-->
The "Fire" is the opposite to the "Garden". Instead of there being comfort, rest, and satisfaction in their environment, there will be pain, suffering and anguish. Instead of there being dignity there will be humiliation. And there will be no hope of its termination or abatement, not even a hope of annihilation.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Cf. xxiii 107. Not only will their surroundings be the opposite of those in Heaven: their internal state will be one of humiliation, of piteous and fruitless appeals, of vain regrets for a past that cannot be recalled, and vain sights for a future whose gates they have themselves barred. If they were sent back, they would relapse to their sins. Cf. vi. 28.
Cf. vii. 53. Their hankering after another chance, after having deliberately rejected all chances, will have no basis of reason in it.
They had a long enough respite for repentance and amendment. And moreover, besides all the other sources, in nature, history, and their own hearts, by which they could learn of the Right, they had the actual teaching and warning of a messenger whose words spoke direct to them. In the circumstances the Penalty is only the fruit of their own conduct.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Everything that exists is known to Allah: not only concrete things, but feelings, motives, plans, and acts of the will in the human breast.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
See note [22] on 2:30 . In this instance, God s having made man "inherit the earth" implies the grant to him of the ability to discern between right and wrong as well as between truth and falsehood.
Inheritors: khalaif. In two senses: (1) as Vicegerents on earth, and (2) as successors to previous people who forfeited their rights by wrong-doing. The honour and dignity of (1) and the examples of the past in (2) should have kept them straight and made them truly grateful. See also vi. 165 and n. 988.
Their rejection and ingratitude only causes injury to themselves. They lose all honour and incur odium in the sight of Allah, and they complete their own undoing.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Lit., "those [God-]partners of yours": see note [15] on 6:22 .
The people who enthrone in their hearts for worship anything besides Allah may well be asked a few questions. Some of such questions are indicated in the text with terse precision: (1) Have you seen these gods of yours? Do they exist? "Seeing" of course does not necessarily mean physical sight. We do not see the air, but no one doubts that it exists. And the air is a physical substance. There are forces that we know exist, but we do not see them. To us, who have Faith, Allah is a truer Reality than anything else that we know, including ourselves. Can the false worshippers say that of any of their false gods? (2) Have your gods created or originated anything on earth? You may worship power or wealth, but that is a scramble for things as between selfish men. Power or wealth does not create new men or new worlds. (3) Have they a share in the ordering of the heavens? Obviously your false gods fail there. (4) Or have these false gods a book or revelation from the Supreme God, with clear evidence, to give them authority to teach men? The Prophets or Messengers of Allah have such authority, and they bring evidence of the One True God. The fact is that falsehood is falsehood, however much one form of it may support another by delusions.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Lit., "the heavens" - in this case apparently a metonym for all the stars, galaxies, nebulae, etc., which traverse the cosmic spaces in obedience to a most intricate system of God-willed laws, of which the law of gravity, perhaps most obvious to man, is but one.
Lit., "after Him". This seems to be an allusion to the Last Hour, which, according to the Qur'an, will be heralded by a cosmic catastrophe.
I.e., inasmuch as He does not speed up the end of the world despite the sinfulness of most of its inhabitants, and neither punishes without giving the sinner time to reflect and to repent (cf. verse {45}).
The universe, as we know it, shows not only evidence of initial designs, but also the working of the Creator who constantly sustains it. That is Allah. If you could imagine that removed, what is there to keep it going? There would only be chaos.
Allah's world goes on according to the laws and decrees established by Him. There are occasional lapses and deviations on the part of His creatures. But He does not punish every petty fault. One of His merciful qualities is that of repeated forbearance and forgiveness.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Cf. 6:157 and the corresponding note [158].
Cf. vi. 157. In the first instance this referred to the Quraish. Their attitude to the People of the Book had been one of lofty superiority or of insincere excuses. They twitted the Jews and Christians with deviating from their own lights and their own revelations; and for themselves, they said they had received no direct revelation from Allah, or they would have shown themselves the most amenable to discipline, the most ready to follow Allah's Law. This was before the holy Prophet received his mission from Allah. When he received it and announced it, they turned away from it, They fled from it and put a greater and greater distance between it and themselves. But this is the way of all sinners. They find much to carp at in others, and much to excuse in themselves. But when all grounds for excuse are removed, they will be found, not nearer, but farther and farther away from truth and righteousness.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
I.e., fallacious arguments meant to disparage those messages and to "disprove" their divine origin (cf. 10:21 or 34:33 and the corresponding notes on the Qur'anic use of the term makr in this sense).
I.e., the way (sunnah) in which God has punished them.
Two causes are mentioned why the Truth is refused acceptance. (1) Unregenerate man is arrogant, and Truth and Righteousness expose all his pretences. (2) He hopes, by underhand plots, to undermine Truth and destroy it; but he is caught in his own snares, while Truth marches forward triumphant.
In all history, men who followed evil were dealt with in three stages by Allah: (1) He was forbearing and merciful, and gave them respite; (2) He sent them admonition through His Messengers, or His Signs, or His revelation; (3) He dealt out justice and punishment. At any given moment, those given to iniquity may well be asked: "Are you going to wait through all these stages or are you going at once to repent, obtain forgiveness, and walk in the ways of righteousness?"
Allah's Laws are fixed, and His ways of dealing with those who follow iniquity are the same in all ages. Our human will may falter or turn away from its course, but Allah's Will ever follows its course and cannot be turned away by any cause whatever.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Cf. xxx. 9. If no other argument will convince men who follow evil, let them travel through space or time, and learn from the experience of others. Evil always came to an evil end. Let not any one individual or generation think that it could escape by some special trick or power. Far wiser and more powerful men were personally brought to account for their iniquities.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.
Or: "known [to Him alone]" - i.e., the end of their lives on earth.
Cf. xvi. 61. There would be no salvation for any of us if we went merely on our deserts. It is Allah's mercy that saves us and helps us to a better and better life until we attain the goal of our existence.
A single living creature. This may refer to man, the living crawling creature, with so many possibilities and yet so many weaknesses. But it may mean all creatures literally, as the life of this planet more or less centres round the life of man. He has been given dominion on this earth, and in his state of purity he is Allah's vicegerent.
Has in His sight all creatures: i.e., to deal with, according to His laws of Forbearance, Mercy and Justice: see n. 3937 above. The respite does not mean that any one escapes Hiis vigilant eye. All will be dealt with according to their deeds, with justice tempered with Mercy.
No translation has been selected yet. Please click on the (Compare) link at the top and enable the translations of your choice.