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lit., messengers, because denying Noah was equal to denying all of Allah’s messengers.
The stories of Noah, of the prophets of 'Ad and Thamud (and of other prophets), in the reactions of their communities to their teaching are told in xxvi. 105-159, below. Here they are just mentioned to illustrate how little respect past ages had for their prophets and teachers of Truth. But Allah's Truth did not suffer: it was the blind rejecters of spiritual Truth who were wiped out.
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Regarding the tribes of 'Ad and Thamud, see surah {7}, notes [48] and [56]. As for Ar-Rass, a town of that name exists to this day in the Central-Arabian province of Al-Qasim; in the ancient times referred to it seems to have been inhabited by descendants of the Nabataean tribe of Thamud (Tabari). There is, however, no agreement among the commentators as to the real meaning of this name or designation; Razi cites several of the current, conflicting interpretations and rejects all of them as purely conjectural.
Ar-Rass means “well” or “water-pit”. This refers to a pagan people, along with Midian, to whom Allah sent Prophet Shu’aib.
Commentators are not clear as to who the "Companions of the Rass" were. The root meaning of "rass" is an old well or shallow water-pit. Another root connects it with the burial of the dead. But it is probably the name of a town or place. The "Companions of the Rass" may well have been the people of Shu'aib, as they are here mentioned with the 'Ad, the Thamud, and Lot's people, and the people of Shu'aib are mentioned in a similar connection in xxvi. 176-190 and in xi. 84-95. Shu'aib was the prophet of the Madyan people in the north-west of Arabia, where many old wells are found. There is however an oasis town al-Rass in the district of Qasim in Middle Najd, about thirty-five miles south-west of the town of 'Unaiza, reputed to be the central point of the Arabian Peninsula, and situated midway between Makkah and Basra. See Doughty's Arabia Deserts, thin-paper one-volume edition, London 1926, 11, 435 and Map, Lat. 26*N., and Long. 43*E.
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Sc., "which they failed to heed". For my rendering of mathal, in this context, as "lesson", see note [104] on 17:89 .
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A reference to Sodom and its destruction by a rain of "stone-hard blows of chastisement pre-ordained" (see 11:82 and the corresponding note [114]). The phrase "they have come across" may be understood in either of two ways: (a) in its literal sense of "chancing upon" or "passing by", in which case it applies to the Prophet's contemporaries and opponents, the pagan Meccans, whose customary caravan route to Syria passed close by the Dead Sea and the probable site of Sodom and Gomorrah; or (b) in the tropical sense of "becoming aware [of something]" through reading or hearsay - in which case it may be taken to refer to people of all times, and to the fact that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is part and parcel of mankind's moral heritage.
Lit., "they were wont not to look forward to [i.e., to expect or believe in] resurrection".
This refers to Lut's story and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the wicked cities of the plain near the Dead Sea, by a shower of brimstone. The site lies on the highway between Arabia and Syria. Cf. xv. 74, 76, and n. 1998.
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"Path" (Sabil) is almost equivalent here to conduct, way of life.
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The man who worships his own passions or impulses or desires is the most hopeless to teach or lead or guide. If it were anything else the matter with him, the Prophet could argue with him. But Reason cannot prevail over blind passion. It is vain to hope that such a man could be led, until his mad desires are killed. No one could undertake any responsibility for him, for he obeys no law and follows no advice. He is worse than brute beasts, which may not understand, but at least follow the wholesome instincts implanted in them by Allah. The lawless man has killed his instincts and is unwilling to submit to guidance.
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Lit., "they are farther astray from the path [of truth]": see note [144] on 7:179 .
They neither pay attention, nor think for themselves. They only follow others blindly.
Generally, animals are obedient and loyal to their masters who care for them and they seem to know their way, whereas Meccan pagans are disobedient and ungrateful to their Lord and Sustainer, choosing to stray from the right path.
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We saw in xxiv. 35 that Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. We have now another sublime passage, in which we are asked to contemplate the Glory of Allah by a parable of the subtle play of Light and Shade in Allah's creation.
