Surah 78. An-Naba

What are they asking one another about?

  - Mustafa Khattab

Concerning what are they disputing?

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

About the momentous news,

  - Mustafa Khattab

Concerning the Great News ⁵⁸⁸⁹

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Great News: usually understood to mean the News or Message of the Resurrection or the Hereafter, about which there are various schools of thought among the Jews and Christians and other nations. There is practically nothing about the Resurrection in the Old Testament, and the Jewish sect of Sadducees even in the time of Christ denied the Resurrection altogether. The Pagan ideas of a future life-if any-varied from place to place and from time to time. Even in the early Christian Church, as we learn from Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, there were contentions in that little community (1, Corinthians, i. 11), and some definitely denied the resurrection of the dead (ib., xv. 12). Great News may also be translated Great Message or a Message Supreme as I have translated at xxxviii. 67. In that case it would refer to the Qur-an, or the Message of Revelation, or the Message of the Holy Prophet, about which there was great contention in those days. As this Message also lays great stress on the Day of Judgment and the Resurrection, the practical result by either mode of interpretation amounts to the same.

over which they disagree.¹

  - Mustafa Khattab

 The pagans used to mock the teachings of the Quran (e.g., resurrection and judgment). They disagreed whether the Quran was magic, poetry, or fortune-telling.

About which they cannot agree.

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

But no! They will come to know.

  - Mustafa Khattab

Verily they shall soon (come to) know!

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Again, no! They will come to know.

  - Mustafa Khattab

Verily verily they shall soon (come to) know!

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Have We not smoothed out the earth 'like a bed',

  - Mustafa Khattab

Have We not made the earth as a wide expanse ⁵⁸⁹⁰

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

See n. 2038 to xvi. 15. Cf. also xiii. 3 and xv. 19. The spacious expanse of the earth may be compared to a carpet, to which the mountains act as pegs. The Signs of Allah are thus enumerated: the great panorama of outer nature (verses 6-7); the creation of Man in pairs, with the succession of rest and work fitting in with the succession of night and day (verses 8-11); the firmaments above, with their splendid lights (verses 12-13); and the clouds and rain and abundant harvests, which knit sky and earth and man together (verses 14-16). These point to Allah, and Allah's Message points to the Future Life.

and 'made' the mountains as 'its' pegs,¹

  - Mustafa Khattab

 Just like tent pegs and icebergs, mountains go deep below the surface, slowing tectonic movement.

And the mountains as pegs?

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

and created you in pairs,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And (have We not) created you in pairs

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

and made your sleep for rest,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And made your sleep for rest

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

and made the night as a cover,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And made the night as a covering ⁵⁸⁹¹

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

The darkness of the night is as a covering. Just as a covering protects us from exposure to cold or heat, so this covering gives us spiritual respite from the buffets of the material world, and from the tiring activities of our own inner exertions. The rest in sleep (in verse 9) is supplemented by the covering of the night with which we are provided by Allah.

and made the day for livelihood,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And made the day as means of subsistence? ⁵⁸⁹²

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

"Subsistence" in English only partly covers the idea of ma'ash, which includes every kind of life activity. The Day is specially illuminated, so runs the figure of speech, in order that these life-activities of all kinds may be fully exercised.

and built above you seven mighty 'heavens',

  - Mustafa Khattab

And (have We not) built over you the seven firmaments ⁵⁸⁹³

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

See n. 5526 to lxv. 12 and n. 2876 to xxiii. 17, also xxxvii. 6 and notes there.

and placed 'in them' a shining lamp,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And placed (therein) a Light of Splendor? ⁵⁸⁹⁴

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

That is, the sun. Cf. xxv. 61; xxxiii. 46 (where it is used metaphorically for the holy Prophet); and lxxi. 16.

and sent down from rainclouds pouring water,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And do We not send down from the clouds water in abundance ⁵⁸⁹⁵

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Note how the evidences of Allah and His beneficence arc set out in four groups. (1) Look to external nature on the earth around you (verses 6-7); (2) your own nature, physical, mental and spiritual (verses 8-11); (3) the starry heavens, and the glory of the sun (verses 12-13); and (4) the interdependence of earth, air, and sky in the cycle of water, clouds, rain, corn and gardens, all serving in their several ways to further the whole plan of the World as it affects us. Can you not then believe that a Creator who does this will sort out Good and Evil on an appointed Day with real justice and power?

producing by it grain and 'various' plants,

  - Mustafa Khattab

That We may produce therewith corn and vegetables

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali