Verse 56
But the only response of his people was that they said, ‘Expel Lot’s family from your town. They are indeed a folk who [prefer to] remain pure!’, from [coming unto] the rears of men.
Verse 57
So We delivered him and his family, except his wife — We decreed [for] her, We made her by Our decree, to be of those who remained behind, in the chastisement.
Verse 58
Then We rained on them a rain — these were the stones of baked mud [cf. Q. 15:74] — which destroyed them. And evil indeed was, their rain, the rain of those who were warned, against chastisement.
Verse 59
Say, O Muhammad (s): ‘Praise be to God, for the destruction of the disbelievers of past communities, and peace be on His servants whom He has chosen’. Is God (read a-Allāhu, pronouncing both hamzas; or by substituting an alif for the second one; or by not pronouncing the second one but inserting an alif between the one not pronounced and the other one or without [such an insertion]) better, for those who worship Him, or the partners which they ascribe? (read [either] tushrikūna, ‘you ascribe’, or yushrikūna, ‘they ascribe’), [they being] the people of Mecca, [the partners they ascribe] to Him, in other words, are such gods better for those who worship them?
Verse 60
Or He Who created the heavens and the earth, and sends down for you water from the heaven, whereby We cause to grow (there is a shift here from third person to that of the first person [plural]) splendid gardens (hadā’iq is the plural of hadīqa, which is an enclosed garden) whose trees you could never cause to grow?, because of you do not have the ability for it. Is there a god (a-ilāhun, here and in the seven instances in which it occurs, read by pronouncing both hamzas, or by not pronouncing the second, inserting an alif between the two in both cases) with God?, who has helped Him in [all of] this? In other words, there is no god with Him. Nay, but they are a people who ascribe equals [to Him], who associate with God others.
Verse 61
Or He Who made the earth an abode [of stability], that does not [constantly] shake beneath [the feet of] its inhabitants, and made rivers [to flow] throughout it and set firm mountains for it, with which He fixed the earth [in place], and set an isthmus between the two seas, between the sweet one and the salty one, the one not mixing with the other. Is there a god with God? Nay, but most of them have no knowledge, of His Oneness.
Verse 62
Or He Who answers the desperate one, the anguished person suffering harm, when he calls to Him and Who removes [his] distress, from him and from others, and makes you successors in the earth (the annexation [khulafā’a l-ardi, ‘successors of the earth’] has the same meaning as fī, ‘in’ [khulafā’a fī’l-ardi, ‘successors in the earth’]), in other words, each generation succeeding the one before it. Is there a god with God? Little do you remember, [little] are you admonished ([read] mā tadhakkarūna, ‘do you remember’; or [read] yadhdhakkarūna, ‘do they remember’, where [in both cases] the tā’ has been assimilated with the dhāl; the mā is extra, [used] to make less what is already ‘little’).
Verse 63
Or He Who guides you, shows you the way to your destinations, in the darkness of the land and the sea, by the stars at night, and by [the various] landmarks during the day, and Who sends forth the winds as harbingers of His mercy, ahead of the rain. Is there a god with God? Exalted be God [high] above what, others, they associate, with Him!
Verse 64
Or He Who originates creation, in the wombs, from a sperm-drop, then brings it back again, after death, as established by the proofs for this [resurrection], even if you do not acknowledge it; and Who provides for you from the heaven, rain, and [from] the earth, vegetation. Is there a god with God? In other words, none of the things mentioned is done by anyone other than God, and there is no god with Him. Say, O Muhammad (s): ‘Produce your proof, your definitive argument, if you are truthful’, about their being a god with Me who has done any of the things mentioned.
Verse 65
They [the disbelievers] also asked him when the Hour will come to pass, and the following was revealed: Say: ‘No one in the heavens or the earth knows, be it angels or human beings, the Unseen, namely, what is hidden from them, except God, He knows it, and they are not aware, the disbelievers of Mecca, like others, when, is the time in which, they will be resurrected.
