لَوْلَآ

2:247; 4:67.

14:45; 63:11.

9:38; 57:21.

See 4:50.

Commentary:

This verse refers to a class of men who show eagerness to fight when they are told not to fight, but when the actual time for fighting arrives, they refuse to fight or try to avoid it by various pretexts, thus showing that their former eagerness for fighting was either insincere or was only due to a temporary excitement.

The verse may also be regarded as referring to انصار (Helpers) of Medina who, before the advent of Islam to that city, were constantly at war among themselves. But when they accepted Islam, they were asked to cease fighting. When, however, they were called upon to take up arms to defend Islam, a section of them, who were always fighting among themselves before they embraced Islam, became afraid of fighting in the cause of God.

2:211; 25:8.

Commentary:

The question, Why has not an angel been sent down to him, implies a desire on the part of the disbelievers to be visited by an angel whom they might see and be thus convinced of the divine mission of the Prophet. The Quran exposes their folly by replying that although the angels of God do come to the Prophet, yet when they visit disbelievers and are seen by them, they invariably come with Divine punishment. Such angels appeared at the Battle of Badr, when, to quote the expression of the Quran, the matter was decided (2:211). See also the succeeding verse.

15:48.

See 2:26.

10:11; 39:75.

Important Words:

غل (rancour) is from the verb غل which means, it entered (into a thing) or it caused to enter. Thus it is both transitive and intransitive. غل also means, it entered and became mixed up or confused with a thing. غل فلان کذا means, such a one took that thing secretly and concealed it. غل بصرہ means, his eye-sight deviated from the right course. غل الرجل means, the man acted unfaithfully and dishonestly. غل means, rancour or latent rancour; malevolence; malice; spite; enmity; insincerity and dishonesty (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The freedom of the heart from feelings of rancour and malice is indeed one of the great blessings of Heaven promised to the believers; and as true heavenly life should begin in this very world, a Muslim should always try to purge his heart of such feelings as are nothing but a source of disquiet for one who is a prey to them.

The question implied in the words, we could not have found guidance, if Allah had not guided us, is answered in the words that follow which may be expanded thus: "If Allah had not sent His Messengers, we could not have been rightly guided; for it was not possible for us to devise a Law for ourselves and without a Law we could not perform good works. Law is, therefore, not a curse but a blessing, for it enables us to reach Heaven."

The word تلکم (this) in the clause, This is the Heaven, is used to point to a thing. Heaven is here pointed out to believers, as they have not yet entered it. But they have at the same time been declared to be "the inmates of Heaven," because they have already earned it by their good works. Moreover, true heavenly life begins in this very world, although the full manifestation thereof will be in the next. See 2:26 & 55:47.

6:38.

Commentary:

It is the invariable practice of the opponents of the Prophets of God to accuse them of having brought no sign. In spite of the fact that this Surah opens with the words, These are the verses (lit. signs) of the Book that is full of wisdom, the Holy Prophet’s opponents charged him with having shown no sign. This shows that it is not given to everybody to see and realize heavenly signs. Only those who possess spiritual eyes can see them.

It should be remembered that whenever disbelievers demand a sign, they mean a sign in the form of "Divine punishment," except when the words used by them clearly refer to something else. In the verse under comment too the word means Divine punishment.

Another important point that emerges from this verse is that it is not necessary that the time of the fulfilment of a prophecy should be defined and announced beforehand. If it had been necessary to do so, the Quran would not have said that God alone knew the time when Divine punishment would come and that people should wait for it even as the Prophet does.

The words, I am with you among those who wait, contain a beautiful reply to the disbelievers’ demand for the coming of a speedy punishment. The Holy Prophet is made to say to disbelievers that it is he and not they who should have been impatient at the delay in the coming of the threatened punishment; for it is he who is being subjected to mocking for this delay and when he is patiently waiting for God’s decree, why should not they?

17:74.

17:94; 25:9.

13:8.

Important Words:

فلعلك (thou art now perhaps). The word لعل is used to denote either a state of hope or of fear, whether that state pertains to the speaker or to the addressee or to someone else. In the Quranic expression فلعلك تارك بعض مایوحی الیك (thou art now perhaps going to abandon part of that which has been revealed to thee) the word لعل has been used to signify that "the people imagine that thou art now perhaps going to abandon, etc." (Mufradat). See also 2:22.

