Search Results for "تَقَدَّمَ"

See 2:4.

73:21.

Commentary:

When one is subjected to continued persecution, one is apt to lose patience. But Muslims were enjoined to meekly endure troubles and torments, and in order to be able to do so, they were ordered to resort to الصلوة (prayers to God) on the one hand, and to الزکوة (helping mankind) on the other. By so doing, they would acquire from God the power to endure.

The words, whatever good you send on before you for yourselves, you shall find it with Allah, contain a deep spiritual truth. Whatever good man does is kept in store for him by Allah and nothing is lost. Every good work is like a seed which may lie hidden from the public view but is all the time a large tree in the making. So the Muslims should not think that their Prayers and their Zakah will be lost. They are sure to bring forth good fruit sooner or later.

10:50; 15:6; 16:62; 35:46.

Important Words:

یستقدمون (get ahead) is derived from قدم i.e. he preceded; or he came before; or he headed (someone else). استقدم القوم means, he preceded the people, or he went ahead of the people, or he went before them (Lane & Aqrab). As one who gets ahead of a thing virtually leaves it behind, therefore, the idea in یستقدمون (get ahead) is that of escaping.

یستأخرون (remain behind) is derived from اخر. They say استأخرالقوم i.e. he remained behind the people. استأخر also means, he or it was put behind or put off or delayed (Lane & Aqrab). As one who remains behind a thing virtually puts the thing off, therefore, the idea in یستأخرون (remain behind) is that of putting off.

Commentary:

The verse means that when the time fixed for the punishment of a people comes, it cannot be averted. Disbelievers, who have incurred it, can neither escape it nor put it off by a single moment.

7:189.

7:35; 16:62; 35:46.

Commentary:

This verse embodies a reply to the disbelievers’ demand for punishment (mentioned in the preceding verse). The Holy Prophet is bidden to ask them how he could fulfil their demand for punishment when personally he possessed no power either to do good to, or avert evil from, himself. How clearly this and similar other verses show that the real object of the Quran is to uphold the Unity of God! The Quran cannot bear any human being, even the greatest of all the Prophets, to be regarded as equal to God.

The word امة (people) in this verse means those who disbelieve and not people generally as referred to in v. 48. The verse means to say that there comes a time when disbelievers meet their inevitable end and their place is taken by another people who follow the Divine Messenger. In other words, the Holy Prophet is made to say to disbelievers that, though it is not in his power to bring punishment on them, yet, as it is the immutable law of God that when a people take to evil ways they decline and fall, they will not be allowed to go unpunished and on their ashes a new people shall arise and a new era of truth shall dawn.

Commentary:

This verse answers the question why the preservation and protection of the Quran cannot be entrusted to believers. The answer is that faith is a matter which pertains to the heart, and the condition of the human heart is known to God alone. The preservation of the Quran does not depend only upon intellectual equipment but upon the purity of the heart also. But it is known to God alone which man is pure of heart, and which is not. God has, therefore, reserved the work of preservation of the Quran for Himself so that He may entrust it to one whom He knows to be so spiritually advanced as to be fit for the duty.

10:12; 18:59; 35:46.

7:35; 10:50.

Commentary:

This verse furnishes an answer to a possible doubt arising from the preceding verse. The doubter would say, if Divine revelation is the only source of guidance, and teachings devised by man all lead to error, why then do disbelievers, in spite of their rejection of Divine guidance, not always come to grief in this life? On the contrary, many of them are seen to prosper, which fact shows that they are not altogether in the wrong. One answer implied in the verse is that if thieves, robbers and murderers do not always meet with immediate punishment and sometimes get respite, how can respite granted to rejecters of the Quran be adduced as a proof that it is not the revealed word of God? Another reason embodied in this verse as to why punishment is not always meted out to the guilty is that if all sins had been at once punished by God, the world would have come to an end and all life on earth would have become extinct. Man would have perished as a result of his sins and there would have been no purpose in the beasts, animals, birds etc., remaining alive after his destruction. Being created for man’s use and benefit they would have perished with him. So God’s wise plan in granting respite to evildoers and deferring their punishment provides yet another proof of the life after death when man’s actions will meet with full and even-handed justice.

7:35; 10:50.

Commentary:

If v. 27 above is taken as referring to the Battle of Badr, the word یوم (day) in the present verse would signify 'a year'. The Battle of Badr wasfought in about a year after the Hijrah.

Important Words:

لیغفر (that He may cover up). They say غفر المتاع i.e. he put the goods into the bag and covered and protected them. غفرانand مغفرة both infinitive nouns mean, protection and preservation. مغفر means, helmet and غفارة means, cloth worn beneath the veil to keep it clean (Lane, Mufradat & Aqrab). See also 2:59; 14:42 & 40:56.

ذنبک (thy shortcomings).ذنبه means, he followed his trail, not quitting his track. ذنب therefore, signifies such natural failings or frailties as adhere to human nature. أذنب means, he committed a sin, a crime, a misdemeanour, fault, etc. According to Imam Raghib ذنب means, such errors and mistakes as bring about a harmful result. It differs from اثم in being either intentional or committed through inadvertence while اثم is peculiarly intentional (Lane). See also 3:17.

