رَّبُّ

11:118; 20:135; 26:209; 28:60.

Commentary:

The word القری (towns) refers to all those cities, towns and villages to which a Prophet of God is sent. As the Holy Prophet was raised for all mankind, the word would, in his case, apply to the whole world.

The expression بظلم (unjustly) also means, "by reason of their iniquity." The verse would then be translated: "That is because thy Lord would not destroy the towns on account of their iniquity, while their people were unwarned."

The verse gives an important law of God—that He never sends general calamities upon cities on account of their iniquities, unless He first warns them of the impending punishment by sending a warner.

If God had destroyed cities without first raising a Messenger, the people might have excused themselves by saying that, being unwarned, they were following their own reason. After receiving a warner, however, they have no excuse left to them. The world has been visited with widespread calamities in the present age, and in accordance with the law enunciated in the verse under comment, there must have appeared a warner in this age too. There has indeed come a great warner in the person of Ahmad of Qadian, the Promised Messiah, Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, who has warned the world of impending disasters and called it to repentance. Let the God-fearing ponder over it.

The verse also shows that the calamities here referred to are not calamities which overtake individuals only, but general calamities which smite whole peoples and nations, as has been the case in the present age.

6:134; 7:157.

Commentary:

The verse answers an implied objection of the Jews, viz. if God had forbidden them certain extra things, why was not the prohibition continued in Islam? The verse answers this objection by saying that whereas the divine law of punishment demanded that Jews should be punished, the law of mercy demanded that Muslims should be shown mercy. It was unfair to continue a special prohibition that had been imposed by way of punishment under a new dispensation.

23:87.

25:4.

11:25; 35:20.

Commentary:

The words, who have no power for good or harm even for themselves, spoken about false deities point to a strange coincidence. Generally, the lives of all those persons who later came to be worshipped as deities were full of hardship and privation. Jesus, Imam Husain, Rama, etc., all led very hard lives. This fact seems to entail a strong warning to their misguided worshippers that they could expect no benefit or help from those who could not even protect themselves from harm or danger.

In the words, Can the blind and the seeing be equal?, disbelievers are told that they, being spiritually and morally blind, should not be deceived by their power and their numbers against the Holy Prophet, as even an army of blind men is powerless against one person who has eyes. The Prophet and his followers possess sight, while disbelievers are blind.

The powerlessness of the disbelievers is further brought home to them in the simile of light and darkness referred to in the words, can darkness be equal to light? Disbelievers are told that as darkness possesses no independent existence, being only the negation of light, it must flee before light. So disbelievers cannot stand against the Holy Prophet. In the last part of the verse disbelievers are challenged to produce anything which they think has been created by their false deities.

The Quran has used two different words to express the Unity of God, viz. (1) احد and (2) واحد. Whereas the former denotes the absolute Unity of God without relation to any other being, the latter means only "the first" or "the starting point" and requires a second and a third to follow it. The Divine attribute of واحد (One) is thus intended to show that God is the real "source" from which all creation springs. Although none of His creatures is similar to Him in perfection and He is Independent of all, yet everything does point to Him, just as a second or a third thing necessarily points to the first. The attribute واحد (One) has therefore been used here as an evidence of the truth of the previous statement, viz. Allah alone is the Creator of all things. As against this, where the Quran seeks to refute the doctrine of the son-ship of those who have been falsely given that status, it uses the word احد i.e. He Who has ever been One and alone and has begotten no child (112:2).

The addition of the attribute of "Most Supreme" to "One" signifies that God does not need the help or assistance of any being for the control and governance of the universe He has brought into existence, because He is not only the source of all things but is also Supreme and Powerful over them. Hence it is useless and absurd for disbelievers to worship their false deities.

Commentary:

This verse shows that if a person serves his parents sincerely and wholeheartedly, then God, out of His Mercy, makes up for his remissness and lapse, if any. It is to this commandment about being kind to one’s parents in their old age that the Holy Prophet referred when he said, "Unfortunate is that person who got an opportunity to serve one of his parents and failed to earn God’s forgiveness" (Kathir, vol. 6, p. 61).

2:285; 3:129; 5:41; 29:22.

6:108; 39:42; 42:7.

Commentary:

God alone knows the innermost secrets of man’s heart and therefore He has reserved for Himself the right to punish or reward man. This work has not been entrusted even to the Holy Prophet. God Himself will deal with men according to the state of their minds.

14:33; 22:66; 45:13.

Commentary:

The verse points out that all amenities of life are God’s gifts bestowed upon man, although they are not always recognized or appreciated by man as such. For example, the use of ships has made interaction possible between the dwellers of the main lands and the islands, who would have remained permanently isolated from each other without them.

There is also in the verse an implied reference to the fact that Islam will spread throughout the world on land and sea and for this purpose sea-going vessels, which are a great Divine blessing, will play a most important part. It is worthy of note that Muslims in the heyday of their glory were great sailors and navigators. The discovery of the sea-route to India was due to the good offices of an Arab sailor who guided some wandering Portuguese ships from the coast of Africa to the shores of India.

31:34; 35:6.

15:86; 20:16; 22:8.

Commentary:

In this verse we are told that these people who had remained aloof from the world for a long time will become known to the ends of the earth, and thus the truth of the prophecy about the rise to great power and dominion of Christian nations in the Latter Days will become established and then the promised hour of which these people were warned will come to pass.

In the words, We will surely build a place of worship over them, the Quran reverts again to the early history of the Dwellers of the Cave and mentions one of their distinctive marks which is that their successors, the Christian nations, will build churches in memory of their dead saints. Muslims or Jews have never erected mosques or synagogues to the memory of their departed saints. Christians are the only people who erect churches to perpetuate the memory of their dead saints; they even bury their dead in churchyards. It is worthy of note that many such churches have been found in the catacombs.

37:6; 38:67; 44:8; 78:38.

26:24.

Commentary:

The verse points to the supreme truth that Divine Messengers, when they talk about God, speak from personal experience. They do not merely make an assertion about God but substantiate it with practical proofs from their own life. They do not invite people to God merely because human reason demands belief in His existence but they do it with full conviction and firm faith. When they say that God exists they say it with full conviction because they constantly hear His sweet voice and because also they themselves speak to Him and receive answer to their prayers from Him. God reveals Himself to them and they witness practical proofs of His power and omniscience in their own persons. So their testimony about the existence of God is based not on hearsay, nor on reason alone but primarily and principally on their personal experience. It is for this reason that God has commanded the Holy Prophet to declare:

"I call unto Allah on sure knowledge, I and those who follow me" (12:109).