بَصِيرًا

8:28.

Important Words:

امانات (trusts) is the plural of امانة which is derived from امن. They say امنه i.e. he trusted in him; he entrusted him with power and authority, control or a charge; he gave him a charge over a thing or person. امانة means, trustiness or faithfulness or fidelity; a thing committed to the care or trust of a person; a trust or deposit; a duty or task allotted to a person; the commandment of God given to His servants; a man’s family or household (Lane). The Holy Prophet is reported to have said that a position or office of authority is also an امانة or a trust (Muslim, ch. on Imarat).

Commentary:

As in the previous verses authority and dominion were promised to Muslims, the Quran in the present verse proceeds to bid them entrust authority to such persons as possess the necessary qualifications to rule. Authority or power to rule has been here described as a "trust" of the people in order to point out that, truly speaking, it belongs to the people and is not the birth right of any particular individual or dynasty.

The verse also draws the attention of the Muslim people to their heavy responsibility in respect of the very important matter of electing their Chief or Khalifah. They are warned that if in electing a Khalifah or a Chief they allowed considerations of personal liking or nepotism to prevail against the interests of the State or the community or those of religion and displayed lack of conscientiousness, they would be called to account like one false to his trust. The verse also condemns dynastic or hereditary rule and institutes instead a representative form of government. The Khalifah or the ruler is to be elected; and in electing him, the people are bidden to vote for one best fitted for the office. The Khalifah or the ruler in his turn is bidden to be fair and just in his administration fair to individuals, fair to communities and fair to the State as a whole.

The words, that you judge with justice, apply both to the head of the Muslim State and to all those persons who are entrusted with the work of administration. They are all enjoined to use their authority equitably and well.

The addition of the Divine attributes of "All-Hearing and All-Seeing" at the end of the verse is meant to remind Muslims that if at any time they find it difficult to carry out His commandment, then instead of violating it, they should pray to God and He will hear their prayer and will see to it that they get their rights. (See General Introduction for the detailed discussion of the institution of Khilafat).

2:201, 202; 42:21.

Commentary:

The verse contains a beautiful exhortation to the people to seek after the good things of the world to come, along with those of the present. When God can bestow on man in an ample measure both the good things of this world and the blessings of the life to come, why should man neglect to strive after both, particularly the good things of the next world which are far superior and are everlasting. Being All-Hearing, God hears our prayers and we can get what we desire by praying to Him; and being All-Seeing, He knows our needs and requirements and He can satisfy them even without our asking for them, in case we are not aware of any of our needs.

Important Words:

وجه (before) gives a number of meanings, e.g. face; the part of a thing facing one; direction etc., القی الشیء علی وجھه means, he put or placed the thing before or in front of him.

یات بصیرا (will come to know). بصیر means, seeing; endowed with mental perception; knowing (Lane).

Commentary:

Joseph gave his brothers his shirt to lay before their father, so that the sight of it might please him, as the sight of the first shirt had grieved him, and he might be induced to pray for his brothers and extend to them his pardon.

The words, he will come to know, mean that formerly Jacob had known only by Divine revelation that Joseph was alive and his knowledge was then only a matter of belief. Now, by actually seeing the shirt the belief would become converted into factual knowledge.

Commentary:

If, as some commentators say, Jacob had really become blind and his blindness had been removed by the casting of Joseph’s shirt at his face, he should have attributed the restoration of his sight to Joseph’s shirt and would have declared it as a miracle. But he refers to no such unusual happening but only to the divine knowledge about Joseph’s being alive, which he had long before imparted to his sons. Thus what the verse really means is that when Joseph’s shirt was laid before Jacob, the conviction that Joseph was alive which, being based on revelation, was previously only a matter of faith, now became converted into factual knowledge. This is the meaning of the words, he became enlightened.

In fact, the knowledge of God’s Prophets is of two kinds: (a) spiritual knowledge which they get direct from God by means of revelation; (b) material or secular knowledge which they acquire through their physical senses and other material means. When spiritual knowledge becomes supplemented and supported by the testimony of physical senses, it becomes complete in every sense and no vestige of doubt or ambiguity remains. As long as knowledge gained through spiritual means remains a matter of faith and does not go beyond conviction, it is capable of various interpretations: but when it is reinforced and corroborated by physical facts, it becomes a certainty beyond the possibility of doubt or dispute.

21:12; 65:9.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that the appearance of a Divine Messenger is no new phenomenon. Prophets have been appearing in the world since the days of Noah and the enemies of these Prophets have always come to grief. God cannot punish men for going astray without first sending His Messengers to lead them to the right path.