In our artificial life and surroundings we fail to see some of the finest mysteries of Light and Shade. We praise, and rightly, the wonderful colors of sunset. We see, particularly in climates more northerly than that of India, the subtle play of Light and Shade in the twilights succeeding sunsets. If we were as assiduous in seeing sunrises and the play of Light and Shade preceding them, we should see phenomena even more impressive, as the early moming seems to us more holy than any other time in the twenty-four hours of the sun's daily journey. There is first the false dawn, with its curious uncertain light and the curious long uncertain shadows which it casts. Then there are the streaks of black in the East, succeeded by the true dawn, with its delicate tones of colours and light and shade. The light of this true or false Dawn is not given by the direct rays of the sun. In a sense it is not light, but the shadows or reflections of light. And they gradually merge into actual sunrise, with its more substantial or more defined shadows, which we can definitely connect with the sun.
The morning shadows are long but more definite, and their length and direction are seen to be guided by the sun. But they change insensibly every second or fraction of a second.
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I.e., "We cause it to contract in accordance with the 'laws of nature' which We Ourselves have instituted." As in so many other instances in the Qur'an, the abrupt change from the third-person pronoun "He" to "We" is meant to illustrate the fact that God is undefinable, and that it is only the inadequacy of human speech - and, hence, of the human mind - that makes it necessary to refer to the Supreme Being by pronouns which in relaity are applicable only to finite, created "persons" (cf. Foreword, note [2]).
This means that one of the great miracles of Allah is that He allows the sun to rise in the morning, causing darkness to retreat. He could have stopped the sun and the earth from rotating, so half of the world would be engulfed in complete darkness, leading to an imbalance in the earth’s eco-systems and endangering life on the planet.
As the sun rises higher and higher, the shadows contract. In regions where the sun gets actually to the zenith at noon, there is no shadow left at that time. Where does it go to? It was but a shadow cast by a substance and it gets absorbed by the substance which produced it.
The shadows are constantly in a state of flux; so are all things in Creation, all things we see or covet in this life. Allah, if He wills, can give some of them greater fixity or comparative stability.
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It is still the contrast between Light and Shade; but the shade of Night is as a Robe to cover and screen us and give us Repose from activity; and the Light of Day is for striving, work, activity. Or again, the Night is like Death, our temporary Death before Judgment, the time during which our senses are as sealed in Sleep; and the Day is like the renewal of Life at the Resurrection.
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Cf. vii. 57. The Winds are heralds of Joy, ushering in Rain, which is one form of Allah's Mercy. Again, the symbolism presents a fresh point of view. Heat (which is connected with light) sets up currents in the atmosphere, besides sucking up moisture from the seas, and distributing it by means of Winds over wide surfaces of the earth. In the physical world we know the beneficent action of heat on life, and by contrast, we also know how intolerable high temperatures may become, and how the cloud-bearing Winds come as welcome heralds of rain.
Rain water (in pure air) is not only pure water distilled in air and sky, but it is the best purifying and sanitating agent on the largest scale known to US.
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The whole cycle of water,-sea, clouds, rain or hail or snow, rivers, and sea again,-is a remarkable illustration of the processes of nature making Allah's providence visible to us. The salts of the sea sanitate and purify all the filth that pours into it. Water action, in the form of rain, frost, glaciers, rivers, lakes, etc., is responsible for the building up and configuration of the crust of the earth, and is the chief agent in physical geography. A parched desert quickly comes to life under the action of water. All drinking water, whether derived from rivers, canals, lakes, reservoirs, springs, wells, or water-works of any kind, are ultimately traceable to rain. The connection of life with water is intimate. The physical basis of life itself, protoplasm, is in great part water; see xxv. 54 below.
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Lit., "have We turned it over (sarrafnahu) among them": a reference to the frequent many-faceted reiteration, in the Qur'an as well as in earlier revelations, of all the evidence unmistakably pointing to the existence of a conscious Creator (Zamakhshari).
The water is distributed all over the world, in order that all life may receive its support according to its needs. In xxv. 48-50, we have the argument of contrasts stated in another way. Water is life, and is made available to sustain life all over the world; this is a physical fact which all can see. But water is also the symbol of spiritual life, whose sustaining principle is the Will of Allah as made known to us through Revelation. It sometimes comes to us in our inward or spiritual storms. Many violent unsettlements of the spirit are but heralds of the refreshing showers of spiritual understanding that come in their wake. They purify our souls, and produce spiritual Life even where there was a parched spiritual desert before. They continue to sustain us in our normal spiritual Life out of the reservoirs of Allah's Revelation, which are open to all, and well distributed in time and space. The universality of distribution is again referred to in the following verse.
