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Both "darkness" and "light" are used here in their spiritual connotation. As always in the Qur'an, "darkness" is spoken of in the plural (zulumat) in order to stress its intensity, and is best translated as "deep darkness" or "depths of darkness".
“Light” is always used in the Quran in the singular (nûr), whereas “darkness” is used in the plural (ẓulumât). Nûr is usually used in a metaphorical sense to refer to true guidance, whereas ẓulumât refers to different forms of misguidance.
Adala has various meanings: (1) to hold something as equal to something else, as here; to balance nicely; (2) to deal justly, as between one party and another, xiii.15; (3) to give compensation or reparation, or something as equivalent to something else, vi. 70; (4) to turn the balance the right way, to give a right disposition, to give a just bias or proportion, lxxxii. 7; (5) to turn the balance the wrong way, to swerve, to show bias. iv 135.
The argument is threefold: (1) God created everything you see and know: how can you then set up any of His own creatures as equal to Him? (2) He is your own Guardian-Lord; He cherishes and loves you: how can you be so ungrateful as to run after something else? (3) Darkness and Light are to help you to distinguish between the true from the false: how then can you confound the true God with your false ideas and superstitions? There may also be a repudiation of the Duality of old Persian theology; Light and Darkness are not conflicting Powers; they are both creatures of the one true God.
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Lit., "and a term is stated with Him" - i.e., known to Him alone (Manar VII, 298). Some of the authorities are of the opinion that the "term" refers to the end of the world and the subsequent resurrection, while others relate it to individual human lives. Other commentators, again, see in the first mention of this word a reference to individual lives, and in the second, to the Day of Resurrection; according to this latter interpretation, the concluding phrase might be rendered thus: "and there is [another] term...", etc. However, in view of several other occurrences of the expression ajal musamma in the Qur'an, it is best rendered here as "a term set [by Him]" or "known [to Him]", i.e., relating both to individual lives and to the world as a whole.
i.e., created your father, Adam, from clay. Some scholars suggest that if we examine all the minerals found in the earth (potassium, nitrogen, and carbon), we find that these are the same minerals that make up our body. Furthermore when we die, our bodies are absorbed back into the ground. And when we are resurrected, we will be resurrected from the ground (see 20:55).
After the general argument, the argument comes to man personally. Can such a miserable creature, created from clay, put himself in opposition to his Creator? And can man forget or doubt that he is here only for a short term of probation? And then, after a period, comes the Day of Account before God.
This life is a period of probation. The other term leads up to Judgement.
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It is folly to suppose that God only reigns in the heavens. He also reigns on earth. He knows all our secret thoughts and motives, and the real worth of all that is behind what we care to show. It is by our deeds that He judges us; for our deeds, whether good or evi, we shall get due recompense in due time.
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Lit., "there has not come unto them a message of their Sustainer's messages without that they turned their backs upon it".
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Lit., "there will come to them information about that which they used to mock at" or "deride" - i.e., the continuation of life after death, in particular, and the Qur'anic message, in general.
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Lit., "a generation of others after them". However, in Qur'anic usage, the term qarn does not always denote "a generation", but - rather more frequently - "an epoch", or "people belonging to one particular epoch", as well as "a civilization" in the historical sense of this word.
Now comes the argument from history, looking backwards and forwards. If we are so short-sighted or arrogant as to suppose that we are firmly established on this earth, secure in our privileges,we are reminded of much greater nations in the past, who failed in their duty and were wiped out. In their fate we must read our own fate, if we fail likewise! But those without faith, instead of facing facts squarely "turn away therefrom." A) Qirtas, in the Apostle's life, could only mean "parchment," which was commonly used as writing material in Western Asia from the 2nd century B.C. The word was derived from the Greek, Charles (Cf. Latin, "Charta"). Paper, as we know it, made from rags, was first used by the Arabs after the conquest of Samarqand in 751 A.D. The Chinese had used it by the 2nd century B.C. The Arabs introduced it into Europe; it was used in Greece in the 11th and 12th century, and in Spain through Sicily in the 12th century. The Papyrus, made from an Egyptian reed, was in Egypt as early as 2500 B.C. It gave place to paper in Egypt in the 10th century.
