*1 This is a brief introduction to the Surah. A study of the following discourse can show what relevance the things mentioned in it have with the theme that follows. The first thing said is that this Word is being sent down by God, as if to say: "You, O people, may go on saying again and again that this Word is being composed by Muhammed (upon whom be Allah's peace) but the fact is that its revelation is from God, Lord of the worlds. " Furthermore, the addressees have also been warned, so as to say: "If you express your displeasure on hearing this discourse. this displeasure is not against Muhammad (upon whom be Allah's peace) tart against God. If you reject it, you reject Allah's Word, not of a man, and if you turn away from it, you do not turn away from a mart but from Allah." Secondly, that the one sending it down is that God, Who is extremely Merciful (Rehman and Rahim) to His creatures. The mention of the attribute of mercy of the Sender of Revelation, instead of any other attributes, points to the truth that He has sent down this Word under the requirement of His mercifulness. By this the addressees have been warned, so as to say: °If someone spurns this Word, or rejects it. or expresses displeasure at it, he in fact is his own enemy "Thts is indeed a supreme blessing. which God has sent down, out of this infinite mercy, for the guidance and well-being and happiness of man. if God were merciless to mankind, He would have left them to wander about in darkness and would have least cared what pit they fell into. But this is His bounty and beneficence that along with bringing men into existence and providing for them He has taken on Himself the responsibility to show them the light of knowledge also in order to adorn their lives, and is sending down this Word to a servant of His for the same purpose. Now, who could be more ungrateful and a greater enemy of himself than the ono who instead of benefiting from this mercy made up his mind to fight it?" Thirdly that the verses of this Book are well-expounded. That is, there is nothing confusing and ambiguous in it so that somebody might excuse himself from accepting it on the ground that he was unable to understand the contents of the Book.It has been plainly told m it what is the truth and what is the falsehood, what arc the right beliefs and what are the wrong beliefs, what is good and what is evil, what is high morality and what is vice, in what way lies the good of tnan and in what he incurs loss for himself. If a person rejects such clear and manifest guidance, or pays no heed to it, he cannot offer any excuse for it. His attitude clearly unplies that he wants to remain in the wrong wilfully. Fourthly, that this is an Arabic Qur'an, which implies this: "If this Qur'an had been sent down in some other language, the Arabs would have presented the excuse that they were ignorant of the language in which God had sent His Book. But this is their own language. They cannot put forward the excuse that they cannot understand it. (Here, one should keep in view verse 44 also, in which the same theme has been expressed in a different way, and the suspicion that in that case there is a reasonable excuse for the non-Arabs not to accept the message of the Qur'an, we have already removed in our commentary of Surah Yusuf: 2 and E.N. 2 on it. Please also see Rasa'il-o-Masa'il. Vol. I, pp. 19-23). Fifthly, that this Book is for those who possess knowledge. That is, only the people of understanding can draw any benefit from this Book. For the ignorant it is as useless as a precious diamond for the one who cannot distinguish it from a mere stone. Sixthly, that this Book gives good news and administers warning. That is, it does not consist of mere fantasy, or a philosophy, or a specimen of good literary composition, which one may accept or reject without entailing any consequence, but it is openly administering a warning to the whole world that the results of accepting and believing in it are marvellous and of rejecting it very dreadful. Thus only a fool could reject it with scant attention.
 

*2 That is, "It has no way open to reach our hearts."
*3 That is "This invitation has divided us: it has cut us off from you it leas become a hindrance for us to join you."
*4 It has two meanings: (1) "That we have nothing to do with you ;" and (2) "that if you do not desist from your preaching, you may go on doing your mission, we also will not stop our opposition to you, and we will do whatever we can to defeat and frustrate your mission. "
 