Verse 66
Nay, has their knowledge come to comprise (read adraka, similar to the [4th verbal] form akrama, ‘he was kind to’; a variant reading has iddāraka, which is actually tadāraka, with the tā’ changed into a dāl and assimilated with the [other] dāl, and a conjunctive hamza added, meaning, ‘attained’ or ‘caught up with’) the Hereafter?, such that they [have reason to] ask about the time of its coming — not so: Nay, for they are in doubt of it. Rather they are blind to it (‘amūna, ‘blind’, as in blindness of the heart; this [statement] is rhetorically more powerful than the preceding one; the origin [of the term] is ‘amiyūn, but the damma vowel is deemed too heavy for the yā’ and has been moved to the mīm, after dropping its kasra vowel).
Verse 67
And the disbelievers say, also in rejecting the [idea of] resurrection: ‘What! When we and our fathers are dust shall we indeed be brought forth [again]?, from the graves.
Verse 68
Already we and our fathers have been promised this before. [But] these are just the [legendary] fables of the ancients’ (asātīr is the plural of ustūra, meaning ‘what has been written down [mā sutira] of lies’).
Verse 69
Say: ‘Travel in the land and see how was the sequel for the criminals’, because of their denials — and this [sequel] is that they were destroyed with punishment.
Verse 70
And do not grieve for them, and do not be distressed by their schemes — this is meant to comfort the Prophet (s), in other words, do not be concerned with their plotting against you, for We will grant you victory over them.
Verse 71
And they say, ‘When will this promise, of chastisement, be, if you are truthful?’, regarding it.
Verse 72
Say: ‘It may be that part of what you seek to hasten on is close behind you’ — so they were slain at Badr and the remaining chastisement will come to them after death.
Verse 73
And surely your Lord is bountiful to mankind, an example of which is His deferring chastisement for the disbelievers, but most of them are not thankful — disbelievers are not grateful for the deferring of chastisement since they reject [the fact] that it will ever come to pass.
Verse 74
And surely your Lord knows what their hearts conceal, [what these] hide, and what they proclaim, by their tongues.
Verse 75
And there is not a thing hidden in the heaven and the earth (the hā’ [tā’ marbūta] of ghā’ibatun is hyperbole, in other words, anything that is completely hidden from people) but it is in a manifest Book, namely, [in] the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfūz) and in God’s concealed knowledge, an example of which is the [time of the] chastising of the disbelievers.
Verse 76
Truly this Qur’ān recounts to the Children of Israel — those living at the time of our Prophet — [the means to resolve] most of that concerning which they differ, that is, by virtue of the fact that it expounds the said [differences] as they should be, eliminating any disagreements between them, if only they were to implement it and submit [to its prescriptions].
Verse 77
And truly it is a guidance, from error, and a mercy for believers, from chastisement.
Verse 78
Surely your Lord will decide between them, as [He will] with others on the Day of Resurrection, of His judgement, that is, His justice. And He is the Mighty, the Victor, the Knower, of what He judges, so that none will be able to oppose Him in the way that the disbelievers have opposed His prophets in this world.
Verse 79
So rely on God, trust in Him, for you are indeed upon the manifest truth, [upon] the manifest religion: the sequel shall be in your favour, with victory over the disbelievers. God then draws comparisons between them and the dead, the deaf and the blind, saying:
Verse 80
Indeed you cannot make the dead hear, nor can you make the deaf hear the call when (al-du‘ā’a idhā, read by pronouncing both hamzas, or by not pronouncing the second one, eliding it with the yā’) they have turned their backs [upon you];
Verse 81
nor can you lead the blind out of their error. You can only make those hear — hear so as to comprehend and accept — who believe in Our signs — the Qur’ān — and have therefore submitted, [are therefore] sincere in their affirmation of God’s Oneness.
Verse 82
And when the word [of judgement] falls upon them, [when] they deserve that chastisement befalls them as well as all [other] disbelievers, We shall bring forth for them a beast from the earth which shall speak to them [saying], that is, which shall speak in Arabic to those who are alive at the time when it appears, among its other statements, it will say to them on Our behalf: ‘Indeed mankind (read tukallimuhum inna’l-nāsa; a variant has tukallimuhum bi-anna’l-nāsa, ‘to tell them that mankind’) had no faith in Our signs’, in other words, they did not believe in the Qur’ān and what it comprises [of the mention] of resurrection, reckoning and requital. With its [the beast’s] appearance the enjoining of decency and forbidding of indecency will cease, and thereafter no disbeliever will believe — just as God revealed to Noah [when He said to him]: None of your people will believe except he who has already believed [Q. 11:36].