13:27; 29:63; 30:38; 39:53.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that God grants plenty to some and straitens the means of livelihood for others. He does so that He may see whether those upon whom He has bestowed wealth help those who are poor and needy. The verse teaches the supreme lesson that money spent in helping and serving the poor is money well spent. The enlarging of provision by God and the straitening of it by Him do not imply an arbitrary action but refer to a wise system of divine laws.

It is worthy of note that these commandments regarding the right use of money were given to Muslims in Mecca at a time when they could not earn even as much as to make both ends meet and when many of them were actually starving. Could such commandments be given to a persecuted and starving people by anyone except the All-Powerful God Who knew that the time was soon coming when those very starving Muslims would become wealthy and powerful?

10:30; 13:44; 29:53; 46:9.

Commentary:

This verse provides a telling answer to the other two objections mentioned in v.95 viz. (a) that man is too unimportant a being to be the recipient of God’s revelation; and (b) that he is endowed with such extraordinary natural gifts and faculties as not to need Divine revelation at all for his guidance. The answer here given is that God being the Creator of mankind knows full well how limited or self-sufficient are their natural gifts and so when He sends a Messenger, it is not for them to judge whether a Prophet should or should not have been sent to them but whether or not the claimant is a true Messenger. If, tested by God’s own tangible evidence, his claim is proved true, then both these objections fall to the ground and it has to be accepted that man is neither too unimportant to be the recipient of God’s word nor too self-sufficient not to need revelation.

21:9.

Commentary:

This verse again answers from another angle the commonplace objection of disbelievers that the Holy Prophet lived like an ordinary man (v. 8). It means to say that the Holy Prophet’s mission is not something novel. He is just like those Divine Messengers who have gone before him. He is an ordinary mortal like them and like them he eats and talks and moves about and, like the followers of those Prophets, his followers also will have to suffer for the cause they hold dear. If these things did not stand in the way of the earlier Prophets being accepted as Divine Messengers, why should they in his case, and why should new criteria be devised to test his truth?

Commentary:

With this verse begins an account of the Battle of the Ditch. This battle which took place in the 5th year of the Hijrahwas the fiercest encounter in which the Muslims had so far been engaged. The whole of Arabia rose like one man against Islam. The Quraish of Mecca, their allies, the Ghatfan, the Ashja‘ and Murrah, the Fararah, the Sulaim and the Banu Sa‘d and Banu Asad, the desert tribes of Central Arabia, aided and abetted by the perfidious Jews and treacherous "Hypocrites"of Medina formed themselves into a grand confederacy against the Holy Prophet. A mighty force numbering from ten to twenty thousand strong was pitched against 1200 (according to some writers 3000 Muslims, including women and children, were employed in digging the Ditch) ill-prepared and ill-provisioned Muslims. The siege of Medina lasted from fifteen days to four weeks, according to different versions after which the forces of darkness melted away without inflicting any serious loss upon the Muslims. Islam emerged stronger from this severe ordeal and the disbelieving Quraish were never again able to march against Muslims in force.

The reference in the word ریحا (wind) is to the strong cold wind which blew upon the confederated hosts and uprooted their tents and extinguished their fires. Says William Muir:

"Forage was obtained with the utmost difficulty; provisions were running short, and the camels and horses dying daily in great numbers; wearied and damped in spirit, the night set in upon them, cold and tempestuous wind and rain beat mercilessly on the unprotected camp. The storm rose to a hurricane. Fires were extinguished, tents blown down, cooking vessels and other equipage overthrown". ("The Life of Mahomet").

The words "and hosts that you saw not" refer to the forces of nature—wind, rain and cold which wearied the disbelievers and damped their spirits. It may also refer to the hosts of angels which cast fear in the hearts of disbelievers and heartened and encouraged the Muslims.

Commentary:

The words "after He had given you victory over them," may signify that in view of the circumstances in which the Muslims were then placed and of the far-reaching results it produced, the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah was tantamount to a great victory. The words may also refer to the victories that God had granted to Muslims before they came to Hudaibiyyah—the victory at Badr, the safe return of Muslims and the Holy Prophet to Medina from Uhud after they had been placed in a very dangerous and delicate situation, and the complete frustration of the Meccans in their evil designs to destroy Islam in the Battle of the Ditch when they were repulsed with severe loss, etc. In a sense these were all victories of believers over disbelievers.

18:38; 35:12; 36:78; 40:68; 80:20.

Commentary:

أمشاج is the plural of مشیج which means, a mixture. Man is created from a sperm drop which itself is a mixture of several things, the implication being that he has been endowed with various natural powers, faculties and attributes meant for his moral and spiritual advance. This process of the creation of man points only to a general rule of creation; not that in no case could it be otherwise. The fact that man is gifted with insight and understanding signifies that he is a free agent, enjoying discretion and volition; therefore he is responsible for his actions. The belief in man’s freedom of action and responsibility leads inevitably to the belief in the Hereafter.