Search Results for "عِندَكُم"

16:36; 43:21

Commentary:

Being unable to answer the arguments given against idolatry and man-made laws in the foregoing passage, idolatrous Arabs had recourse to the trite plea in support of idol-worship: If Allah had pleased, we could not have joined gods with Him. From this they inferred that attributing co-partners to God was in accordance with God’s will. The Quran gives four answers to this plea, two in the present verse and two in the next. The first answer is contained in the words: In like manner did those who were before them accuse God’s Messengers of falsehood, until they tasted of Our wrath. These words signify that this plea of theirs is not a new one. The same plea was brought forward by those gone before. If this plea was true, and the act of setting up associate with God was in accordance with God’s will, why should He have punished the previous peoples? The very fact that God punished them for their associating gods with Him shows that this act of theirs was not in accordance with His will. The second answer is contained in the words: Have you any knowledge? Then produce it for us. You follow nothing but mere conjecture. And you do nothing but lie, i.e. you possess no argument based on true knowledge to support your assertion; what you say is mere conjecture. The remaining two answers are given in the next verse.

2:117; 4:172; 9:31; 17:112; 18:5, 6.

Commentary:

In v. 67, it had been hinted that in the false doctrines of disbelievers lie hidden the seeds of their destruction. In the present verse, the Quran proceeds to refute the doctrine of the plurality of gods, the most heinous of all false beliefs, and of the various forms of this doctrine it selects the belief that God has a son. This doctrine differs from other known polytheistic dogmas in that, whereas in other forms of shirk, idolaters claim only that they can attain nearness to God through the instrumentality of their gods, by this doctrine a person is believed to be an actual partner in Godhead.

Four arguments have been given here in refutation of the doctrine that a person can be a Son of God. The first is contained in the words, Holy is He, which mean that God is free from all defects and imperfections. But the belief that God has a son presupposes the presence of carnal passions in Him as well as His being subject to the laws of decay and death, for only such beings or things are perpetuated in their progeny as are subject to decay and death. The earth, the sun and the moon, for instance, have no issue because they are above the familiar law of death and decay; but animals and plants wither and die. Therefore they produce their substitutes which take their place when they are gone. Thus the existence of the progeny of a thing presupposes its mortality.

The second argument is embodied in the words, He is Self-Sufficient, which mean that in His work of running the universe God does not need anybody’s help. Progeny, besides saving a person from extinction, helps him to carry on his work. But God being Self-Sufficient needs no helper in that respect either.

The third argument is contained in the sentence, To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth. Sometimes one can make or originate a thing but lacks the power or ability to keep it in his possession or under his control and therefore needs assistance. But God does not need anybody’s help to keep the universe in His possession or under His control.

The fourth argument is implied in the expression, You have no authority for this, which signifies that the doctrine of the plurality of gods is based on no sound or solid ground. Its whole basis lies in the fancy and caprice of men. This fact alone constitutes an argument against this foolish doctrine. All efforts to find some real evidence in support of shirk, do not go beyond mere indulgence in idle philosophical discussion, and no real basis has so far been found for it.

The argument embodied in the words, Do you say against Allah what you know not?, is given in 13:34, in the words, Would you inform Him of what He does not know in the earth? The difference in the wording is due to the fact that in the verse under comment it is pointed out that shirk springs from the ignorance of man and is not based on any sound reasoning, while in 13:34 it is said that the doctrine of shirk involves the charge of ignorance on the part of God, for it means that He failed to know and make known the existence of gods and it was left to idolaters to disclose the godhead of their deities by the force of their own knowledge.

11:12; 39:11.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that the sums of money which will be offered to you as bribes will soon be spent but the boons and favours which God will confer on you will endure not only in this world but will extend to the next.

The words, according to the best of their works, mean that while rewarding Muslims, God will take into consideration their best works and will reward them according to those works. In fact, the good works which a man does are of various degrees; some being of a higher standard of excellence than others. For the purpose of rewarding Muslims God will not consider their deeds of the lower type nor even of the middling standard, but will take into consideration their best works and will reward them according to these. Nay, God’s reward will exceed even their best works, for it will be at least ten times as much as their best deeds (6:161). But this great reward, it is added, will be conferred only on those who do not waver under hardships nor barter away their faith for a paltry price.