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The materialists want to see actual physical material things before them, but if such a thing came from an unusual source or expressed things they cannot understand, they give it some name like magic, or superstition, or whatever name is in fashion, and they are not helped at all in attaining faith, because their "hearts are diseased" (ii. 10)
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I.e., Judgment Day would have come - for it is only then that the forces described as angels will manifest themselves to man in their true form and become comprehensible to him. (Cf. a similar passage in 2:210 .)
i.e., they would have been destroyed immediately upon denying the angel.
Cf. ii. 210. An angel is a heavenly being, a manifestation of God's glory, invisible to men who live gross material lives. Such men are given plenty of respite in which to turn in repentance to God and make theselves worthly of His light. But if their prayer to see an angel were grated, it would do them no good, for thy would be destroyed as darkness is destroyed by light.
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Lit., "if We had made him an angel" - with the pronoun obviously referring to the bearer of God's message (Zamakhshari).
Lit., "We would have made confusing to them that which they are making confused". Since it is impossible for man to perceive angels as they really are, the hypothetical angelic message-bearer would have to assume the shape of a human being - and so their demand for a direct "verification" of the message would have remained unfulfilled, and their self-caused confusion unresolved.
Supposing an angel should appear to their grosser senses, he could only do it in human form. In that case their present confused notions about spiritual life would be still more confounded. They would say: "We wanted to see an angel, and we have only seen a man!"
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Lit., "that which they were wont to deride enfolded those who scoffed at them" (i.e., at the apostles): the meaning being that a derisive rejection of spiritual truths inexorably rebounds on the scoffers and has not only a disastrous effect on their individual lives after death but also - if persisted in by the majority within a community - destroys the moral basis of their society and, thus, their earthly happiness and sometimes even their physical existence.
"The scoffers were mocked by the thing that they mocked" would express epigrammatically part of the sense, but not the whole. "Hemmed in" implies that the logic of events turned the tables, and as a man might be besieged and surrounded by an enemy in war, and would be forced to surrender, so these mockers will find that events would justify Truth, not them. The mockers of Jesus, - where were they when Titus detroyed Jerusalem? The mockers who drove out Muhammad from Mecca, - what was their plight when Muhammad came back in triumph and they sued for mercy, - and he gave it to them! According to the Latin proverb, Great is Truth, and must prevail.
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The expression "God has willed upon Himself as a law" (kataba 'ala nafsihi) occurs in the Qur'an only twice - here and in verse {54} of this surah - and in both instances with reference to His grace and mercy (rahmah); none of the other divine attributes has been similarly described. This exceptional quality of God's grace and mercy is further stressed in 7:156 - "My grace overspreads everything" - and finds an echo in the authentic Tradition in which, according to the Prophet, God says of Himself, "Verily, My grace and mercy outstrips My wrath" (Bukhari and Muslim).
History, travel, human eperience, all prove the Mercy of God and the law that without it those who reject Truth tend to lose their own souls and destroy themselves.
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Sakan=(1) to dwell; (2) to rest, to be still, to stop (moving), to lurk; (3) to be quiescent, as a letter which is not moved with a vowel. If we imagine Night and Day to be places, and each to have (dwelling in them) things that are open and things that are concealed, things that move and things that are still, things that are sounded and things that are quiescent, we get some ida of the imagery implied. The mystery of Time (which seems more abstract than Space) is thus explained and illustrated by the idea of Place or Space, which also is a notion and not a concrete thing. But He Who has control of all these things is the one true God.
Throughout this section we have a sort of implied dialogue, of which one part is understood from the other part, which is expressed. In verse 11, we might have an imagery objector saying: "Why go back to the past?" The answer is: "Well, travel through the world, and see whether it is not true that virtue and godliness exalt a nation, and the opposite are causes of ruin. Both the past and the present prove this." In verse 12 the objector may say: "But you speak of God's power?" The man of God replies: "Yes, but Mercy is God's own attribute, and knowledge and wisdom beyond what man can conceive."
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Lit., "when it is He who feeds [others] and is not fed".
Lit., "and be thou not" - an elliptic reference to the words in which this commandment has been expressed.
Feedeth but is not fed: true both literally and figuratively. To God we owe the satisfaction of all needs, but He is independent of all needs.
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