سَمْع

4:156; 6:26, 47; 7:102, 180; 10:75; 16:109; 45:24; 83:15.

Important Words:

ختم (set a seal) means, he set a seal on; or he stamped a thing so that there should remain no likelihood of its being regarded as forged. خاتم means, a seal (Aqrab). The expression ختم الله علی قلبه (lit. God has set a seal on his heart) means, God made his heart such that it could neither understand anything nor could anything come out of it, i.e. it could not make itself understood by others (Baqa).

قلوب (hearts) is the plural of قلب which is derived from قلب (qalaba). They sayقلب الشیء i.e. he turned the thing; or he turned it upside down or inside out, etc. قلب means, the heart, or the central point of a thing. The word قلب is also used in the sense of عقل i.e. reason, as well as for such qualities as knowledge, courage and spirit (Aqrab). It also signifies the faculty of thinking and reasoning, i.e. the mind (Lisan).

السمع (the ears) is derived from سمع i.e. he heard. السمع ھاس three different meanings (1) the ear or ears; (2) the sense of hearing; (3) the sound which one hears (Aqrab).

ابصار (eyes) is the plural of بصر (eye). They say بصر (basura) or بصر (basira), i.e. he saw, or he perceived, or he knew. بصرmeans: (1) the eye; (2) the sense of sight; and (3) knowledge (Aqrab).

العذاب (punishment) is derived from عذب (‘adhaba). They say عذب الرجل i.e. the man left off eating, owing to intense thirst. عذب عنه means, he kept back from it. عذب فلانا means, he prevented him or deprived him. عذب الشراب والطعام means, the drink and food became good and tasteful. عذب الماء means, the water became very dirty. عذبه (‘adhdhabahu) means, he inflicted pain or punishment on him; he detained him; he prevented or deprived him (Aqrab). تعذیب means, inflicting pain or punishment; forcing a man to remain without food and sleep; depriving one of the sweetness or goodness of life; making life miserable (Mufradat). Thus عذاب means, anything which is hard and painful for man and prevents him from attaining his object; pain inflicted as punishment in order to prevent one from repeating an act or prevent others from doing the same; the inflicting of such punishment; anything that deprives a person of the sweetness of life and makes life miserable; anything that prevents a man from attaining the object of his life (Aqrab & Mufradat).

Commentary:

The verse refers to the disbelievers mentioned in the last verse and explains how they have reached their present woeful condition. It is a common observation that organs which remain unused for a long time become dead and useless. The eyes lose their sight and the ears their hearing if they remain out of use, and the limbs become stunted for the same reason. The disbelievers mentioned here refused to employ their hearts and ears for the comprehension of the truth, and as a result their capacities for hearing and understanding were lost. It is thus only the natural consequence of wilful indifference which is described in the clause, Allah has set a seal on their hearts and their ears, and over their eyes is a covering. As all laws proceed from God, the final Controller of the universe, and every cause is followed by its natural effect under His will, so the sealing of the hearts and the ears of disbelievers is ascribed to Him. It is, therefore, a mistake to take the verse to mean that as God had Himself sealed up their hearts, so the disbelievers could not believe. The Quran contradicts this view and states clearly that it is the disbelievers themselves who seal their fate and God’s seal follows only as a result of their action (see 4:156; 40:36; 47:25; 83:15). Says the Holy Prophet: "When a man commits a sin, a black spot is thereby formed on his heart. Then if he repents and gives up the sin and asks God’s forgiveness, the black spot is washed off, leaving the heart clean. But if he repents not and commits another sin, another black spot is formed on his heart and so on, until his whole heart is covered with a black covering, and that is the covering of rust to which the Quran refers in Surah Tatfif " (Jarir).

It may also be noted that in the present verse the word "ears" has been put before the word "eyes". This is in conformity with the law of nature that the ears of a newborn baby begin to function earlier than the eyes.

4:73, 74.

Important Words:

یخطف (snatch away) is derived from خطف meaning, he seized a thing quickly; he snatched it away خطف البرق البصر means, the lightning snatched away the sight (Aqrab).

شیء (thing or what one wills) is infinitive from شاء i.e. he willed or he intended. The word شیء is ordinarily translated as, a thing or anything or something; but as in Arabic the infinitive is sometimes used to give the meaning of a passive participle, the word may also be translated as, what is willed or intended or something that one wills or intends.

قدیر (has the power) is derived from قدر. They say قدر علیه i.e. he had the power to do it; or he possessed power over him or it. قادر means, powerful, possessing power over, or possessing power to do. قدیر is the intensive form of قادر and means, very powerful, most powerful, having or possessing full power.

