duty is only to convey to you the message that Allah has entrusted us with. Then it is for you to accept it or reject it. We have not been made responsible to make you accept it forcibly, And if you do not accept it, we shall not be seized in consequence of your disbelief, You will yourselves be answerable for your crimes.","The people of the town said: “We believe you are an evil omen for us. If you do not desist, we will stone you or you will receive a grievous chastisement from us.”[1]###[1] What they meant was: You are an evil omen for us. Our gods have become angry with us on account of what you have been saying against them. Now whatever calamity is befalling us is only because of you. Precisely the same thing used to be said by the disbelievers and the hypocrites of Arabia concerning the Prophet (peace be upon him): If they suffer a loss, they say: this is because of you. (Surah An-Nisa, Ayat 77). That is why at several places in the Quran these people have been told that in the ancient times people also used to say such things of ignorance in regard to their Prophets. The people of Thamud said to their Prophet: We regard you and your companions as a sign of bad omen. (Surah An-Naml, Ayat 47). And the same was the attitude of the people of Pharaoh: Whenever a good time came, they would say: This is but our due, and when there was a hard time, they would ascribe their calamities to Moses (peace be upon him) and his companions. (Surah Al-Aaraf, Ayat 130).","The Messengers replied: “Your evil omen is with you.[1] (Are you saying this) because you were asked to take heed? The truth is that you are a people who have exceeded all bounds.”[2]###[1] That is, no one is an evil omen for another. Everyman’s augury is hanging around his own neck. If a person sees an evil, it is because of his own self; and if he sees a good, it is also because of his own self. We have fastened the augury of every man to his own neck. (Surah Bani-Israil, Ayat 13). \t [2] That is, you in fact want to avoid the good and you like the deviation instead of the guidance. Therefore, instead of determining the truth and falsehood by means of an argument, you are making these false pretenses on account of your superstitious whims.","In the meantime a man came running from the far end of the town, saying: “My people, follow the Messengers;","follow those who do not ask any recompense from you and are rightly-guided.[1]###[1] That servant of God, in this one sentence, put together all the arguments required for determining the genuineness of Prophethood. The genuineness of a Prophet can be determined by two things. First, his word and deed; second, his being selfless. What the person meant to say was this: First, whatever these people are saying is perfectly reasonable, and their own character also is pure; second, no one can prove that they are calling the people to this faith on account of a selfish motive. Therefore, there is no reason why they should not be listened to. By citing this reasoning of the person the Quran set a criterion before the people of how to judge and determine the genuineness of the Prophethood of a Prophet, as if to say: The word and deed of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) bear full evidence that he is on the right path. Then, no one can point out any selfish motive or interest behind his struggle of preaching his message. Therefore, there is no reason why a sensible person should reject what he presents.","Why should I not serve the One Who created me and to Whom all of you shall be sent back?[1]###[1] This sentence has two parts. The first part is a masterpiece of reasoning, the second of the wisdom of preaching. In the first part he says: To worship the Creator is the demand of both reason and nature; it would be highly unreasonable that one should worship those who have not created him and should deny to be the servant of Him Who has created him. In the second part he warns his people to the effect: All of you ultimately have to die and return to that God adoption of Whose service you object to. Therefore, you should consider for yourselves as to what goodness you could expect by turning away from Him.","What! Shall I take any deities apart from Him whose intercession will not avail me the least were the Merciful One to bring any adversity upon me, nor will they be able to rescue me?[1]###[1] That is, they are neither such favorites of God that even if I commit grave crimes, He will forgive me on their recommendation, nor are they so powerful that they should be able to rescue me if God may please to punish me.","Surely in that case[1] I should indeed be in evident error.###[1] If I make them my gods in spite of knowing all this.","I believe in your Lord;[1] so listen to me.”###[1] This sentence again contains a subtle point of the wisdom of preaching. Saying this the man made the people realize: The Lord in Whom I have believed is not merely my Lord but your Lord, too. I have committed no error by believing in Him, but you, in fact, are certainly committing an error by not believing in Him.","(Eventually they killed him and he was told): “Enter Paradise.”[1] The man exclaimed: “Would that my people knew###[1] That is, immediately following his martyrdom, the man was given the good news of Paradise. As soon as he entered the next world through the gate of death, there were the angels to receive him, and they gave him the good news that Paradise was awaiting him. The commentators have disputed the meaning of this sentence. Qatadah says: Allah admitted him into Paradise straight away and he is living in it and receiving his sustenance. And Mujahid says: This was told him by the angels as a good news; he will enter Paradise on the day of Resurrection along with the other believers.","for what reason Allah has forgiven me and placed me among the honoured ones.”[1]###[1] This is a specimen of the high morality of the believer, He had no ill will or feeling of vengeance in his heart against the people who had just killed him so that he should invoke Allah against them. Instead, he was still wishing them well. After death the only wish that he cherished was: Would that my people could know the good end that I have met, and could learn a lesson from my death, if not from my life, and adopt the righteous way. The noble person did not wish Hell for his murderers but wished that they should believe and become worthy of Paradise. The same thing has been commended in the Hadith: He wished his people well when living as well as when dead."]