کنز (treasure) is the noun-infinitive from کنز (kanaza). They say کنز المال i.e. he buried the property or treasure in the earth; he collected the property and treasured it, or he hoarded it or stored it in secret. کنز الرمح means, he stuck or fixed the spear in the ground. کنز التمر means, he stored or packed up the dates (in the receptacle). کنز (kanz) means, treasure; property buried in the earth; any property whereof the portion that should be given in alms is not given; property that is preserved in a receptacle; anything abundant and collected together; gold and silver; a treasure of knowledge or science; that in which property is preserved or that in which property is buried or hoarded in secret (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

It is a peculiarity of Quranic diction that sometimes it omits to give the question and only gives the answer, the question being implied in the answer itself. The present verse constitutes an example of this style. In the previous verse believers were promised forgiveness and a great reward. Thereupon disbelievers asked the Holy Prophet in a jeering and ironical manner, "You say your followers will get a great reward and their sins will be forgiven. We know nothing about the forgiveness of their sins. But where is the promised reward of which we do not see the slightest sign? You do not have even the money which you need so badly, nor do the angels descend from heaven to help you." The Quran turns the tables upon the disbelievers and answers their irony, with an irony, saying, "How weighty indeed is the objection of these people and perhaps, o Prophet, from fear of being unable to answer it, you would hide a part of Our revelation which contains prophecies regarding the prosperity and triumph of Islam!" meaning that such a thing can never be.

The verse is capable of another interpretation also. In this case the word لعل would be taken to refer to the hope of disbelievers that the Holy Prophet may, out of fear of their objections, suppress part of the Divine revelation. The verse declares such hopes to be vain and futile, for the Holy Prophet was "only a warner," and the function and duty of a warner is only to issue the warning and deliver his message faithfully; he has no right to suppress any portion of the message. Again, by using the words "only a Warner" the verse also hints that the Holy Prophet did not claim to be God so that the treasures of the earth might be under his control; he was only a human being. If it be said here that believers who were promised "a great reward" (see the preceding verse) were also human beings like the Holy Prophet, it should be remembered that they were promised the reward not immediately but after they had established their title to it by displaying patience and steadfastness under trials and hardships for a considerable time. So disbelievers could demand from the Holy Prophet clear and palpable signs of the prosperity promised to him only when the promised time had come and not earlier. To come attended with power and glory in the very beginning is a sign of personal authority which belongs to God alone and not to any human being."

The words, Allah is Guardian over all things, are intended to point to the fact that all these promises will certainly come to pass. The Holy Prophet will assuredly get both مغفرة (lit. covering up) and a great reward, and the angels of God will undoubtedly descend to bring his work to completion and make null and void the machinations of his enemies. Not only will he himself be favoured with a great reward, but his followers and disciples also would become rulers and kings. Any fair-minded and impartial person can see that both these promises were literally fulfilled.

Some hostile critics of Islam have pretended to infer from this verse that the Holy Prophet was actually prepared to abandon a portion of the Quran out of fear of the objections of his opponents. But the context spurns this baseless interpretation. Can any reasonable person imagine that the demand for the descent of helping angels or for the possession of a treasure was such that, on account of it, the Holy Prophet should, in any way, have become prepared to suppress part of Divine revelation, or that he was unaware of the fact that he was only a warner whose duty was to deliver the Message, whatever it might be? Again, did he not know that God had clearly spoken to him saying He Himself was "Guardian over all things"? So the words, thou art now perhaps going to abandon part of that which has been revealed to thee, contain only a vain hope on the part of the disbelievers that the Prophet might give up part of his revelation; they do not at all find any intention or readiness on his part to do so. Do not these critics know that when at Mecca a deputation of the Quraish waited on the Holy Prophet and asked him to give up preaching against their idols and threatened to crush him and his tribe in case he refused to do so, the prompt answer he gave was that even if they put the sun on his right and the moon on his left he would not swerve a hair’s breadth from the teachings which God had given him? Could he, whom the threats or cajolery of the Quraish at a time when he was extremely weak could not induce to give up his preaching, have become so unnerved by these silly objections as to become ready to conceal a part of the DivineWord?

The verse that follows also gives the lie to such an inference, for it contains a challenge to the world to produce ten Surahs like any ten Surahs of the Quran. If there had been any doubt in the Prophet’s mind concerning any portion of the Quran, could that very portion possibly have been followed by a challenge like this? This challenge shows that he believed in the truth of every word of the Quran with a conviction firm as a rock.

