Topic: Lauh

6:155.

Commentary:

The word "wrote" here does not mean that God actually wrote the commandments upon the tablets with His own hand. The same word has been used elsewhere with regard to the Psalms (21:106). It was indeed Moses, and not God, who wrote on the tablets the commandments that were revealed to him on the Mount; but as the commandments were revealed by God, the act of writing has been ascribed to Him. It is also possible that the word کتبنا does not here mean "We wrote" but "We enjoined" or "We made binding".

The words "everything" and "all things" used in this verse are not absolute but mean respectively "everything" concerning which an admonition was needed at the time of Moses and "all things" that required to be explained to the Israelites.

The words, follow the best thereof, point to a golden principle of individual and national advancement. The teachings of God’s Prophet are of different grades. Some are meant for the weak of faith, others for those whose faith is firm and strong and from whom a high standard of virtue is expected. Moses is asked here to exhort his people to try to practise the higher form of virtue and not to remain content with merely acting upon the injunctions that are meant for the weak of faith.

The words, Soon shall I show you the abode of the transgressors, mean that soon the obedient shall be distinguished and separated from the disobedient. At the time of the flight of the Israelites from Egypt, it was a medley host of all sorts of people that had fled from fear of Pharaoh. But when the Law was revealed to Moses, it served to distinguish the true from the false. Those who were sincere, obeyed the Law, while those who had no faith in their hearts, rejected and defied it. Thus, true believers became distinguished and separated from the transgressors. The word دار (abode) here signifies "station or position".

20:87.

20:95.

Important Words:

فلاتشمت (make not rejoice). تشمت is formed from اشمت which is derived from شمت. They say شمت or شمت به i.e. he (an enemy) rejoiced; or he (someone) rejoiced at his enemy’s affliction. اشمته الله به means, God made him (the enemy) rejoice at his affliction. شمت علی العاطس means, he prayed for the sneezer that he might not be in a state in which his enemy might rejoice at his affliction (Lane).

Commentary:

When the return of Moses was delayed owing to the ten additional nights, his followers became impatient and thought that he was lost. They expressed their impatience in the words "we wot not what is become of him" (Exod. 32:1).

According to the Bible, Moses cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them beneath the Mount, so that they had to be renewed (Exod. 32:19; 34:1). But this is not borne out by the Quran which simply states, And he put down the tablets and this is more in harmony with the dignity of a Prophet.

Moses caught hold of Aaron’s head, not because the latter had abetted calf-worship, as he is represented to have done in the Bible (Exod. 32:2-4), but because he did not successfully prevent the people from worshipping the calf. As Moses’ representative, he should have effectively prevented the people from idol-worship, but he failed to do so. So the display of anger on the part of Moses was due not to any religious or legal offence committed by Aaron, but to his failure to manage affairs properly in the absence of Moses. Aaron had hoped that Moses would set things right on his return. That was only an error of judgement or lack of proper control, not a legal or religious offence.

The way in which Moses treated Aaron also shows that the latter was subordinate to the former. The treatment, however, should not be taken as a display of rough manners on the part of Moses. The anger of Moses was justified because a great sacrilege had been committed and the very work of his life was jeopardized; and Aaron being subordinate to Moses, the latter was entitled to take disciplinary action.

The words, Son of my mother, were used by Aaron not because Moses was a half-brother to him but because he wished to make an effective appeal to his feelings of tenderness and affection, and in this he succeeded.

The meaning of the particle مع (with) in the clause, and place me not with the unjust people, helps to explain its real sense in 4:70. Here, as well as there the particle gives the meaning of "among".

5:45; 6:92.

Important Words:

سکت (was appeased) means, he was or became silent, mute or, speechless; he was or became still and quiet; he died. سکت غضبه means, his anger became appeased, allayed or stilled. سکت عنه الغضب means, his anger became stilled or appeased so that it departed from him (Lane).

نسختھا (its writing). نسخة is derived from نسخ which means: (1) he or it annulled or superseded or cancelled or abrogated or changed or altered (something); (2) he copied or transferred a writing, letter for letter. So نسخة means, copy or transcript, so called because it supplies the place of the original; also a copy or an original from which a transcript is made (Lane). Thus the word نسخة does not exactly mean a "writing", though, for the sake of convenience, it has been translated as such.

36:70; 65:11.

Commentary:

This verse furnishes a powerful proof of the truth of the Quran and of its Divine origin. In fact, the promise about the preservation of the Quran made in this verse has been so remarkably fulfilled that even if there had been no other proof of the truth of Islam, this alone would have sufficed to establish its Divine origin.

