يُخْزِ

Important Words:

یشف (relieve) is derived from شفا. They say شفاہ من مرضه i.e. he cured him (of disease) and restored him to convalescence. شفیتهmeans, I relieved him from doubt. شفاہ عن المسألةmeans, he relieved him from doubt respecting the question. یشفیك ان قالmeans, he will please thee if he speaks, i.e. his speech will please thee (Lane).

Commentary:

The verse shows that the enemies of Islam had made themselves deserving of Divine punishment by their treacherous and wrongful conduct; and fighting was only a form of Divine punishment that had been prescribed for them, and it was inflicted on them after they had themselves started hostilities. It was most certainly not resorted to in order to compel them to embrace Islam.

11:94; 39:40-41.

Commentary:

Punishments are of various kinds. There are some misfortunes which excite pity for their victims, while others, besides causing pain, bring their victims into disgrace and also serve as a warning to others. Such was the punishment which overtook the people of Noah, for it constituted a disgrace and an humiliation which is remembered to this day.

The words, a lasting punishment, signify a punishment which will not end with the present life but will continue in the life to come.

Scoffers are here told by Noah that their scoffing can do him no harm nor can it bring him into disgrace. Therefore he does not feel humiliated on account of their mockery, but it is they who have a real cause to feel humiliated, for they are about to be overtaken by a punishment which will not end in this life but will continue in the life to come and will be attended by a lasting disgrace.

6:136; 39:40.

Important Words:

علی مکانتکم (as best you can). See 6:136.

Commentary:

The words, act as best you can, I too am acting, mean that they should go on working according to their own lights and plans, and he could work as guided by his faith. The results would show who was working in accordance with God’s will and who was seeking to defy and frustrate His purpose.

In fact, Prophets of God always ask their people to leave the matter to God and wait for His decision, but their opponents always seek to take the matter into their own hands. The result invariably is that their efforts to destroy the Prophet and his followers prove futile and they themselves are destroyed.

28:63, 75.

Commentary:

Sometimes man suffers material loss or a calamity afflicts him but that loss or calamity does not bring disgrace or humiliation to him. At another time he suffers disgrace and humiliation but no loss. The verse means to say that when punishment overtakes the opponents of the Holy Prophet they would suffer both disgrace and the loss of their material possessions.

11:40.

Commentary:

The verse mentions two kinds of punishment which is in store for rejecters of truth. عذاب یخزیه (punishment that will disgrace him) denotes the punishment in the form of ignominy and humiliation to which they will be subjected in this life and عذاب مقیم (abiding punishment) is the punishment of the next life which will be of much longer duration. Almost everywhere in the Quran the word خزیdenotes disgrace and humiliation in this world. See 2:86, 115; 5:34, 42; 11:67; 22:10; 41:17; etc.

8:30; 48:6; 64:10.

Commentary:

The never-ceasing desire for perfection on the part of believers in Paradise as expressed in the words, "Our Lord perfect our light for us," shows that life in Paradise will not be a life of inaction. On the contrary, spiritual advance in Paradise will know no end, for as the believers will attain excellence, characteristic of a certain stage, they will not stop at that, but seeing in front of it a higher stage of excellence and thus finding that the stage at which they had arrived was not the highest stage, will desire the attainment of the next higher stage, and so on without end.

In short the believers will go on making advancement in Paradise and shall never recede a step. Their activity far from ceasing will rather increase. The Holy Prophet is reported to have said that in Paradise the believers will be imparted knowledge of new attributes of God which they will try to copy in themselves.

From the verse it further appears that after entering Paradise, the believers will seek maghfirah, i.e. "suppression of a defect." In this sense of maghfirah the verse means that the righteous will be continually praying to God for the attainment of perfection and complete immersion in divine light. They will be continually going upwards and will regard each state as defective in comparison with a higher one to which they will aspire and will, therefore, pray to God to suppress the defective state that they may be able to get to the higher one. This is the true significance of Istighfar of which the literal meaning is, "asking forgiveness for one’s lapses."

Important Words:

لینة (palm tree) is derived from لان which means, it was or became tender, smooth, gentle. لینة means, a palm tree. It is a kind of palm tree of which the dates are of very inferior quality and are unfit for human consumption (Aqrab & Ar-Raudul-Anaf).

Commentary:

The reference in the verse is to the cutting, by orders of the Holy Prophet, of the palm trees of the Banu Nadir who, as stated in v. 3, had shut themselves up in their fortresses in defiance of the Holy Prophet’s orders to surrender. After the siege had lasted for a few days, the Holy Prophet, in order to compel them to surrender, ordered that some of their palm trees of the lina (لینة) kind of which the dates are of very inferior quality and are quite unfit for human consumption should be cut down. It was after only six trees had been cut down, that the Banu Nadir surrendered (Zurqani). The orders of theHoly Prophet were extremely lenient and were legitimate and quite in conformity with the laws of civilized warfare.