Commentary:

This verse tells us that the wife of Joseph’s master intended a thing about Joseph (i.e. copulation) in which she did not succeed. Similarly, Joseph intended a thing about her (i.e. turning her to pure thoughts), but he too did not succeed in his endeavour. That Joseph did not intend anything evil is clear from the previous verse. His only purpose was to dissuade her from her evil course.

By "manifest sign" is meant the heavenly signs which Joseph had already witnessed, e.g. the wonderful dream which foretold his future greatness (v. 5) and the revelation he had received when cast into the well, which also pointed to his later eminence and glory (v. 16). Surely, the person who was being prepared for the exalted office of a Prophet could not debase himself before an idolatrous woman.

The words, that We might turn away from him evil and indecency, signify that a person who had witnessed such signs could not stoop to evil. They may also mean that God brought about these circumstances so that Joseph should no longer live in the evil company of his master’s wicked wife and her evil companions which might have exercised a pernicious influence on him.

Here there is another point of resemblance between Joseph and the Holy Prophet. Just as an attempt was made to tempt Joseph away from the path of piety and rectitude, similarly, the idolaters of Mecca made an unsuccessful attempt to make the Holy Prophet give up preaching the Unity of God by offering to make him their king or amass great wealth for him or give him in marriage the most beautiful girl in Arabia. The offer was of course disdainfully rejected by the Prophet with the historic words, "If you place the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left hand, I will not give up preaching the Oneness of God." (Zurqani & Hisham). This constitutes the eleventh resemblance between these two great Prophets.

Important Words:

تفندون (take me to be a dotard) is derived from فند (fannada) which is derived from فند (fanada) which means, he uttered a falsehood; he committed mistakes in extreme old age; he became weak in judgement by reason of extreme old age. افندmeans, he became weak in intellect or he doted. فندہ (fannada-hu) means, he pronounced him to be an utterer of falsehood; he blamed him; he pronounced his judgement to be weak; مفند (mufannad) is one who is weak in judgement or unsound in mind by reason of extreme old age or disease; one who confounds things in his speech (Lane).

Commentary:

The verse shows that even before the caravan reached home, Jacob told his people that in spite of all appearances to the contrary he hoped to meet Joseph soon; and in order to lend emphasis to his conviction, he added the words "even though you take me to be a dotard" meaning thereby, "you consider this meeting to be an impossibility, being not more than the wishful thinking of an old man, but I know it as a fact and a certainty."

6:38; 10:21.

11:13; 35:24.

Important Words:

انما (surely) is a compound of ان (inna) and ما (ma) and generally gives the sense of "only." Sometimes it is used in the sense of "verily, certainly or surely" (Taj). See also 6:110.

Commentary:

A study of the Quran makes it clear that whenever disbelievers demand a sign, they invariably mean the sign of punishment, unless the context points to some other meaning. This is why disbelievers are here depicted as saying, Wherefore has not a sign been sent down to him, as if the many signs already shown to them were no signs at all. In reply to this foolish demand they are told that it is clear from the very title of the Prophet—a Warner—that punishment will at last surely overtake disbelievers; but before it comes upon them, they will be given ample opportunities to benefit by the guidance the Prophet has brought because he is also a guide for them.

6:38; 10:21; 29:51.

14:5; 74:32.

Commentary:

In the previous verse, it was said that God straitens His provision for some men if He so pleases. The present verse says that when the attention of disbelievers is drawn to the fact that God possesses the power to deprive men of their sustenance, they hasten to demand that this power of God should come into operation with regard to them so that it may serve as a sign. The Quran answers them by saying that God is already showing signs as a result of which some are being spiritually guided and some made to perish but disbelievers do not benefit by them and demand instead the sign of punishment. Thus, according to them, the signs of mercy and signs of the deep knowledge of God are of no account. With them, the only signs to which they attach any importance are the signs of punishment. But what benefit could they derive from the signs of destructive punishment when no opportunity would be left for them to accept guidance after they had been destroyed? The tragic truth is that most people become deserving of punishment on account of their sins, and this is why they do not benefit by the signs of guidance. God therefore decrees and decides the destruction of such people. For an explanation of the word یضل see note on v. 34.

As the words, Allah causes to perish those whom He wills, might give rise to the doubt that God brings destruction on men arbitrarily, the Quran rightly adds, and guides to Himself those who turn to Him, meaning that God does not destroy men arbitrarily but it is His immutable law that He guides those who are desirous of turning to Him and destroys only those who seek to turn away from Him and refuse to accept His guidance.

28:48.

