AND UNTO [the people of] Madyan [We sent] their brother Shu'ayb.
116 He said: "O my people! Worship God [alone]: you have no deity other than Him; and do not give short measure and weight [in any of your dealings with men].
117 Behold, I see you [now] in a happy state; but, verily, I dread lest suffering befall you on a Day that will encompass [you with doom]!
Asad Translation Note Number :
See surah {7}, note [67].
Thus, belief in the One God and justice in all dealings
between man and man (see surah {6}, note [150]) are here
placed together as the twin postulates of all
righteousness. Some commentators assume that the people
of Madyan were of a particularly commercial bent of mind,
and given to fraudulent dealings. It is obvious, however,
that the purport of this passage and of its sequence goes
far beyond anything that might be construed by a purely
"historical" interpretation. What this version of
Shu'ayb's story aims at is - as always in the Qur'an -
the enunciation of a generally applicable principle of
ethics: namely, the impossibility of one's being
righteous with regard to God unless one is righteous - in
both the moral and social senses of this word - in the
realm of human relationships as well. This explains the
insistence with which the above prohibition is re-stated
in a positive form, as an injunction, in the next verse.
