فَقَالُوا۟

46:35.

2:168; 23:100-101; 26:103; 39:59.

Important Words:

وقفوا (made to stand) is derived from وقف which is both transitive and intransitive, meaning, he or it paused or stood still or became stationary; or he made him or it pause or stand still or become stationary. وقف علیه means, he comprehended or understood it. وقفته علی ذنبه means, I made him know or made him acquainted with his offence or sin. وقف الدار means, he dedicated the house in the cause of Allah; or he set it apart inalienably for a definite purpose. وقف علیه (in the passive voice) means, he was made to pause or stand at or before it; he was introduced into it and knew what was in it; he was made to know it surely and definitely (Taj).

Commentary:

The words, إذ وقفوا علی النار when they are made to stand before the Fire, may also mean, "when they will be made to enter the Fire to abide therein for long,” or, “when they will be made to know or realize the nature of the Fire".

16:57.

Commentary:

Note the point and the force in the words, He has produced. By using these words, the Quran exposes the folly of disbelievers who are presumptuous enough to divide the produce of the earth and cattle between their deities and God, as if they were the owners; while the fact is that God is the owner of all these things and it is He Who has brought them into existence. They are God’s things, and it is strange that disbelievers should presume to divide God’s things according to their own choice, setting apart only a portion for God, the True Owner, and allotting the rest to their false deities.

Disbelievers gave two kinds of alms; firstly, in the name of God, and secondly, in the name of their deities. If the portion which they set apart for their deities was spent for other purposes, then the portion which they had reserved for God was also given away as charity in the name of their deities, but if the portion set apart for God was spent for other ends, then the portion set aside for the deities was not transferred to God. That is what is meant by the words, that which is for their idols reaches not Allah, while that which is for Allah reaches their idols. This is another instance of how men blunder, making laws with the sole aid of reason.

The expression, as they imagine, signifies that God does not accept a charity which false gods are made to share with Him. Disbelievers suppose that they have set apart a portion for God, but that is not really the portion of God, for the jealous God disdainfully rejects such allotment.

Commentary:

The expression, Our Lord, make us not a trial for the wrongdoing people, means either "may we not give, by our conduct, the wrongdoing people an opportunity to attack the true Faith"; or "make us not a target of the tyrannies of the wrongdoing people."

11:70; 51:26.

11:71; 51:29.

Commentary:

Probably signs of grief and sorrow were apparent on the faces of these messengers who had brought the news of an impending catastrophe. Abraham understood, either from the troubled expression on their faces or from their refusal to partake of the food offered to them (11:70, 71), the anguish of their hearts and suspected that the message which they had brought might prove a source of pain for him. It is also possible that the refusal of the guests to partake of the offered food led Abraham to fear that he might have, inadvertently, neglected some rule of hospitality in entertaining them.

Important Words:

رشدا (right guidance). رشد (rashadun) is the noun-infinitive from رشد (rashida) as رشد (rushdun) is the noun-infinitive from رشد (rashada). رشد او رشد means, he took or followed a right way or course or direction. They say رشد امرہ (rashida) i.e. he took or followed a right course in his affair. بلغ رشدہ (rushda-hu) means, he attained years of discretion, when he was able to take or follow a right course. Some say that رشد (rushdun) relates to the things of the present life and to those of the life to come; and رشد (rashadun) only to those of the life to come but this distinction does not accord with Arabic idiom. (Lane, Aqrab & Mufradat).

Commentary:

The verse means to say that the Dwellers of the Cave prayed to God for His Mercy and deliverance from the difficult situation in which they found themselves.

Commentary:

Though their people were against them and mercilessly persecuted them, yet they could not be intimidated into giving up their faith. God had strengthened their hearts and had bestowed upon them firmness of faith.

31:34; 35:6.

15:86; 20:16; 22:8.

Commentary:

In this verse we are told that these people who had remained aloof from the world for a long time will become known to the ends of the earth, and thus the truth of the prophecy about the rise to great power and dominion of Christian nations in the Latter Days will become established and then the promised hour of which these people were warned will come to pass.

In the words, We will surely build a place of worship over them, the Quran reverts again to the early history of the Dwellers of the Cave and mentions one of their distinctive marks which is that their successors, the Christian nations, will build churches in memory of their dead saints. Muslims or Jews have never erected mosques or synagogues to the memory of their departed saints. Christians are the only people who erect churches to perpetuate the memory of their dead saints; they even bury their dead in churchyards. It is worthy of note that many such churches have been found in the catacombs.

2:52, 93; 4:154; 7:149.

Important Words:

خوار (lowing sound) is infinitive-noun from خار.They sayخار البقر i.e. the cow made a lowing sound, it bellowed. خور(khawira) means, it became weak and enfeebled; it broke. خوار signifies the loud crying (i.e. the lowing or bellowing) of a cow and of a calf; and the crying (i.e. bleating) of sheep, or that of goats and gazelles, and of any beast and the whizzing of arrow. They say له صوت کخوار الثور i.e. he has a voice like the bellowing of the bull (Aqrab, Lane & Mufradat).

فنسی (so he gave up) means, he forgot or he abandoned or gave up or ceased acting (Aqrab & Mufradat). See also 5:14 & 9:67.

Commentary:

The Israelites had lived in Egypt under bondage for a long time and during their bondage they had acquired many of the customs, ways of life and religious rites of their rulers, the Egyptians, who worshipped the cow (Enc. Rel.& Ethics, vol. 1, p. 507). In this way they had also developed a great liking for the cow, and taking advantage of Moses’ absence Samiri led them into cow-worship.

Commentary:

The words shown as spoken by the people of Saba’ in the verse were not actually spoken by them but are used to describe their actual condition when they defied and disobeyed Divine commandments and consequently fell on evil days. The prosperous and frequented route became deserted, and desolate. The words "place longer distances between the stages of our journey" signify that because many towns on the route fell into ruin, the distance between one stage to the other became much longer and less safe.

The expression "and so We made them by-words" means that the Sabaeans were so utterly destroyed that no sign or mark was left of them. They became only a subject for story-tellers.

28:77; 29:40.

Commentary:

For Korah and Haman see 28:7, 77. Every Prophet of God had had his Pharaoh, Haman and Korah. These names respectively may symbolise political power, priesthood and material wealth, as Haman was the head of priestly class, and Korah an extremely rich man among Pharaoh’s nobles. Unlimited political power, servile priesthood and uncontrolled capitalism are the three evils which have ever retarded and arrested the political, economic, moral and spiritual growth of a people, and naturally it is against these enemies of man that Heavenly Reformers have waged relentless war in every age.

11:70; 15:53.

11:71.