*5 That is, "It is not in my power to remove the covering that envelops your hearts, open your ears, and tear away the curtain which you have drawn between me and yourselves, I am only a tnan: I can make only him understand who is inclined to listen, and can only meet him who is ready to meet me."
*6 That is. "You may if you so like put coverings on your hearts and make your ears deaf, but the fact is that you don't have many gods: then is only One God, whose servants you are. And this is no philosophy, which I might have thought out myself, and which might have equal probability of being true or false, but this reality has been made known to me through revelation, which cannot admit of any likelihood of error. "
*7 That is, "Do not make any other your God: do not serve and worship any other deity: do not invoke and bow to any other for help: and do not obey and follow the customs and laws and codes made and set by others. "
*8 "Ask for His forgiveness": Ask for His forgiveness for the unfaithfulness that you have been showing so far towards Him, for the shirk and disbelief and disobedience that you have been committing till now, and for the sins that you happened to comfit due to forgetfulness of God.
 

*9 Here, the meaning of the word zakat has been disputed by the commentators. Ibn `Abbas and his illustrious pupils, `Ikrimah and Mujahid, say that zakat here implies the purity of the soul and self which accrues from belief in Tauhid and obedience to Allah. According to this explanation, the translation of the verse would be: "Woe to the mushriks, who do not adopt purity." The other group which includes commentators like Qatadah, Suddi, Hasan Basri, Dahhak, Muqatil and Ibn as-Sa'ib take this word here also in the meaning of the zakat on property and wealth. According to this explanation, the verse means: "Woe to those who do not fulfil the right of Allah by committing shirk and the right of the men by withholding the zakat.
 

*10 The words ajrun ghaira mamnun in the original have two other meanings also: (1) That it will be a reward which will never decrease and diminish; and (2) that this reward will not be given with reminders of good done, like the gift made by a miserly person, who keeps on reminding the beneficiary of his favour if at all he gives away anything.
 

 

