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For my rendering of illa, in this context, as "and neither", see note [38] on 4:29 .
I.e., by sincere repentance. Apart from its general significance, this may also be an allusion to the crime which Moses had committed in his youth bv slaying the Egyptian (see {28 :15-17}).
His slaying the Egyptian (n. 3146 to xxvi. 14), however defensible from certain aspects, was yet something from his past that had to be washed off, and Allah, Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful, did it out of His abounding Grace. Nay, more; he was given a pure, Radiant Hand, as a Sign from Allah, as stated in the next verse.
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See note [85] on 7:108 .
Cf. 17:101 -"We gave unto Moses nine clear messages" - and the corresponding note [119].
See footnote for 20:22.
See footnote for 23:45.
Cf. xx. 22. There the expression is: "Draw thy hand close to thy side." As far as the physical act is concerned, the expressions there and here mean the same thing. Moses had a loose-fitting robe. If he put his hand within the folds of the robe, it would go to his bosom on the side of his body opposite to that from which his hand came; i.e., if it was his right hand it would go to the left side of his bosom. The hand comes out white and radiant, without a stain. Ordinarily if the skin becomes white it is a sign of disease or leprosy. Here it was the opposite. It was a sign of radiance and glory from the higher Light.
The nine Signs: see n. 1091 to vii. 133.
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See note [99] on 10:76 . The people referred to as "they" are Pharaoh and his nobles.
The Signs should have clearly opened the eyes of any persons who honestly examined them and thought about them. Those who rejected them were perverse and were going against their own light and inner conviction. That was the aggravating feature of their sin.
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I.e., spiritual insight.
The privilege was their ability to communicate with members of the animal kingdom, control the wind, utilize the jinn for their service, etc.
Cf. xxi. 78-82. "Knowledge" means such knowledge as leads up to the higher things in life, the Wisdom that was shown in their decisions and judgments, and the understanding that enabled them to fulfil their mission in life. They were both just men and prophets of Allah. The Bible, as we have it, is inconsistent: on the one hand it calls David "a man after God's own heart" (I Samuel, xiii. 14, and Acts xiii. 22); and the Christians acclaim Christ as a son of David; but on the other hand, horrible crimes are ascribed to him, which, if he had committed them, would make him a monster of cruelty and injustice. About Solomon, too, while he is described as a glorious king, there are stories of his lapses into sin and idolatry. The Muslim teaching considers them both to be men of piety and wisdom, and high in spiritual knowledge.
They ascribed, as was proper, their knowledge, wisdom, and power to the only true Source of all good, Allah.
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The point is that Solomon not only inherited his father's kingdom but his spiritual insight and the prophetic office, which do not necessarily go from father to son.
Speech of Birds. The spoken word in human speech is different from the means of communication which birds and animals have between each other. But no man can doubt that they have means of communication with each other, if he only observes the orderly flight of migratory birds or the regulated behaviour of ants, bees, and other creatures who live in communities. The wisdom of Solomon consisted in understanding these things-in the animal world and in the lower fringes of human intelligence.
"Everything": Solomon was a king of power and authority; outside his kingdom he had influence among many neighbouring peoples; he had knowledge of birds, and beasts and plants; he was just and wise, and understood men; and above all, he had spiritual insight, which brought him near to Allah. Thus he had something of all kinds of desirable gifts. And with true gratitude he referred them to Allah, the Giver of all gifts.
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Apart from 114:6 , which contains the earliest Qur'anic reference to the concept of jinn, the above is apparently the oldest instance where this concept occurs in the personalized form of "invisible beings". (For a fuller discussion, see Appendix III.)
Besides the literal meaning, there are two symbolical meanings. (1) All his subjects of varying grades of intelligence, taste, and civilization, were kept in due order and cooperation, by his discipline, justice, and good government. (2) The gifts of various kinds, which he possessed (see last note), he used in proper order and coordination, as if they were a well disciplined army, thus getting the best possible results from them.
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This verse and the next, read together, suggest the symbolical meaning as predominant. The ant, to outward appearance, is a very small and humble creature. In the great pomp and circumstances of the world, she (generic feminine in Arabic) may be neglected or even trampled on by a people who mean her no harm. Yet, by her wisdom, she carries on her own life within her own sphere ("habitations") unmolested, and makes a useful contribution to the economy of the world. So there is room for the humblest people in the spiritual world.
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In this instance, Solomon evidently refers to his own understanding and admiration of nature (cf. {38:31-33} and the corresponding notes) as well as to his loving compassion for the humblest of God's creatures, as a great divine blessing: and this is the Qur'anic moral of the legendary story of the ant.
The counterpart to the position of the humble ant is the position of a great king like Solomon. He prays that his power and wisdom and all other gifts may be used for righteousness and for the benefit of all around him. The ant being in his thoughts, we may suppose that he means particularly in his prayer that he may not even unwittingly tread on humble beings in his preoccupations with the great things of the world.