11:13; 15:8; 17:93.

Commentary:

This and the next verse contain another objection of disbelievers against the Holy Prophet, which the verses following them proceed to answer. The objection is: "The Holy Prophet is but an ordinary man. He eats and walks in the streets. If he was a Messenger of God, he should have been followed by an entourage of angels who would have borne testimony to his truth and should have warned his rejecters and deniers of the punishment that was in store for them."

10:8, 12.

Commentary:

The disbelievers in their conceit and arrogance seem to be satisfied with nothing less than that angels should descend upon them or God Himself should speak to them to bear witness to the truth of the Prophet.

Important Words:

فارغا (free from anxiety) is derived from فرغ which means, it was or became empty, void, devoid; he died. فرغ له means, he made him or it the object to which he directed himself. فارغ means, vacant, devoid of or free from care or anxiety or disquietude (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The heart of Moses’ mother became free from care or anxiety because of the consolation and assurance given to her by Divine revelation referred to in v. 8 above. The pronoun ہ in به may refer either to Moses or to the matter concerned. In the first case the expression ان کادت لتبدی به would mean that Moses’ mother was so much pleased with Moses having been restored to her that out of joy she was on the point of declaring that the child belonged to her. In the second case the meaning would be that if God had not restrained her, she almost had told people about the whole affair—how she had received a Divine revelation and how in pursuance of it she had put the child into the river and so on.

20:135.

Commentary:

The sense implied in the verse is that by their iniquities and transgressions the disbelievers render themselves deserving of God’s punishment but as it is inconsistent with His justice and mercy to punish them without first giving them an opportunity to reform themselves, so He raises a Prophet among them so that when punishment should overtake them they might not say that they were not given an opportunity to reform themselves by following the Divine Prophet if one had appeared among them.

6:125.

Commentary:

It is customary with disbelievers in the time of every Prophet that they demand from him signs and miracles which had been shown by a previous Prophet, while the disbelievers of that very Prophet had also rejected him in spite of the fact that he had shown the same miracles which disbelievers in the time of the later Prophet demanded. The verse exposes the absurdity of this worn out demand of disbelievers and purports to say that they demand from the Holy Prophet the same teachings which were given to Moses while the spiritual needs and requirements of the Holy Prophet’s time are different from those of Moses and, therefore, their demand is foolish. Yet when they are told that prophecies which were made by Moses have been fulfilled in the person of the Holy Prophet and that the teachings of the Quran in many respects support and corroborate the teachings of Torah, they say that both the Quran and the Torah are two pieces of magic that support each other.

13:27; 29:63; 34:37.

Important Words:

ویکان (Ah).ویک is a compound expression made up of وی and ک and is used for surprise and reproach, وی meaning woe and ک being a letter of address. They say ویک i.e. woe to thee. Some say ویک is ویلک (thy perdition), ل having been omitted. ویک being an expression of surprise or reproach means, oh; ah. وی لزید also means, well done Zaid, bravo Zaid (Aqrab).

6:38; 13:28.

22:50; 26:116; 51:51; 67:27.

Commentary:

In the Quran by the sign demanded by disbelievers is meant generally the sign of punishment. This meaning is clear from vv. 54, 55& 56 below. To this demand of disbelievers the Holy Prophet is commanded to say that it is not for him to fix the time when punishment should come, because he is only a Warner whose duty is confined to warning them that if they persisted in their rejection of the Divine Message and did not mend their ways they will perish.

7:39; 14:22; 28:64; 33:68; 40:48.

Commentary:

The expression بین یدیه literally meaning "between his two hands" is used in the sense of "before him or it." It has been used in this sense in 5:47 and 46:22. But it is also used in the sense of "in his presence" as in v. 13. Sometimes, however, this expression refers to a thing which is yet to come. In this sense the expression الذی بین یدیه may mean "the revelation which is yet to come."

It is human nature that when a guilty person is face to face with the punishment of his guilt, he tries to excuse himself by seeking to shift the responsibility for his misdeeds to another person. It is to this aspect of human nature that reference has been made in this and the next two verses. In these verses the deceivers and the deceived are shown as engaging in mutual recrimination when they see punishment overtaking them, seeking to throw the responsibility of their disbelief one upon another.

2:196; 9:34.

14:45.

Commentary:

The verse exhorts believers to make the best of their opportunities to serve the cause of truth with all the gifts that God had bestowed upon them, before death comes upon them i.e. before they lose the opportunity or the power to serve.