In contrast to Allah's abounding Mercy is man's base ingratitude.
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Sc., "but We have willed instead that Muhammad be Our last prophet and, hence, a warner unto all people for all times to come".
Allah's Message has been distributed to all nations. If it had been necessary, a Prophet could have been sent to every town and village. But Allah's Plan is different. He has sent His Light to every heart, through His Signs in man's conscience, in Nature, and in Revelation.
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The distribution of Allah's Signs being universal, the Prophet of Allah pays no heed to carping critics who reject Faith. He wages the biggest Jihad of all, with the weapon of Allah's Revelation.
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The noun bahr, usually signifying "sea", is also applied to large agglomerations of sweet water, like rivers, lakes, etc.; in the above context, the dual al-bahrayn denotes "the two great bodies [or "kinds"] of water" - the salty and the sweet - existing side by side on earth.
I.e., has caused them - as if by an invisible barrier - to remain distinct in kind despite their continuous meeting and mingling in the oceans: an indirect reminder of God's planning creativeness inherent in the cyclic transformation of water - its evaporation from the salty seas, followed by a formation of clouds, their condensation into rain and snow which feed springs and rivers, and its return to the seas. Some Muslim mystics see in this stress on the two kinds of water an allegory of the gulf - and, at the same time, interaction - between man's spiritual perceptions, on the one hand, and his worldly needs and passions, on the other.
This refers to estuaries where salt and fresh waters meet forming brackish water. Although both waters mix together, each still keeps its distinctive qualities.
Maraja: literally, let free or let loose cattle for grazing. Bahrain: two seas, or two bodies of flowing water; for bahr is applied both to the salt sea and to rivers. In the world taken as a whole, there are two bodies of water, viz.,: (1) the great salt Ocean, and (2) the bodies of sweet water fed by rain, whether they are rivers, lakes or underground springs: their source in rain makes them one, and their drainage, whether above-ground or underground, eventually to the Ocean, also makes them one. They are free to mingle, and in a sense they do mingle, for there is a regular water-cycle: see n. 3106 above: and the rivers flow constantly to the sea, and tidal rivers get sea-water for several miles up their estuaries at high tide. Yet in spite of all this, the laws of gravitation are like a barrier or partition set by Allah, by which the two bodies of water as a whole are always kept apart and distinct. In the case of rivers carrying large quantities of water to the sea, like the Mississippi or the Yangtse-Kiang, the river-water with its silt remains distinct from sea-water for a long distance out at sea. But the wonderful Sign is that the two bodies of water, though they pass through each other, remain distinct bodies, with their distinct functions.
In Allah's overall scheme of things, bodies of salt and sweet water, which are adjoining and yet separate, have significant functions. Weaving a harmonious fabric out of these different fibres shows both Allah's power and wisdom. Incidentally, this verse points to a fact which has only recently been discovered by science. This fact relates to the oceans of the world: they meet and yet each remains separate for Allah has placed "a barrier, a partition" between them.
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See second half of 21:30 where the creation of "every living thing out of water" is spoken of, as well as 24:45 , which mentions in this connection the entire animal world (including, of course, man).
I.e., has enabled him to attribute spiritual value to, and to derive strength from, his organic and social relationships.
The mixture of sperm and egg.
The basis of all living matter in the physical world, protoplasm, is water: Cf. xxiv. 45 and xxi. 30, and notes thereon.
Water is a fluid, unstable thing: yet from it arises the highest form of life known to us, in this world, man. And man has not only the functions and characteristics of the noblest animals, but his abstract relationships are also typical of his highest nature. He can trace lineage and pedigree, and thus remember and commemorate a long line of ancestors, to whom he is bound by ties of piety, which no mere animals can do. Further, there is the union in marriage: it is not only like the physical union of animals, but it gives rise to relationships arising out of the sexes of individuals who were not otherwise related to each other. These are physical and social facts.
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Lit., "they".
Here is the highest contrast of all-material things which are inert, and Allah, Whose goodness and power are supreme; Faith and Unfaith, meriting glad tidings and admonition; the selfish man who is self-centred, and the man of God, who works for others without reward.
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