يَرَوْا۟

6:26.

Commentary:

This verse explains the true significance of the word دار (abode) occurring in the sentence, I shall show you the abode of the transgressors, contained in the preceding verse.

46:27.

11:53; 71:12.

Important Words:

قرن (generation). The verb form of the word, i.e. قرن (qarana) means, he connected or linked or coupled or joined. قرنmeans, one’s equal in age, i.e. connected with the same age; a generation of men succeeding or preceding another generation, as if both were conjoined; people of one time; people of a time among whom there appears a Prophet. قرینmeans an associate, comrade or companion (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The verse predicts that the enemies of the Holy Prophet shall be destroyed like the enemies of the former Prophets. Even within the confines of Arabia there had been people who were visited with Divine punishment in consequence of their opposition to their respective Prophets who appeared in bygone times. Among them were the tribes, Tubba‘, ‘Ad, Thamud and others whose stories were current among the Arabs.

The words, as We have established you not, do not mean that the world is retrogressing. The fact is that although the world is progressing as a whole, yet some of the older nations which rose to the heights of civilization in their time were so advanced in certain branches of art and science that in these specific branches they have so far not been equalled by the generations that followed. Take, for instance, the ancient Egyptians. The modern age, in spite of the marvels it has wrought in the domain of science, still gazes with wonder at some of the works of ancient Egyptian civilization. Similarly, there were people among the Arabs who carved wonderful fortresses out of rocks. Thus every people that ever attained to the heights of civilization enjoyed a certain distinction which is not shared by other nations. By using this expression, the Quran means to say, “When these powerful people were destroyed in spite of their mastery of certain branches of knowledge, how can your arts save you from destruction?”

10:43; 17:48.

17:47; 41:6.

Commentary:

For an explanation of "veils" and "deafness", see 2:8.

What the Quran calls "signs" are described by disbelievers as mere "fables of the ancients," which saying of theirs is condemned by God. This shows that in the sight of God the stories of past Prophets and past nations given in the Quran are not meant as "tales" or "stories" but as "signs", being prophecies of future events which, when fulfilled, will serve as "signs".

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.

21:45.

Commentary:

This verse strongly refutes those critics of the Holy Prophet who allege that he showed no sign.

Do they not see, says the verse, that God is gradually reducing and curtailing the land from its sides? Is not that a sign of the triumph of Islam? It is making inroads into every home and into all sections and stations of society—the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the slave and the master. Is not this a sign sufficient to convince all fair-minded critics? The word الارض (land) may also refer to "the land of Arabia," in which case the verse would mean that Islam is fast spreading throughout the length and breadth of Arabia. As the expression اتی الله according to Arabic usage also means the visitation of God with punishment (see 2:211 & 16:27), the words, We are visiting the land, reducing it, may mean that the punishment of God is already slowly but surely coming down on all sections of the people.

The words, swift at reckoning, do not mean that, God is hasty in punishing disbelievers but that, when He decides to call the offenders to account, He does it quickly and nothing can prevent Him from doing so.

Commentary:

In this verse disbelievers are told to consider and reflect that everything is subject to decline. Nations rise and fall. Flourishing cities and prosperous towns fall into ruin. Governments change and powerful countries fall victim to decay and decline. The poor become rich and the wealthy are reduced to poverty. So does the shadow of everything after reaching a certain stage become contracted, signifying that its power, influence and glory are about to depart and that it is about to be reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. When such is the eternal law of nature, why then do the disbelievers not take a lesson from this natural phenomenon and realize that their shadow is decreasing and why do they not give up conceit and pride and accept the Prophet of God?

In the preceding verses reference was made to the various forms of Divine punishment. In this verse, however, disbelievers are told to think and ponder why their power is declining and that of the Holy Prophet increasing. Nothing in this world can go against the will of the Creator. Natural objects have long shadows when the sun is at their backs. From this natural phenomenon it is easily understandable that the shadows of those who have God at their back must also become long, hinting that their power and influence must grow. But just as shadows have no independent existence of their own and depend on the sun for their increase or decrease, similarly success and prosperity depend only on the sun of the grace of God. When God withdraws His grace from a people, their progress and prosperity depart. Disbelievers are warned that punishments mentioned above will result in the complete obliteration of their shadows while the shadow of the Holy Prophet will continue to expand and lengthen until it will spread and reach to Mecca. Such is the eternal law of God which is embodied in the present verse and which they have been invited to study and profit by.