Verse 83
And, mention, the day when We shall gather from every community a group of those who denied Our signs, namely, their leaders, the ones [whom they] followed, and they will be set in array, assembled, with the last of them brought together with the first and then led away,
Verse 84
until, when they arrive, at the site of the Reckoning, He, exalted be He, shall say, to them: ‘Did you deny, My prophets, by [denying], My signs without comprehending them, from the perspective of your denial, in knowledge, or what (ammā: the interrogative mā has been assimilated with am, ‘or’) was it (dhā is a relative pronoun, in other words [it is in fact] mā alladhī) that you did?, with the commands given to you.
Verse 85
And the word [of judgement] shall fall, the chastisement will be due, upon them because of the evil they committed, that is, [because of] what they associated [with God], and they will not speak, since they will have no [valid] argument.
Verse 86
Do they not see that We made, We created, the night that they, like others, may rest in it, and the day for sight?, meaning, [for people] to see in it, so that they may go about their business therein. Surely in that there are signs, indications of His power, exalted be He, for a people who believe — they [the believers] are singled out for mention because they benefit from such [signs] in their faith, in contrast to the disbelievers.
Verse 87
And the day when the Trumpet will be blown, the Horn [will be blown], the First Blast, by [the archangel] Isrāfīl, and whoever is in the heavens and the earth will be terrified, that is, a fright that brings about death — as is stated in another verse, and whoever is in the heavens and whoever is in the earth will swoon [Q. 39:68] (the past tense [fazi‘a] is used to express the fact that such [events] will have occurred); except whom God will, namely, Gabriel, Michael, Isrāfīl and the Angel of Death. According to Ibn ‘Abbās, however, these [excepted individuals] are the martyrs who are [described as], living with their Lord, provided for [by Him]’ [Q. 3:169]. And all (kullun: the nunation compensates for the [missing] genitive annexation), in other words, and every one of them, after being brought back to life on the Day of Resurrection, will come to Him (read in the form of the verb [atawhu] or the active participle [ātūhu]) in [utter] humility, humbled (the past tense, atawhu, is used to express the fact that this will have happened).
Verse 88
And you see the mountains, you notice them, at the moment of the Blast, supposing them to be still, stationary in their place, because of their tremendous size, while they drift like passing clouds, [like the drifting of the] rain when it is blown around by the wind, in other words, they [the mountains] will be drifting in like manner until they [eventually] fall to the ground, whereby they are flattened before becoming like [tufts of] ‘wool’ [cf. Q. 101:5] and then ‘scattered dust’ [cf. Q. 56:6]. God’s handiwork (sun‘a, a verbal noun emphasising the import of the preceding sentence, and which has been annexed [in a genitive construction] to its agent [Allāhi, ‘God’] after the omission of its operator) Who has perfected everything, that He has made. Truly He is aware of what you do (taf‘alūna; or [read] yaf‘alūna, ‘[what] they do’), namely, His enemies, [what they do] in the way of disobedience, and His friends, in the way of obedience.
Verse 89
Whoever brings a good deed, namely, [the profession of] ‘there is no god but God’, on the Day of Resurrection, shall have good, [shall have] a reward, for it, because of it (this [khayrun] is not the comparative [‘better’], since there is no deed better [than a good deed]). In another verse [it is stated that] he shall have tenfold the like of it [Q. 6:160]; and they, namely, those who bring such [good deeds], shall be secure from the terror of that day (min faza‘i yawmi’idhin, if read as a genitive annexation; or min faza‘in yawma’idhin, ‘from terror on that day’).
Verse 90
And whoever brings an evil deed, namely, the ascribing of partners [to God], their faces shall be thrust into the Fire, having been oriented towards it — ‘faces’ are specifically mentioned here because of all the sensory organs it is where [a person’s] dignity resides, and so other parts [of the body] are more deserving [of punishment]. It shall be said to them in reproach: ‘Are you requited except, the requital, for what you used to do?’, in the way of idolatry and acts of disobedience.
