كَلِمَةٌ

2:214.

11:111; 20:130; 41:46.

Commentary:

The expression, And mankind were but one community, then they differed among themselves has three meanings: (1) That God caused men to follow the one true path in the beginning of creation but then they deviated from it. God not only endowed man with the capacity to find the right path but also directed him to it through revealed guidance; but man forsook that path and fell into error. (2) That they are being always and continuously shown the right path through Divine Messengers but then differences arise among them. God sends someone as His Messenger among them and, through him brings them to the path of truth but again they begin to differ. (3) That in their opposition to the Divine Messenger disbelievers always take the same course and thus form one community. All through the ages people have opposed the Prophets and have differed and disagreed with them.

The latter part of the verse points out that if God had not laid it down as a law that He always sends a Prophet before punishing the wicked, or that He has created mankind for guidance and spiritual progress, He would have quickly punished evildoers and destroyed all of them.

41:46.

Commentary:

Towards the end of the Surah the Quran reverts to the theme with which it began and declares that God continued to send down His word in the ages so that people might benefit by it but they always failed to do so. God gave a book to Moses and that book spoke of another book (i.e. the Quran) which was to be revealed later, but people raised doubts about it and did not pause to think that their attitude would produce grave results.

The words, Surely the matter would have been decided between them long before, mean that so serious was their guilt that if there had not been a decree pre-ordained, that mankind had been created for spiritual progress by becoming the object of Divine mercy (7:157; 11:120; 51:57), they would have long been destroyed.

8:69; 10:20.

Important Words:

لزاماً (inevitable) is derived from لزم. They say لزمه i.e. it necessarily or inseparably belonged to it, clove or adhered to him or it. لزام الامر means, the affair became incumbent upon him. ألزمه شیئا means, he obliged him to do or endure a thing or He (God) decreed or ordained to him a thing; he made a thing cleave to him or he made him to cleave to a thing. لزاماً means, death; reckoning; such as cleaves fast; a thing inseparable; decision in a case (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The reference in the words, a word already gone forth, is to the Divine declaration contained in the verse "My mercy encompasses all things" (7:157) i.e. God in His infallible wisdom has decreed that His attribute of mercy will continue to transcend all His other attributes. Or the reference may be to the verse "And Allah would not punish them while thou wast amongst them" (8:34). In this case the words "a term already fixed" refer to the battle of Badr.

21:96; 36:32.

Important Words:

برزخ means, a barrier; a bar; a thing that intervenes between any two things; an obstruction or a thing that separates two things; the interval from the time of death to the Day of Resurrection. The word is technically applied to the period or state from the day of death to the Day of Resurrection (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The word لعل (that) conveys the idea of doubt. As used here the word shows that the disbeliever will have been so deeply impressed by God’s Greatness and Majesty and his own insignificance that he dare not declare with certainty that he will make amends for what he had left undone in life on earth. He only expresses a hope that he will do righteous deeds if he were sent back to this world.

The word کلمة has been used in the verse, as at several other places in the Quran in the sense of a full sentence. The Holy Prophet also used the word in the sense of a complete sentence in a well-known hadith:

أصدق کلمة قالھا لبید، الا کل شیء ما خلا اللّٰه باطل

i.e. the truest sentence is the one which the poet Labid uttered and which is to the effect, "Everything besides God is subject to destruction." See also 4:172.

The verse incidentally disproves a commonly held belief that a man passes into Heaven or Hell immediately after his death. In fact after death he lives in برزخ which is an intermediate state of incomplete realization of the punishments or rewards of Hell or Heaven respectively or a state of preparation for their complete and full realization. The Quran has compared barzakh to the embryonic state and the resurrection to the birth of the fully developed soul.

10:20; 11:111; 20:130; 42:15.

Commentary:

The words, the matter would have been decided between them, signify that the guilt of disbelievers was so serious and patent that they would have been destroyed long ago, had it not been for the fact that God had created mankind for spiritual progress and that men might receive His mercy. The Divine punishment is deferred and postponed also because during the interval many of the enemies of truth may have an opportunity to accept the same. See also 7:157 & 11:111, 120.

45:18; 98:5.

10:20; 20:130; 41:46.

Commentary:

While the pronoun "they" in the expression "and they did not become divided" refers to the followers of the Prophets mentioned in the previous verse, the reference in the words, "those who were made to inherit the Book after them," is either to those followers of the above-mentioned Prophets who inherited the Book after those Prophets had passed away or to the people in the time of the Holy Prophet who became heirs to Divine revelation after the followers of the Israelite Prophets had defied and disobeyed the Divine Message.