The righteousness which pleases the world is often very different from the righteousness which pleases Allah. Solomon prays that he may always take Allah's Will as his standard, rather than the standards of men.
In the Kingdom of Allah, righteousness is the badge of citizenship. And although there are great and noble grades (see n. 586 to iv. 69), the base of that citizenship is the universal brotherhood of righteousness. The greatest in that Kingdom are glad and proud to pray for that essential badge.
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Solomon was no idle or easy-going king. He kept all his organisation strictly up to the mark, both his armies literally and his forces (metaphorically). His most mobile arm was the Birds, who were light on the wing and flew and saw everything like efficient scouts. One day he missed the Hoopoe in his muster. The Hoopoe is a light, graceful creature, with elegant plumage of many colours, and a beautiful yellow crest on his head, which entities him to be called a royal bird.
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Lit., "a clear evidence". The threat of "killing" the hoopoe is, of course, purely idiomatic, and not to be taken literally.
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Thus, we are parabolically reminded that even the most lowly being can - and on occasion does - have knowledge of things of which even a Solomon in all his wisdom may be ignorant (Razi) - a reminder which ought to counteract the ever-present danger (fitnah) of self-conceit to which learned men, more than anyone else, are exposed (Zamakhshari). - As regards the kingdom of Sheba, see note [23] on 34:15 .
Saba may reasonably be identified with the Biblical Sheba (I Kings x. 1-10). It is further referred to in the Sura called after its name: xxxiv. 15-20. It was a city in Yemen, said to have been three days' journey (say 50 miles) from the city of San'a. A recent German explorer, Dr. Hans Helfritz, claims to have located it in what is now Hadhramaut territory. The famous dam of Maarib made the country very prosperous, and enabled it to attain a high degree of civilization ("provided with every requisite" in the next verse). The Queen of Sheba therefore rightly held up her head high until she beheld the glories of Solomon.
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The Queen of Sheba is known in Islamic tradition as Bilkis.
The Queen of Sheba (by name Bilqis in Arabian tradition) came apparently from Yemen, but she had affinities with Abyssinia and possibly ruled over Abyssinia also. The Habasha tribe (after whom Abyssinia was named) came from Yemen. Between the southern coast of Yemen and the north-eastern coast of Abyssinia there are only the Straits of Bab-al-Mandab, barely twenty miles across. In the 10th or llth century B.C. there were frequent invasions of Abyssinia from Arabia, and Solomon's reign of 40 years is usually synchronised with B.C. 992 to 952. The Sabaean and Himyarite alphabets in which we find the south Arabian pre-Islamic inscriptions, passed into Ethiopic, the language of Abyssinia. The Abyssinians possess a traditional history called "The Book of the Glory of Kings" (Kebra Nagast), which has been translated from Ethiopic into English by Sir E.A. Wallis Budge (Oxford, 1932). It gives an account of the Queen of Sheba and her only son Menyelek I, as founders of the Abyssinian dynasty.
Provided with every requisite: I take this to refer not only to the abundance of spices and gems and gold in her country, but to sciences and arts, as well.
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The ancient religion of the people of Saba (the Himyar or Sabaeans) consisted in the worship of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the planets, and the stars. Possibly the cult was connected with that of Chaldaea, the home-land of Abraham: see vi. 75-79 and notes thereon. Yemen had easy access to Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf by way of the sea, as well as with Abyssinia. That accounts for the Christians of Najran and the Jewish dynasty of kings (e.g. Zu-Nuwas, d. 525 A.D.) who persecuted them in the century before Islam,-also for the Christian Abyssinian Governor Abraha and his discomfiture in the year of the Prophet's birth (S.cv.), say 570 A.D. Jewish-Christian influences were powerful in Arabia in the sixth century of the Christian era. The religion of these Sabaeans (written in Arabic with a Sin) should not be confounded with that of the Sabians (with a Sad), as to whom see n. 76 to ii. 62.
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I.e., their own immoral impulses (which is the meaning of ash-shaytan in this context) had persuaded them that they should not submit to the idea of man's responsibility to a Supreme Being who, by definition, is "beyond the reach of human perception", but should worship certain perceivable natural phenomena instead.
An allusion to the appearance and disappearance of the sun and other celestial bodies which the Sabaeans - in common with almost all the Semites of antiquity - used to worship. (Cf. the story of Abraham's search for God in 6:74 ff.)
The false worship of the Sabaeans is here exposed in three ways: (1) that they were self-satisfied with their own human achievements, instead of looking up to Allah; and (2) that the light of the heavenly bodies which they worshipped was only dependent on the true Light of Allah, which extends over heaven and earth; the Creator should be worshipped rather than His Creation; and (3) Allah knows the hidden secrets of men's minds as well as the objects which they openly profess: are false worshippers really only worshipping their own selves, or the "sins they have a mind to" and are therefore afraid to go to Allah, Who knows all?
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