Verse 91
Say to them: I have been commanded only to worship the Lord of this land, namely, Mecca, which He has made inviolable, which He has made a secure Sanctuary, one in which no human blood may be shed, no person may be wronged, none of its prey may be hunted and [a sanctuary] which is never deserted. Such were the graces bestowed [by God] upon its inhabitants, the [tribe of] Quraysh, [graces] whereby God has spared their land the suffering and civil strife common to all the [other] lands of the Arabs; and to Whom, exalted be He, all things belong, for He is their Lord, Creator and Possessor. And I have been commanded to be of those who submit, to God, by affirming His Oneness;
Verse 92
and to recite the Qur’ān, to you as a call to faith. So whoever is guided, to it, is guided only for his own sake, since the reward for his being guided will be his; and whoever goes astray, from faith and errs from the path of guidance, say, to him: ‘I am just one of the warners’, the threateners, and therefore my duty is only to deliver [the Message] — this was [revealed] before the command to fight [against the disbelievers].
Verse 93
And say: ‘Praise be to God. He will show you His signs and you will recognise them. Thus on the day of Badr God showed them how it was to be killed, to be taken prisoner and to be beaten by the angels on their faces and backs; and God hastened on for them the [punishment of the] Fire. And your Lord is not oblivious of what they do’ (ya‘malūna; or [read] ta‘malūna, ‘[what] you do’) but grants them respite until their [appointed] time [of requital].
Verse 1
Tā sīn mīm: God knows best what He means by these [letters].
Verse 2
Those, namely, these signs, are the signs of the Manifest Book (the genitive annexation conveys the [partitive] sense of min, ‘of’ [‘verses from the Manifest Book’]), [the Manifest Book] which reveals truth from falsehood.
Verse 3
We will recount, narrate, to you [something] of the tale of Moses and Pharaoh truthfully, for a people who believe, for their sake, since they are the ones to benefit from such [an account].
Verse 4
Truly Pharaoh had exalted himself in the land, the land of Egypt, and reduced its people into sects, groups, to serve him, oppressing a group of them, namely, the Children of Israel, slaughtering their sons, the new-born, and sparing their women, keeping them alive — for some of the [Egyptian] priests had told him, ‘A new-born of the Children of Israel shall bring about the end of your kingdom’. Indeed he was of those who cause corruption, through [the use of] slaughter and otherwise.
Verse 5
And We desired to show favour to those who were oppressed in the land, and to make them exemplars (read a’immatan, pronouncing both hamzas, or by replacing the second one with a yā’) whose good example would be followed, and to make them the inheritors, of Pharaoh’s kingdom;
Verse 6
and to establish them in the land, the land of Egypt and Syria, and to show Pharaoh and Hāmān and their hosts (a variant reading has wa-yarā Fir‘awnu wa-Hāmānu wa-junūduhumā, ‘so that Pharaoh and Hāmān and their hosts might see’, with all three [nouns] in the nominative) from them that of which they were apprehensive, [that which] they feared of the new-born [Israelite] who would bring about the end of their kingdom.
Verse 7
And We revealed, by inspiration or in a dream, to the mother of Moses — who was the said new-born; his sister was the only other person aware of his birth — ‘Suckle him, then, when you fear for him, cast him into the waters, namely, the Nile, and do not fear, that he should drown, or grieve, for being separated from him, for We will restore him to you and make him one of the messengers’. She suckled him for three months during which he never cried. She then began to fear for him and so she placed him in a basket coated with pitch and made as a cradle for him on the inside. She then closed it and cast it into the waters of the Nile at night.
Verse 8
Then Pharaoh’s folk, aids, picked him up, with him [still] in the basket, the morning following that night — it was placed him in front of him [Pharaoh] and then opened and Moses was brought out of it, sucking milk from his thumb — to be, at the end of the affair, an enemy, slaying their menfolk, and a [cause of] grief to them, enslaving their womenfolk (a variant reading [for hazanan] is huznan, both of which are alternative forms of the verbal noun, and it functions as an active participle, derived from hazanahu, which is like ahzanahu, ‘he caused him grief’). Truly Pharaoh and, his minister, Hāmān, and their hosts were sinners, that is, disobedient, and so they were punished at his [Moses’s] hands.
Verse 9
And Pharaoh’s wife said, after he and his aids had resolved to slay him: he is, ‘A joyous sight for me and you. Do not slay him. Perhaps he will be of benefit to us, or we will adopt him as a son’, and so they obeyed her [wish]. And they were not aware, of the sequel to their affair with him.