Commentary:

The verse purports to say that these hypocrites—the hypocrites described as weak believers—are very near to losing their sight. They have not actually lost it, but if they are repeatedly confronted with situations demanding courage and sacrifice symbolized by lightning and thunder, they are very likely to lose their faith. But the mercy of God has so ordained that lightning is not always accompanied by a thunder-bolt. Often it is only a brilliant flash, which lifts the veil of darkness and helps the wayfarer to move on. In this case it symbolizes the dazzling power of Islam. On such occasions these hypocrites make common cause with the Muslims. But when lightning is accompanied by thunder, i.e.when the situation demands sacrifice of life or property, the world becomes dark to the hypocrites; they become dumb-founded and stand still, refusing to move on with the faithful.

The words, and if Allah willed, He could take away their hearing and their sight, indicate that the hypocrites referred to here had not been deprived of their hearing or sight till then. It was still open to them to submit to the teaching of the Quran completely and to accept the leadership of the Prophet in all sincerity. If, however, they continued in their present course and did not stop deserting the Muslims in difficult times, they would soon cease to have any connection with Islam and the Muslims—they would lose all sight and all hearing.

The words, surely, Allah has the power to do all that He wills, imply that the fear of the hypocrites lest they should come to harm at the hands of disbelievers has its origin in their want of faith in God and of a knowledge of His attributes. If they only knew that Allah had the power to do all that He willed and that He had decreed that Islam should triumph over all its enemies, they would not fear the disbelievers at all. Fear other than the fear of God is always due to a weakness of faith in God, and a lack of true knowledge of His attributes.

The statement that, Allah has the power to do all that He wills, also disposes of the question, sometimes very naively asked, whether God has the power to cause His own death or make an equal to Himself or to speak a lie, etc. As explained above, the word شیء means, some­thing that is willed or intended, and as God never wills to cause His own death or to make an equal to Himself or to speak a lie, etc.—because these are signs of imperfection and God is perfect—so these and all similar questions, beside being foolish, are irrelevant and must not arise.

Lastly, it may be noted that this verse also serves as a warning to Muslims. One may be careful against drifting into a state of كفر(disbelief) or becoming a منافق (hypocrite) of the first class, but one may imperceptibly turn into a hypocrite of the second class without feeling the change in the beginning. A true Muslim should, therefore, be ever on his guard against that danger. He should not only hold the beliefs taught by Islam but should also act like a true Muslim and be ever prepared for all sacrifices in the cause of Islam.

2:8; 16:109; 45:24.

Commentary:

The preceding verse spoke of the punishment that cuts at the root. But there is a stage when only a part is affected, or even if the whole body is affected the disease is not deep-rooted and there is yet time to prevent the total loss of the body. In its early stages, a disease is generally curable; but if it is not attended to in time, it may be aggravated and become incurable. It is against such negligence that men are warned in the present verse. Some men delay acceptance of Divine Messengers. They wait for more and more signs, and go on postponing the tendering of allegiance to the heavenly Messengers until it is too late. The punishment of God descends on the enemies of the Prophets; and those who do not make use of their inward light and prefer to wait for more and more evidence of the truth of the Divine Messengers also perish with their enemies. So this verse warns those who are in the habit of delaying and postponing, and exhorts them to use their inward light for the recognition of the Divine Messenger, and expedite their acceptance of him, lest delay should result in the total extinction of their God-given faculties and they should perish with the rest. They should be prompt to make use of their hearing, and their eyes, and their hearts; for if they fail to make use of these faculties in time, they will gradually become impaired and will finally be lost; then no power will be able to restore these faculties to them after they have been completely lost.

The words, how We vary the Signs, signify that in order to make things perfectly clear, God brings the different aspects of signs before the people, sometimes showing one kind of sign and sometimes another, so that all kinds of people may be satisfied.

2:8; 4:156; 7:180.

Commentary:

The verse goes on to say that rejecters of the Quran sacrifice truth to paltry material gains and all their energies are directed to the attainment of worldly objects. And as they do not make use of their God-given faculties for their spiritual advancement, these faculties become rusted and corroded through disuse.

21:43; 39:46.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that at that time worship of God will totally disappear from among the Christian peoples and love of Mammon will take the place of love of God in their hearts. They will completely forget their Creator and will attribute all their great achievements to their own skill and effort.

The words, and they could not even hear, mean that their hearts will become so much rusted and corroded that they will lose all attachment for the word of God and will refuse to listen to it.

The foregoing verses refer to the great material progress and widespread conquests of Gog and Magog—western Christian nations—and their utter disregard for God and religion. We have also been told that, elated with their political power and military glory, they will give themselves up to a life of pleasure and sin and as a result will bring the wrath of God upon themselves and their prosperity will give place to decline and degradation. Then in despair and despondency, as hinted at in Moses’ vision, they will turn to God and, having realized the error of their ways, will come back to the "junction of the two Seas" i.e. they will accept the Holy Prophet. The following prophecy of the Bible forms a befitting sequel to the account of Gog and Magog and indicates the time of their rise to power and greatness:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea (Revelation 20:7-8).