Verse 8 contains the demand mockingly made by disbelievers that if the Quran were really as grand a Book as it was claimed to be, it ought to have descended under the guardianship of angels. This ridicule of disbelievers has been answered in the present verse, which emphatically says that the Quran is indeed a sublime Book and that God Himself has undertaken to act as its Guardian and that He will always protect it against every kind of corruption and interference. And in order that this promise about the protection of the Quran may gain still more force, particles expressive of special emphasis, such as انا (verily We) and نحن (Ourself) and again انا followed by ل (most surely) have been used in this verse. Thus the claim has been made in the most emphatic and forceful language.

The statement that God Himself is the Guardian of the Quran does not mean that angels do not guard it. They also do so, for when the master himself is guarding a thing, the servants must also be necessarily engaged in that service. By saying, most surely We will be its Guardian, God, however, points to the fact that there are certain peculiarities of the Quran which it is beyond the power of angels to guard and, therefore, God Himself has undertaken to do that work.

This Surah was revealed at Mecca. According to Ibn Hisham, it was revealed in the fourth year of the Holy Prophet’s ministry. Sprenger, Rodwell and Nöldeke all agree that it belongs to the Meccan period. Now it is a well-known fact that during the Meccan period, the life of the Holy Prophet and his followers was extremely precarious. They did not even know how to save themselves or where to hide themselves. For no less than three years the Prophet and his few helpless followers were virtually imprisoned in the Shi‘b (valley) of Abu Talib from where they could not venture out. They were under a ban. Is it not then astonishing that when the very lives of Muslims were in peril and the enemy was so strong that he could easily crush the new Faith, disbelievers were challenged to do all that lay in their power to destroy the Quran, and were told that God would frustrate all their designs because He Himself was its Guardian? The challenge was open and unequivocal and the enemy strong and ruthless. But what was the result? The Prophet and his Companions not only remained safe and sound but thrived and prospered and the number of converts continued to swell and the Quran remained safe against all corruption and has ever continued to enjoy perfect security. This distinctive feature of the Quran has not been shared by any other book revealed to any other Prophet.

Sir William Muir, the well-known critic of Islam, says about the Quran: "We may, upon the strongest presumption, affirm that every verse in the Quran is the genuine and unaltered composition of Mohammad himself." Again, "There is otherwise every security, internal and external, that we possess the text which Mohammad himself gave forth and used." Again, "To compare (as the Muslims are fond of doing) their pure text with the various readings of our Scriptures, is to compare things between which there is no analogy." (Introduction to "The Life of Mahomet"). Prof. Nöldeke, the great German Orientalist writes as follows: "Slight clerical errors there may have been, but the Quran of Othman contains none but genuine elements, though sometimes in very strange order. Efforts of European scholars to prove the existence of later interpolations in the Quran have failed." (Enc. Brit.). Professor Nicholson, says in his "Literary History of the Arabs": "Here (in the Quran) we have materials of unique and incontestable authority for tracing the origin and early development of Islam—such mater-ials as do not exist in the case of Buddhism or Christianity or any other ancient religion."

The importance of this security of the Quranic text is further enhanced when we compare it with other revealed Scriptures. The Quran was revealed among an illiterate people, while most other Scriptures were revealed among peoples who were comparatively more literate and therefore better qualified to preserve the purity of their Scriptures. Yet they failed to do so, while the Quran, the most widely read of all revealed Scriptures, enjoys complete immunity from all sorts of corruption. This miraculous preservation of the Quranic text is no mere accident. It has been brought about by the special providence of God in accordance with an openly declared prophecy of the Quran.

The means adopted to safeguard the purity of the text of the Quran have been briefly referred to in verse 2 in the memorable words الکتاب (the Written Book) and قرآن مبین (the Illuminating Recital) signifying: (a) That every verse of the Quran was committed to writing as soon as it was revealed and this writing was most tenaciously preserved. (b) That it was committed to memory as soon as revealed by a number of Muslims. And this pious practice has increasingly continued so much so that in the past centuries hundreds of thousands of Muslims have had the entire Quran literally on the tips of their tongues. Add to this the fact that from the very beginning of Islam the recital of parts of the Quran in the five daily Prayers was made obligatory.

The following additional factors also very materially contributed to the preservation of the Quran:

(1) God has inspired the Muslims with an extraordinary love for the Quran. They enjoy the reading of the Book even if they do not understand the meaning of the text. This leads to its being preserved in their hearts.

(2) The rhythm of the Quran is so sweet and its language so charming and so easy to learn and the construction of its sentences so beautiful that it can be committed to memory with great ease.