It may be objected that it is to the East or to the West that shadows are shifted and not to the right or to the left as mentioned in this verse. The reason for this description lies in the fact that it is with reference to the Holy Prophet and the Meccans that the directions have been mentioned in this verse. In fact, the verse implies a reference to the Hijrah. The Prophet was to go to Medina, which lies in the North, and the Meccans were in Mecca, which is in the South. If a person standing at a place where the boundaries of Mecca and Medina meet should face the East, Mecca will be on his right and Medina on his left. 'The right', thus refers to Mecca and 'the left' to Medina. The use of the word الیمین (the right) in the singular and الشمائل (the left) in the plural signifies that the shadow of disbelievers, being limited, will decline and decrease and the Holy Prophet who will migrate to a town situated to the left will have many shadows i.e. his cause will advance and progress from many sides.

67:20.

Commentary:

Some commentators of the Quran erroneously consider that this verse alludes to the Almightiness of God Who has given the birds the power to fly in the air but there is no such allusion here to any such power and might of God. The verse only contains a reference to the punishment that was soon to overtake the disbelievers of Mecca. The keeping back of the birds signifies the withholding of the punishment that was in store for them. Arabic poetry abounds in verses where birds are spoken of as attending a victorious army to feed on the dead bodies of the enemy killed and left on the field of battle. The great poet Nabighah says:

اذا ما غدی بالجیش حلق فوقه

عصا ثب طیر تھتدی بالعصائب

i.e. When he marches out, flocks of birds attend his victorious army, knowing that he will surely defeat his enemy and thus would provide a good feast for them. So the hovering of birds according to Arabic idiom is symbolic of the defeat and destruction of a people. Verses 105:2-5 contain a clear reference to this significance of the Arabic idiom. The verse under comment means to say that God has withheld Muslims from waging war against disbelievers. But once they were given permission to fight, the disbelievers will be defeated and destroyed and their dead bodies will be eaten by the birds which they see flying in the sky.

36:82; 46:34; 86:9.

Commentary:

The verse embodies an invincible argument to prove the existence of life after death. It does not straightaway say to disbelievers that they would be born again because God has the power to give them a new birth. Such a statement would have been an empty assertion. It says to them that if it is difficult for them to believe in a life after death, they would as well disbelieve if they were told that they would lose their power and prestige to those very weak and poor Muslims whom they now look down upon as of no worth and consequence. If this seemingly impossible prophecy about their complete destruction and the rise to power of the poor Muslims turned out to be true, the claim that there is a life after death and that they will be punished for their misdeeds and rejection of truth will also have to be accepted as true. Now history bears eloquent testimony to the fact that within a few years after the above prophecy was made, the powerful Empires of Persia and Rome fell into dust before the irresistible onrush of Islam and the half-starved camel-drivers of Arabia became the leaders and teachers of mankind.

36:34-37.

Commentary:

Of all Divine Books it is the Quran which declared this great scientific truth as far back as about 1400 years that all things have been created in pairs. The verse further implies that when in the physical world all things have been created in pairs, it stands to reason that in the spiritual world also things should be in pairs—a Moses or a Jesus should have his counterpart and the Mosaic Dispensation should also have its counterpart—the Islamic Dispensation.

10:68; 17:13; 28:74; 30:24.

10:35; 21:105; 27:65; 30:12, 28.

Commentary:

In this verse the attention of disbelievers is drawn to the divine law of creation and reproduction and they are told that God has designed and decreed that He would create through the Holy Prophet a new humanity and a new order on the ashes of the old one, and that if they persisted in their rejection of him they will be doomed and another people will take their place.

16:73.