*11 "Blessings of the earth" imply those measureless and countless things which have been continuously coming out of it since millions and millions of years, and are fulfilling the ever increasing needs and requirements of all the creatures from the microscopic germs to the highly civilized man. Among these the principal blessings are the air and the water by which alone vegetable, animal and then human life became possible on the earth.
*12 This sentence has been interpreted by the commentators in different ways: Some of them interpret it to mean: "The provisions of the earth were placed in it precisely according to the needs and requirements of those who ask, in exactly four days." That is, it took exactly four days, neither more nor less. Ibn `Abbas, Qatadah and Suddi interpret it to mean: "The provisions of the earth were placed in it in four days. The answer to those who ask is completed. " That is, whoever asks as to how long it took, his complete answer is that it took four days. According to Ibn Zaid it means: "The provisions of the earth were placed in it for those who ask within four days, precisely in accordance with the demand and need of everyone. " As far as the rules of the language are concerned, the words of the verse admit of all these three meanings, but in our opinion the first two meanings have no merit. In view of the context, it is immaterial whether the work was completed in exactly four days and not in more or less four days. There is no need whatever for such an addition to make up for any deficiency in supporting the description of Allah's perfect power, perfect providence and perfect wisdom. Likewise, the commentary: "The answer to those who ask is completed," is a very weak commentary. There is no indication in the theme preceding the verse and following it, to show that at that time somebody had asked the question as to how long it had taken for those works to be completed, and this verse was sent down as an answer to it. That is why we have adopted the third meaning in our translation. In our opinion the correct meaning of the verse is this: "Allah placed within the earth the full provisions of food precisely and exactly in accordance with the demands andneeds of every kind of creature that AIIah had to create in the earth from the beginning of the creation till Resurrection. There are countless kinds of vegetation found on land and in water and the food requirements of each kind are different from those of other kinds. Allah has created countless species of living creatures in the air and on land and in water, and every species demands a different kind of food. Then unique among all these is the species of man, who requires different kinds of food not only for the development and nourishment of his body but also for the satisfaction of his taste. Who beside Allah could know how many members of the different kinds of creatures would be born on this globe, from the beginning of life till its end, and when and where they would be born and how much and what kind of food would be required for their nourishment? Just as He had made the plan of creating those creatures who stood in need of food in His scheme of creation, so He made full arrangements of food also to meet their requirements and demands. In the modern age, the people who have brought out the Islamic edition of the Marxist conception of Socialism in the name of "the Qur'anic order of providence", translate the words sawa-al-lis-sa'-ilin as `equal for all those who ask", and raise the edifice of reasoning on it, saying that Allah has kept equal provisions for All the people in the earth; therefore, in order to fulfil the intention of the verse a system of the state is needed which may provide equal rations of food to everybody. For in the system of individual ownership the equality which the °Qur'anic law" demands cannot be established. But these people, in their enthusiasm to press the Qur'an in the service of their theories, forget that °those who ask", who have been mentioned in this verse, are not only human beings but All those different species of animals and plants who need food for survival. Has Allah really established equality among all of them, or even among all the members of each different species of the creatures, in the matter of the provision of food? Do you find anywhere in this entire system of nature the arrangement of the distribution of equal rations of food? If that is not the case, it means that in the vegetable and animal kingdom, where the distribution of the provisions is dicectly being arranged by the State of Allah, and not by the human state, Allah Himself is violating His own this "Qur'anic law", rather, God forbid, is practicing injustice! Then, they also forgo that "those who ask" also include those animals which man domesticates and arranging provisions for which is also his responsibility, e.g. sheep, goats, cows, buffaloes, horses, asses, mules, camels, etc: If the Qur'anic law is that equal food be given to all those who ask, and to enforce the same law a state is needed, which may administer the order of providence, will that state establish economic equality between men and animals also?
*13 Here, the commentators generally have been confronted with this question: If it is admitted that the creation of the earth took two days and the setting up of the mountains and placing of the provisions and blessings in it took four days, and the creation of the heavens, as mentioned below, took another two days, the total number of the days would be eight, whereas at several places in the Qur'an Allah has said that the creation of the earth and heavens took six days in all. (For example, see AI-A `raf: 54, Yunus: 3, Hud: 7, AI-Furqan: 59). On this very basis, almost all the commentators agree that these four days include the two days of the creation of the earth. That is, two days were taken for the creation of the earth and two days for the creation of the rest of the things within the earth, as mentioned below. Thus, the earth along with its provisions became complete in four days in all. But this not only is against the apparent words of the Qur'an, but the difficulty also is, in fact, an imaginary difficulty, to avoid which need for this interpretation has been felt. The two days of the creation of the earth arc, in fact, not separate from the two days in which this universe as a whole was created. If we consider the following verses, we see that in them the creation of both the earth and the heavens has been mentioned together, and then it has been stated that Allah made the seven heavens in two days. These seven heavens imply the whole universe, one part of which is also our earth. Then, when like the other countless stars and planets of the universe this earth also took the shape of a unique globe within two days, Allah began to prepare it for animate creatures, and in four days created in it all those provisions which have been mentioned in the above verse. What development works were carried out in the other stars and planets in these four days have not been mentioned by Allah, for not to speak of the man of the period of the revelation of the Qur'an, even the man of the present age does not have the capability to digest and assimilate this information.
 