Commentary:

The verse has been deliberately misrepresented, or, through lack of knowledge of Arabic idiom and phrase, misinterpreted, by Christian missionaries as signifying that the Holy Prophet was guilty of some moral lapses. But it bears no such construction. It is an article of faith with Muslims, as enjoined by the Quran that God’s Prophets are born sinless and they remain sinless throughout their lives. They are incapable of saying or doing anything contrary to Divine commandments (21:28). As they are commissioned by God to purge men of sins, they cannot themselves commit sins. And of Divine Messengers the Holy Prophet was the noblest and the purest. The Quran abounds in verses which speak in glowing terms of the purity and spotlessness of his life. Here are a few of them:

(a) Say, if you love Allah, follow me; then will Allah love you (3:32). (b) Verily, Allah has conferred a favour on the believers by raising among them a Messenger from among themselves, who recites to them His signs, and purifies them and teaches them the Book and wisdom (3:165). (c) Say, my Prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are all for Allah, the Lord of all the worlds (6:163). (d) Those who follow the Messenger, the Prophet, the Immaculate (sinless) One…(7:158). (e) O ye who believe! respond to Allah, and the Messenger when he (the Messenger) calls you that he may give you life (8:25). (f) Verily, you have in the Prophet of Allah an excellent model (33:22). (g) Verily, those who swear allegiance to thee, indeed, swear allegiance to Allah (48:11). (h) Your Companion has neither erred, nor has he gone astray, nor does he speak out of his own desire (53:3-4). (i) And thou dost surely possess very high moral excellences (68:5). (j) A noble Messenger, possessor of power, established in the presence of the Lord of the Throne, one who should be obeyed and who is faithful to his trust (81:20-22).

A man of such high moral stature, as the Holy Prophet, who raised a whole people sunk into the lowest depths of moral turpitude to the highest pinnacles of spiritual eminence, could not possibly be guilty of such moral lapses as his detractors seek to impute to him.

A quite simple and harmless word— ذنب —is taken advantage of to malign him. The word, among other things, signifies such frailties as adhere to human nature, and errors as are calculated to bring about harmful results. In this sense of the word the verse signifies that God would protect the Holy Prophet from the harmful results that would follow in the wake of the promised victory referred to in the preceding verse, inasmuch as, large masses of people would enter the fold of Islam, and naturally their moral and spiritual training and upbringing would not be of the desired standard. That is why wherever in the Quran success and victories are promised to the Holy Prophet, he is enjoined to seek protection of God from his ذنب i.e. human weakness which might stand in the way of the realization of his great mission which is the spread and expansion of Islam and the creation of a disciplined community of high morals. The fact that of the four words جناح and جرم and اثم and ذنب, which possess almost similar connotations, the first three have not been used in the Quran with regard to Prophets of God, shows that ذنب does not possess the sinister meaning which the other three words possess. Besides, according to the Quranic idiom, the expression ذنبک, if at all ذنبbe taken to signify a sin or crime, would mean "the sins attributed to thee or alleged to have been committed by thee or the sins committed against thee." Elsewhere in the Quran (5:30) a similar expression اثمی (my sin) means, the sin committed against me. Thus the verse under comment means that as a result of the great victory, i.e. the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah, all the sins and crimes and faults which his enemies imputed to the Holy Prophet, viz. that he was a cheat, an impostor or forger of lies against God and man, etc., would prove to be false, inasmuch as all sorts of people by coming into contact with Muslims would find out the truth about him. Moreover, the context also supports this meaning because grant of a clear victory and the completion of Divine favour upon the Holy Prophet, referred to in this and the preceding verse do not seem to possess any relevance to the forgiveness of sins, if ذنب be taken to mean a sin. And theexpression لک may also mean "for thy sake".

The words "past and present" signify that the charges that have been levelled against the Holy Prophet in the past by the Quraish and those that will be levelled against him in future by his enemies, will all be dispelled and he will stand completely vindicated. The words seem to embody a great prophecy that in some future time the Holy Prophet will be misrepresented and misunderstood but that all misunderstandings will eventually be dissipated and Islam will shine forth in full glory, and its superiority will be established over all rival Faiths.

Commentary:

Mecca had fallen. The whole of Arabia lay prostrate at the Prophet’s feet. Life had become quite safe and secure for Muslims and wealth and great riches had come into their possession. A life of ease and comfort generally follows in the wake of riches, resulting in lack of discipline and other very serious social evils. Therefore rules of conduct have been revealed in this Surah to safeguard the Muslim Community against these evils. They are told to show proper respect and regard for the Holy Prophet and to give him unqualified obedience and not to anticipate his commands or to prefer their own wishes to his.

Commentary:

The verse shows that the commandment about the giving of alms before seeking the Holy Prophet’s consultation is not obligatory but optional, though its observance is preferable. The verse further signifies that the apprehension of the Companions of the Holy Prophet was whether they had given enough in alms to have complied with God’s commandment.

26:219.

25:65; 41:39.

2:246; 57:12; 64:18.

2:211.

Commentary:

In the opening verse of the Surah the Holy Prophet was enjoined that he should constantly pray in the night, for this would give him the necessary strength to discharge the grave responsibility of preaching the Divine Message that was shortly going to devolve on him. In the verse under comment he is assured of Divine pleasure, and is told that he has faithfully carried out God’s command about the night prayer, not only he, but a party of believers also. The command was not specifically directed to the followers of the Holy Prophet, but being always desirous of following in his footsteps, they copied his example in this respect also.

The sentence "Allah determines the measure of the night and the day," signifies that sometimes the nights are long and sometimes they are short and sometimes the day and the night are equal.

The words ان لن تحصوه may apply to Muslims in general. In this sense they are told that all of them would not be able to say the Night Prayer regularly and punctually. Or the words may signify that as Muslims are longing to win God’s pleasure and attain nearness to Him, so they should read the Quran thoughtfully. In this way they would acquire knowledge of, and insight into, Divine attributes.

Besides the meaning given in the text, the expression فاقرؤا ما تیسر منه may mean: (1) recite of the Quran as much as you possibly can.

Commentary:

The Message of Islam is intended equally for all men—for those who seek to develop their spiritual self and win God’s pleasure as well as for those who would wish to cling to the world.