Commentary:

This verse constitutes a standing testimony to Ka‘bah being God’s own Sacred House. Ever since the advent of Islam when it was Divinely declared to be humanity’s everlasting Qiblah and even in the days of Ignorance when the Arabs had no respect for human life, the territory called the Haram—the precincts of the Ka‘bah, remained a haven of safety. While there was no safety outside, complete security and peace reigned in it.

See 29:63.

10:25; 20:55; 25:50.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that the disbelieving Quraish have rejected the Divine Message on the plea that they "have never heard of the like of this in their forebears of yore" (28:37). But don’t they see, the verse seems to say to them, that before their very eyes there takes place in the physical world the phenomenon that when the earth becomes parched and scorched, God sends down rain from heaven and the dead earth begins to vibrate with new life. In the same way when the world suffers from spiritual and moral death, God sends down spiritual rain from heaven i.e. Divine revelation, to resuscitate it.

6:66; 17:69; 67:17-18.

Commentary:

The verse under comment continues the theme of the preceding verses and purports to say that there are evident signs in the heavens and the earth which constitute an unmistakable evidence of the fast approaching triumph of Islam and the downfall and disgrace of disbelievers. The words "We will make the earth sink with them" refer to the signs of the earth; and the words "or cause to fall upon them a portion of the heaven" allude to heavenly signs. Undoubtedly, the manner in which the forces of darkness and disbelief were put to rout in their combat against Islam showed that the victory of Islam was due solely to Divine help and succour which came to Muslims in the nick of time.

17:18; 19:99; 20:129; 50:37.

21:96; 23:100.

Commentary:

The expression انھم الیھم لایرجعون may mean; (a) those who are destroyed do not come back to those who mock the Prophets; (b) the past generations were destroyed because they did not turn to their Prophets, i.e. did not listen to them.

Commentary:

After mentioning the fact that the Holy Prophet has been raised to impart spiritual life to a dead people, the Surah proceeds to give in the present and next few verses the reasons for a new revelation. When God has provided, the verses purport to say, all necessary things to meet man’s physical needs and requirements, it does not stand to reason that He should have neglected to make similar provision for his moral and spiritual needs. These verses refer to some of the things which man needs and uses most in his daily life.

Commentary:

For a somewhat detailed account of ‘Ad and Thamud see 11:51 and 11:62.

17:100; 36:82; 86:9.

Important Words:

لم یعی (was not wearied). عی بأمرہ means, he lacked power, strength or ability for, or was unable to perform or execute, his affair thoroughly. أعیا means, he was or became disabled or incapacitated; he was or became fatigued, tired, wearied. اعیاء is weakness and fatigue which is the result of doing a thing (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The verse means to say that the process of the creation of new heavens and earth has not ceased. Neither is it an empty and unsubstantiated claim. With the coming of a great Divine Reformer the old order dies and a new one takes its place. This signifies the coming into being of a new heaven and a new earth.

46:25.

Commentary:

In the two previous verses disbelievers were warned that Divine punishment was about to overtake them. But such is their state of utter heedlessness and false sense of security (says the verse) that they do not benefit by the timely Divine warning, so that even if they see a piece of the sky actually falling upon them, they would deceive themselves by considering it as a piece of God’s mercy in the form of 'piled-up clouds.' The disbelievers go so far as to challenge the Prophet to "cause a portion of the sky to fall upon us if thou art truthful" (26:188).

21:2.

Important Words:

مستمر (continuous) is derived from استمر which means, he or it passed; went away; it (a thing) went on in one uniform course or manner; it continued in the same state; he or it became strong or firm like a rope tightly twisted. استمر بالشیء means, he became strong to bear the thing. مستمر means. (1) passing, fleeting, transient; (2) continuous: (3) strong, firm (Lane & Aqrab).

16:80.

Commentary:

The verse as the context shows, refers to Divine punishment that is in store for disbelievers. It purports to say that if they continue to oppose truth, they will be destroyed by famines, earthquakes and particularly by wars, and the birds of the skies will feast on their dead bodies. The Merciful God grants them respite that they might accept the Heavenly Message and save themselves from Divine punishment. See also 16:80.