*14 Three things need to be explained here: First, by "heaven" is meant the whole universe, as becomes obvious from the following sentences. In other words, "turning to the heaven" means that Allah turned to the creation of the universe. Second, by "smoke" is implied the initial and primary stage of matter, in which it lay diffused in space in a shapeless, dust like condition before the formation of the universe. Scientists of the modern age describe the same thing as nebulae, and the same also is their view about the beginning of the universe: that is, before creation the matter of which the universe was built lay diffused in smoke-like nebulous form. Third, it would be wrong to interpret "then He turned to the heaven" to mean that first He created the earth, then set mountains in it, then arranged blessings and provisions of food in it, and then, at the end, He turned towards the crcation of the universe. This misunderstanding is removed by the following sentence: "He said to the heavens and the earth: Come into being; and they said: we come in submission. " This makes it clear that in this verse and in the following verses, mention is being made of the time when there was neither the earth nor the heaven, but the creation of the universe was being started. Only the word thumma (then) cannot be made the argument to say that the earth had been created before the heavens. There are several instances of this in the Qur'an that the word thumma is not necessarily used w show the chronological order but it is also used for the order of Presentation. (Please see E.N. 12 of Surah Az-Zumar). Among the earliest commentators the dispute has been going on for ages as to what was created first according to the Qur'an, the earth or the heavens. One group of them argues on the basis of this verse and verse 29 of AI-Baqarah that the earth was created first. The other group argues from verses 27-33 of AnNazi'at that the heavens were created first, because there it has been clearly stated that the earth was created after the heavens. But the fact is that nowhere in the Qur'an has the mention of the creation of the universe been made to teach Physics or Astronomy, but while inviting towards belief in the doctrines to Tauhid and the Hereafter, like countless other Signs, the creation of the heavens and the earth also has been presented as food for thought. For this purpose it was not at All necessary that the chronological order of the creation of the heavens and the earth should have been presented, and it should have been told whether the heavens were created first or the earth. No matter whether this was created first or that, in any case both are an evidence of Allah Almighty's being the One and only Deity, and are a testimony that their Creator has not created this whole universe as a plaything for a care-fret person. That is why the Qur'an sometimes mentions the creation of the earth first and sometimes the creation of the heavens first. Where the object is to make man realize the blessings of God, there generally it has mentioned the earth first, for it is closer to man; and where the object is to give man the concept of God's greatness and His omnipotence there it has generally mentioned the heavens first, for the scene of the revolving heavens has always been awe-inspiring for man.
*15 In these words Allah has described the nature of His method of creation in a manner as to differentiate between Divine creation and human workmanship. When man wants to make something, he prepares a plan for it in his mind: then gathers together the necessary material; then works persistently hard to mould the material according to his plan, and in the process of his effort the material which he wants to mould according to his mental plan constantly resists lute; so much so that sometimes the resistance of the material succeeds and the thing is not made precisely according to the desired plan, and sometimes man's effort overcomes the resistance and he succeeds in giving it the desired form and shape. For example, when a tailor wants to make a shirt, he first conceives in his mind the shape of the shirt, then arranging the cloth he tries to cut and sew it according to his concept of the shirt, and during this effort, he has constantly to face the resistance of the cloth, for it does not easily yield to be moulded according to the tailor's concept; so much so that sometimes the resistance of the cloth dominates and the shirt doesn't take the desired shape, and sometimes the tailor's effort dominates and he is able to shape it precisely according to his concept. Now, consider Allah's mode of creation. The matter of the universe lay scattered and diffused in the form of smoke. Allah willed to give it the shape of the universe as it is now. For this purpose, He did not have to sit down, like a human artisan, and chisel and mould the earth and the moon and the sun and the other stars and planets, but He only commanded the scheme of the universe that was in His Mind to cane into being, i.e. the smoke like diffused matter to take the shape of the galaxies and stars and planets, which He wanted to create. This . matter did not have the power to resist the Command of Allah. Allah did not have to make any effort to give it the shape of the universe.No sooner was the Command given than the matter started contracting and condensing and taking shape obediently according to the scheme of its Master, so that the whole universe including the earth became ready in 48 hours. This same scheme of Allah's method of creation has been described at several other places in the Qur'an like this: When Allah decides to do something He only commands it to be and it is done. (See AI-Baqarah: 117, AI-'Imran: 47, 59: An-Nahl: 40. Maryam: 35, Ya Sin: 82, Al-Mu'min: 68).
 

*16 To understand these verses well, it would be useful to study the following portions of the Tafhim al-Qur'an: AI-Baqarah: 29, Ar-Ra'd: 2, AI-Hijr: 1G-18, AI-Anbiya': 30-33, Al-Hajj: 65. Al-Mu'minun: 17, Ya Sin: E.N. 37, and E.N.'s 5, G of As-Saaffat.
 

