اتَّخَذَ

4:172; 6:101, 102; 10:69; 17:112; 18:5; 19:36, 89, 90; 21:27; 25:3; 39:5; 43:82.

30:27.

Important Words:

قانتون (obedient) which is the plural of قانت is derived from قنت which means: (1) he obeyed; (2) he showed humility and submissiveness; (3) he remained silent, refraining from speech; and (4) he stood praying or he stood long in Prayer (Aqrab).

Commentary:

The verse speaks of the Christians with whom the Muslims were to come in contact in their great march as the torchbearers of Islam. Failing to get converts from among the Jews, the early Christians turned their attention to the Romans and the Greeks but succumbed to their philosophies and freely borrowed ideas from them, incorporating them into their own beliefs and doctrines. As a result of this, Jesus began to be represented as the Son of God and the dogma of Trinity became the basic doctrine of the Christian Faith. The expression "son of God" metaphorically used in Jewish religious literature in the sense of "a beloved servant of God" or "a Prophet" came to bear a literal connotation (Luke 20: 36; Matt. 5:9, 45, 48; Deut. 14:1; Exod. 4:22; Gal. 3:26; Wisd. 2:18, etc.). The Quran has exploded this doctrine and has, in the verse under comment, given several arguments to expose its falsity: (1) If God has a son, He must be subject to sexual desires and need a wife and be divisible, because the son is a part of the father’s body. Again, He must be subject to death because the procreation of species, which the attribution of a son to God implies, is the characteristic of perishable things. But Islam repudiates all such ideas; for according to it, God is Holy and free from all defects and weaknesses. (2) One sometimes needs a son or a successor to extend one’s dominion and bring into subjugation such territories as do not acknowledge one’s rule. But God has no such need; for everything in the heavens and the earth belongs to Him. (3) A son or helper is sometimes required to keep under control the turbulent or far-flung parts of one’s kingdom; but God has no such requirement, for "all are obedient to Him." Thus, from whatever angle we may view the question, God is proved to need no son, no helper or assistant to help Him in the work of controlling and managing the universe. In fact, it is blasphemy to say so. The argument is further elaborated in the next verse.

2:132.

Important Words:

خلیل (special friend) is derived from خل. They say خل الشیء i.e. he bored a hole into the thing. خل فی دعائه means, he was particular in his prayer. خلیل means, a special and particular friend whose love penetrates your inner parts (Aqrab & Lane). See also 2:255.

Commentary:

This verse gives the essence of Islam which signifies submission to the Will of God and the devotion of one’s faculties and powers to His service (see also note on 2:113). Abraham has been held out to the People of the Book who revere him as a patriarch and to the Arabs who were proud of being descended from him, as an example who embodied in his person the essence of Islam by his full submission to the Will of God; and both these people are herein told that it is only the true observance of the teachings of Islam that can make one like Abraham—beloved of God and His special friend.

There is a hadith in which the Holy Prophet is reported to have said: "If I had taken anyone from among men as my خلیل (special friend whose love penetrates one’s heart), I would have certainly taken Abu Bakr as such. But such friendship is permissible with God alone Who is my خلیل" (Bukhari, ch. on Fada’il of the Holy Companions).

2:52, 93; 4:154; 7:153; 20:89.

20:90.

Commentary:

The calf is discarded and condemned as a deity, because it does not speak to its votaries nor guide them to any way. This shows that God can remain a true deity only as long as He speaks to His servants and provides for their guidance. So those are manifestly in the wrong who think that, whereas God used to speak and reveal Himself in the past, He has ceased to do so now. It is foolish to say that there is no harm if God has ceased to speak now when He spoke to His chosen servants in times gone by. If this argument possessed weight, worshippers of the calf could also advance a similar argument with regard to it. The fact is that no attribute of God can be supposed to have ceased to operate or become extinct. The gift of Divine revelation is attainable even now as it was attainable in the past, and those who look upon it as a thing of the past are grievously mistaken. God speaks at all times, and those who possess the capacity and quality to hear His voice, can and do hear it even now. Take away the power of speech from God and you leave Him no better than a calf. It is absurd to argue that as the Law of Islam has been made perfect, so no revelation is needed after the Holy Prophet. Revelation does not come merely to bring a new Law. It is primarily meant to grant freshness of spiritual life to man and bring him near unto his Lord and Master.

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.

37:151; 43:20; 52:40.

Commentary:

This verse gives an illustration of the mental confusion and lack of intellectual poise of polytheists. For instance, some of them say that angels are God’s daughters and they worship them although they themselves regard daughters to be a source of shame and humiliation.

17:112; 19:36; 21:27; 25:3; 39:5; 72:4.