(3) God so ordained that immediately after the Quranic revelation became complete, it spread far and wide, to the remotest corners of the world, among all nations and all peoples, so that it became practically impossible for anyone to tamper with its text.

(4) From the beginning the Quran formed for Muslims the basis of all the sciences and learning they acquired and developed with a view to serving it. Various branches of knowledge such as Grammar, Rhetoric, History, Philosophy and Logic were cultivated and developed by Muslims for the sake of a better understanding of their holy Book.

(5) God has preserved Arabic, the language of the Quran, as a living language, while the languages of all other revealed Books, which were not meant to last forever, have become practically dead.

Again, it is not only the text of the Quran that has been preserved intact by God. He has provided for the preservation of its spirit also. This has been done by raising divinely inspired Reformers among the Muslims from time to time. These Reformers, known in Islamic terminology as Mujaddids, receive revelations from God and interpret and explain the true meaning of the Quranic text. Such Reformers appeared among the followers of other religions also, but that was only for so long as such scriptures served as guides for their followers. After the advent of Islam, however, all other religious systems and their scriptures, which were intended only for specific periods and specific peoples, became abrogated and divinely inspired Reformers ceased to appear among them. Now, therefore, the Quran alone among all revealed Scriptures of the world holds the field as a living Book and hence divinely inspired Reformers now appear only among the followers of Islam. In our own time God has raised Ahmad, the Promised Messiah, Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement, to demon-strate the truth and excellence of the Quran in a manner unparalleled in the history of Islam. Ahmad’s present-ation of Islam is not like one praying for a hearing, as was the vogue among the apologetic school of Muslim writers, but as a victor challenging the protagonists of all other religious systems and the so-called Modernists and Higher Critics to find fault with any teaching of Islam; and also as a judge passing his judgement upon them. The appearance of such Reformers in itself constitutes proof of the living power of a religion and its Scripture inasmuch as they are really the fruit of their religion and their appearance proves its efficacy.

The question here arises, if the Scriptures revealed to the previous Prophets have not been preserved in their original purity, what guarantee is there to believe that the Quran would enjoy permanent security? In this connection it should be noted that the promise of protection made by God in this verse mentions the word الذکر (rendered in the text as "this Exhortation") and not the Quran or any other word; and herein lies the answer to the above question. For, to become deserving of the permanent protection of God it is essential that the Divine revelation should be الذکر of which the necessary attributes are: (1) that it should establish a close and permanent relationship between man and his Maker, inspiring in the former constant remembrance of God, the word ذکر meaning remembering; and (2) that it should elevate man to a state where God may also remember him or in other words favour him with His words and with heavenly help, the word ذکر also means eminence. The verse under comment thus purports to mean that God undertakes to protect any Scripture so long as it serves the above two purposes. But when, through changes in the conditions and circumstances of man, any Scripture ceases to perform these functions and God, in His infallible wisdom, deems it necessary to reveal another Scripture, He naturally ceases to extend His protection to earlier revelations. The question as to when any particular Scripture at any particular time ceases to serve the above-mentioned purposes has to be decided on facts. It is a fact beyond doubt that at the present time no religion other than Islam can claim that there is among its followers anyone who fulfils in his person the conditions mentioned above, viz. attainment of such nearness to God that God begins to speak to him and manifests His special powers for his sake. Such a claim can be made only by a follower of the Quran. As stated above Ahmad, the Promised Messiah, has made this claim in our own time and has proved by powerful heavenly signs that his claim is founded on fact and God is helping his cause wonderfully. It is, therefore, natural that Muslims should claim and believe that now the protection of God is a privilege enjoyed by the Quran alone.

As regards the future, our belief based upon promises made in the Quran is that whenever Muslims forget, or fall away from, the teachings of the Quran, God will, by raising heavenly Reformers, restore to them their faith in its pristine purity. The teachings of the Quran will thus remain effective for all time and will ever continue to enjoy Divine help and protection.

26:120; 29:16.

Important Words:

دسر (nails) is the plural of دسار which is derived from دسر which means, he drove a nail with force; he nailed anything; he fastened or repaired a ship with a nail, or with a cord of fibres of palm-tree. They say دسرہ i.e. he thrust, drove, pierced or stabbed him vehemently with a spear, he or it pushed, drove, propelled him or it. دسار means, a cord of fibres of the palm tree with which the planks of a ship are bound together; a nail of a ship (Lane & Aqrab).

41:43; 56:79.

Commentary:

The verse constitutes a challenging prophecy about the Quran being guarded against every kind of interference and distortion. See also 15:l0.