*17 That is, "Ifthey do not believe that God and Deity is One and only One, who has created this earth and the whole universe, and still persist in their ignorance that they would make others also, who are in fact His creatures and slaves, deities beside Him, and regard them as His associates in His Being and rights and powers.
 

*18 This sentence can have several meanings: (1) That the Messengers continued to come to them one after the other; (2) that the Messengers tried in every wav to make them understand the truth and did not leave any stone unturned to bring them to the Right Path; and (3) that the Messengers came to them in their own country as well as in the adjoining countries.
*19 That is "If Allah had disapproved of our religion, and had willed to send a messenger to us to keep us away from it, He would have sent the angels. As you are not an angel but a man like us, we do not believe that you have been sent by God, and sent for the purpose that we give up our religion and adopt the way of life that you arc presenting." The disbelievers' saying that they deny "what you have been sent with", was only sarcastic. It does not mean that they believed him to have been sent by God and then denied what he said. But this is a sarcastic expression of the type that Pharaoh had uttered before his courtiers about the Prophet Moses: "This messenger of yowl, who has been sent to you, seems to be utterly mad." (Ash-Shua'ra' 27). For further explanation, see E.N. 11 of Surah Ya Sin.
 

 

*20 "III-omened days" does not mean that the days in themselves were illomened, and the torrent came because the people of 'Ad met with those illomened days. If this were the meaning and there were some ill omen in the days themselves, the torment would have visited all the nations of the world. The cornet meaning, therefore, is that since in those days God's torment descended on this nation, the days were ill-omened for the people of 'Ad. It is not cornet to argue on the basis of the verse that some days are iII-omened and some auspicious. The lexicographers have disputed the meaning of the words rih-an sarsaran, which have been used for the stormy wind. Some say that they imply an intensely hot wind; others say that they imply an extremely cold wind; and some others say that they imply a wind which produces a great noise when it blows. In any cast, they All agree that the words are used for a severe storm. The details of this torment given at other places in the Qur'an show that this wind continued to rage for seven nights and eight days consecutively. It swept the people off the ground and they fell down dead and lay scattered here and there like hollow trunks of the palm-tree. (AI-Haaqqah: 7). It left rotting everything on which it blew. (Adh-Dhariyat 42). When the people of 'Ad saw it advancing, they rejoiced with the hope that the dense clouds would bring much rain, which would water their withering crops. But when it came it laid waste the entire land." (Al-Ahqaf: 24-25).
*21 This ignominious torment was an answer to their arrogance and vanity because of which they had assumed greatness in the land without any right, and would boast that there was none more powerful than they on the entire earth. Allah disgraced them and destroyed the major part of their population along with their civilization. The remnant of their population was humbled and debased before those very nations whom they used to overawe by their show of power and might (for the details of the story of 'Ad see AI-A'raf : 65-72; Hud: 50-60; AlMu'minun: 32-41; Ash-Shua'ra' : 123-140; AI-'Ankabut; 40 and the relevant E.N.'s).
 

 

*22 For the details of the story of Thamud see AI-A'raf: 73-79; Hud: 61.68; AI-ZHjr: 80-84; Bani Isra'il: 59; Ash-Shua`ara' :141.159; An-Naml: 45-53 and the E.N.'s.
 

*23 What is meant to be said have is: "When they will be rounded up to be presented in the Court of Allah," though the words used are to the effect: "When they will be gathered to be driven to Hell," for Hell in any case will be their final destination.
*24 That is, All the former and latter generations and races will be gathered together at a time and called to account together, For whatever a person does in his lifetime, whether good yr evil, its influence and impact dces not end with his life; but continues to operate even after his death for long periods of time, for which he is totally responsible. Likewise, whatever a generation does in its own time, its influence continues to affect the later generations for. centuries, and it is responsible for its heritage. It is inevitable to examine All these influences and their results and to collect their evidences. For that very reason, generation after generation of the people will go on arriving and will be withheld. The Court will start its work when All the former and latter generations will have assembled together in the Plain of Resurrection. (For further explanation, see AI-A'raf: 3839 and E.N. 30 on it).