By "the thousand years" are meant the thousand years of the Hijrah—Migration of the Holy Prophet to Medina in 622 A.D. The above passage along with chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel makes it quite clear that the rise of Gog and Magog was to have begun in the 17th century A.D. and to have reached its zenith in our own time.

The account of Dhul-Qarnain will remain incomplete unless the reason is given as to why it has been assigned such a prominent place in the Quran, when as a fact of history does not appear directly to concern us nor does its narration benefit us materially or spiritually. In fact, it is more for its spiritual than for its historical importance that the story of Dhul-Qarnain has been given so large a space in the Holy Book. The Quran is not a book of history. The stories of past Prophets and other historical incidents have not been mentioned in it to acquaint us with events which took place in the remote past. They are so many prophecies about future events. Some of these prophecies have already been fulfilled in the person of the Holy Prophet while others await fulfilment in some future time. The account of Dhul-Qarnain, like other similar Quranic accounts, embodies a great prophecy which has been fulfilled in the person of Ahmad, the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Ahmed was the Dhul-Qarnain of our age. Whereas the Quranic account of Dhul-Qarnain historically applies to the great Persian monarch Cyrus, spiritually it applies to Ahmad. Thus besides its historical value the story is pregnant with great spiritual import. It implies a great prophecy to the effect that, just as in the 6th century B.C. Cyrus saved Persia from the depredatory raids of Gog and Magog, by erecting a barrier of brick and stone in their way, another Dhul-Qarnain will save the soul and spirit of mankind, from the devastating moral assaults of Christian nations of the West who are the descendants of Gog and Magog. He will accomplish his great and noble task by the help of divine knowledge and the signs that God will show at his hands. The nature of the work entrusted to both these Dhul-Qarnains bears a striking likeness to each other, only the one was in the mundane sphere, the other in the spiritual. The Prophet Ahmad possessed many physical and spiritual resemblances with the great Cyrus. Like Cyrus, he was called the Messiah and like he, was of Persian origin. Cyrus was Dhul-Qarnain in the sense that he was the ruler of the double Medo-Persian Empire and Ahmad (1835--1908) was Dhul-Qarnain in the sense that he saw the beginning of two centuries of several eras (Qarn meaning a century).

For a further study of this most interesting subject the reader is referred to Barahin-e-Ahmadiyyah, Part v, pp. 91-93; also the Review of Religions, Qadian, vol. 17, No. 6.

17:37; 24:25; 36:66.

Commentary:

The ears and eyes of the guilty will bear witness against them in three ways: (1) The evil consequences of the actions of disbelievers will take physical form in the next world and thus will be quite apparent for anyone to see. (2) The very organs of the bodies of disbelievers having been vitiated by misuse, their vitiate condition will bear witness against them; and (3) the words uttered by them and all the movement of the organs of their bodies, having been preserved, will be reproduced on the Last Day.

Important Words:

تستترون (you fear) is derived from ستر. They say ستر الشیء i.e. he covered the thing. The Arabs say ھو لا یستتر من الله بستر i.e. he does not fear God. الستر means, cover, veil, curtain; shame, protection, fear. They say ماله ستر و لاحجر i.e. he has neither shame nor sense (Aqrab).

Commentary:

Besides the interpretation of the verse given in the text, it may also mean that the limbs of the sinners will say to them that not only did they not hide their evil deeds from them but they actually used them in committing sinful acts.

25:44.

2:8; 6:47; 16:109.

Commentary:

The verse develops the theme of the preceding verse and purports to say that as man has been created to serve a sublime object and has been endowed with great powers and faculties for the fulfilment of that object, and as the whole universe has been pressed into service for him in order to help him in its achievement, so, if, instead of making a proper use of his God-given powers he worships gods of his own fancy or imagination, he works out his spiritual ruin with his own hands.

6:7; 7:11.

11:9; 21:42.

Important Words:

أفئدة (hearts) is the plural of فؤاد which is derived from فاد. They say فادہ, i.e. he or it hit, struck, smote or hurt his فؤاد i.e. heart. فاد اللحم فی النار means, he roasted the flesh meat in the fire. فؤاد is synonymous with قلب both meaning heart, mind or intellect. In the Quran, too, both these words have been used synonymously. In 28:11, both the words have been used together, signifying the heart. It is the context which determines where any of these words is used in the sense of mind or heart. Some authors, however, make a distinction between فؤاد and قلب; the latter is said to have a more special signification than the former which is said to be the غشاء or the وعاء of the قلب or the middle or the interior thereof. They say طار فؤادہ i.e. his mind or intellect or courage tied (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

This verse also shows that the Adites were a very powerful and prosperous people. Their dominions extended over vast areas.