Commentary:

It is worthy of special note that the Quran is first spoken of as 'giving warning', next as 'giving glad tidings' (v. 3) and then again as 'giving warning' as in the present verse. Disbelievers have been warned twice and in between these two warnings the believers have been given glad tidings. This seems rather strange and the words appear to have been used haphazardly. But it is not so. They serve a very useful purpose. The two 'warnings' and the one 'glad tidings' point to three important periods of the history of Islam. The first 'warning' mentioned in v. 3 pertains to the disbelievers of Mecca and all those people in the time of the Holy Prophet who had rejected his Message and were punished for their rejection and opposition. The 'glad tidings' spoken of in the same verse applies to Muslims who after their enemies had been destroyed enjoyed Divine favours for a very long time and this fulfilled the Divine promise embodied in the words, "Wherein they shall abide forever." For long centuries Muslims ruled over a large part of the globe and enjoyed great power and prestige. The 'second warning' embodied in the present verse refers to Christian nations of "the latter days" and implies a prophecy that after Muslims had enjoyed power and dominion for a long time, their glory would depart and Christian nations would again come into their own and spread over the entire world and would prove as a bar sinister to the expansion of Islam. These present-day Christian nations of the west have been warned of a severe punishment that is in store for them in the words, that it may warn those Who say, Allah has taken unto Himself a son. Thus this giving of warnings twice and interspersing these two warnings with glad tidings for Muslims implied three great prophecies viz. (a) the discomfiture and destruction of the Holy Prophet’s opponents in his own time; (b) the phenomenal rise of Muslims to power and glory and, after the departure of Muslim glory, (c) the punishment that is in store for the nations who say that Allah has taken unto Himself a son. The signs of this Divine punishment are already becoming too manifest to be overlooked.

Important Words:

سربا (going away swiftly) is derived from سرب. They say سرب الماء i.e. the water flowed. سرب الرجل means, the man went at random. سرب فی الارض means, he went away in the land. سرب (sarabun) means, going away swiftly, a subterranean excavation; a habitation beneath the earth having a passage through it; the burrow or hole of a wild animal; the den of a lion. The Quranic expression فاتخذ سبیله فی البحر سربا means, it (the fish) took its way into the sea swiftly, etc. (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

حوت (fish) when seen in a vision denotes the houses of worship of righteous people (Ta‘tirul-Anam). In this sense of the word the expression, when they reached the place where the two seas met, they forgot their fish, means that at the time when the Mosaic and the Islamic Dispensations met, i.e. when Mosaic Dispensation ceased to function and the Islamic Dispensation came into force, true righteousness would depart from among the followers of Moses and Jesus and would henceforward become the special mark of the followers of the new Dispensation (48:30). The verse under comment also shows that the Islamic Dispensation was, in fact, a continuation of the Mosaic Dispensation. Being two consecutive parts of God’s eternal guidance, no such thing as the "junction of two seas" existed in the time of Moses.

Commentary:

The pronouns in the expressions, "their fish" (v. 62), "they had gone further" (v. 63) and "we betook ourselves" obviously do not refer to Moses and Jesus because they did not live in the time of the Holy Prophet but to their respective peoples.

صخرة (rock) in the language of dreams and visions denotes "a life of vice and sin." So the expression, when we betook ourselves to the rock, means that when the two seas met i.e. when the Mosaic Dispensation came to an end and a new Prophet and a new Dispensation appeared, then Jews and Christians would be sunk in a life of sin and iniquity.

The words, it took its way into the sea in a marvellous manner, signify that true piety and worship of God would take leave of these people and would become the special mark of another people (the followers of Islam) who would become heirs to Divine favours.

The incident of the fish unmistakably points to the whole affair being a vision because when Moses and his young companion were pursuing their journey with the fish as their guide it was not possible for them to forget it.

3:43.

Important Words:

روحنا (Our angel). For the different meanings of the word روح see 2:88; 4:172 & 16:3.

Commentary:

The expression فتمثل لھا بشرا سویا signifies that the Divine glad tidings about the birth of a great son was conveyed to Mary not in the form of spoken words which she could hear or which flowed from her mouth. The revelation to her took the form of a dream or vision. She saw in a vision that an angel came to her in the form of a healthy man and conveyed to her the Divine Message about the birth of a son. In fact, it is the Word of God which at the time of revelation takes different forms and which when it came to Mary took the form of a man appearing in a dream. So it was no spirit that had entered Mary’s body. The vision was but a manifestation of God’s great power.

Christians try to derive a false satisfaction from the words روحنا alleging that according to the Quran, the Divine Spirit or God Himself had entered Mary’s body and that as a result thereof she became pregnant and therefore Jesus who was born as the result of that conception was the son of God. The Quran lends no support whatsoever to this blasphemous and preposterous dogma but condemns and denounces it in the strongest possible terms (5:73-74; 19:89-91). What the verse says is only this that an angel of God (روح means an angel) appeared to Mary in a vision in the form of a man and gave to her the glad tidings of the birth of a son.

Even the Gospels repudiate this fantastic dogma. According to them Mary had conceived only of the Holy Ghost (Matt. 1:18-20; Luke, l:35). Thus according to Christians’ own admission Jesus, at best, was the son of the Holy Ghost. But if they believe that he was the son of God then they shall also have to admit that the Holy Ghost is God. But they accept neither of these propositions. So whereas the Quran strongly condemns and denounces the Christian dogma of sonship of Jesus, the Gospels too do not support it. What the Quran says is simply this that an angel appeared before Mary in the form of a man and gave her from God the glad tidings of the birth of a great son.

Commentary:

The words "the unseen" may signify the conjectures and guesses of political philosophers and soothsayers and the words, a promise from the Gracious God, may signify the promise given through a Divine Messenger about the eventual triumph of the cause of truth.