Verse 10
And the heart of Moses’s mother, when she found out that they had picked him up, became empty, of everything other than him. Indeed (in, softened from the hardened form, its subject omitted, in other words [understand it as] innaha) she was about to expose him, that is, as being her son, had We not fortified her heart, with patience, that is, We made it at peace, that she might be of the believers, [of] those who have faith in God’s promise (the response to [the conditional] lawlā, ‘had … not’, is given by the preceding [statement]).
Verse 11
And she said to his sister, Mary, ‘Follow him’, in other words, follow where he goes in order to find out his news. So she watched him from afar, from a distance, secretly, while they were not aware, that she was his sister, or that she was [even] watching him.
Verse 12
And We had forbidden him to [take to the breasts of] fostermothers from before, that is to say, we prevented him from taking to the breasts of any suckling mother other than his own mother. Therefore he would not accept the breasts of any of the foster-mothers brought for him. So she, his sister, said, ‘Shall I show you a household — having seen their affection for him — who will take care of him for you, by having him suckled and so on, and who will act in good faith towards him?’ (the [suffixed] pronoun in lahu has been interpreted as referring to the king, as a response to them [when they asked Mary how she could be sure]). Her suggestion was accepted. So she brought his mother and he took to her breast. She explained to them that he had taken to her [breast] because of her pleasant scent and the wholesome taste of her milk. Permission was given to her to breast-feed him in her own house and so she returned with him, just as God, exalted be He, says:
Verse 13
Thus We restored him to his mother so that her eyes might delight, in seeing him [again], and not grieve, thereat, and that she might know that God’s promise, to restore him to her, is true; but most of them, that is, the people, do not know, about this promise, or of the fact that this was his sister and the other was his mother. He [Moses] remained with her until he was weaned during which time she was paid wages at one dinar per day. She took this because it was money from enemy territory (harbī). She then brought him [back] to Pharaoh in whose household he was raised, as God recounts of him in sūrat al-Shu‘arā’ [Q. 26:18], Did we not rear you among us as a child, and did you not stay with us for years of your life?
Verse 14
And when he came of age, namely, at 30 or 33, and [then] was [fully] mature, that is, when he reached the age of 40, We gave him judgement, wisdom, and knowledge, comprehension of religious matters before he was sent as a prophet. And so, just as We rewarded him, do We reward those are virtuous, to their own souls.
Verse 15
And he, Moses, entered the city, Pharaoh’s city, Memphis, having been absent from it for a while, at a time when its people were oblivious, the time of the afternoon nap, and found therein two men fighting, one of his own faction, namely, an Israelite, and the other of his enemies, in other words, an Egyptian, who was exploiting an Israelite to carry firewood to Pharaoh’s kitchen. So the one who was of his faction called to him for help against the one who was of his enemies, and so Moses said to him, ‘Leave him be!’, and it is said that he replied to Moses [thus]: ‘I am truly considering making you carry this [firewood]!’. So Moses punched him, that is, he hit him with his fist clenched — he [Moses] was a strong man with a powerful strike, and did away with him, that is, he killed him, but he had not intended to kill him. He buried him in the sand. He said, ‘This, killing of him, is of Satan’s doing, inciting my anger. Indeed he is an enemy, to the son of Adam, a manifest misleader’, of him.
Verse 16
He said, remorsefully, ‘My Lord, I have indeed wronged myself, by killing him, so forgive me!’ So He forgave him. Truly He is the Forgiving, the Merciful, that is to say, the One Who has always possessed, and will always possess, these two attributes.
Verse 17
He said, ‘My Lord, forasmuch as You have been gracious to me, with forgiveness, protect me [so], I will never be a partisan, a supporter, of the criminals’, the disbelievers henceforth, if you were to protect me.
Verse 18
In the morning he was in the city, fearful, vigilant, waiting to see what would happen to him [in reaction] from the side of the slain man; — when behold, the one who had sought his help the day before cried out to him for help [again], asking for his help against another Egyptian. Moses said to him, ‘Clearly you are a trouble-maker!’, whose trouble-making is evident, judging by what you did yesterday and today.
Verse 19
But when (fa-lammā an: an is extra) he was about to strike the man who was an enemy to both of them, to Moses and the one seeking his help, he, the one seeking help, supposing that Moses was about to strike him, because of what he [Moses] had said to him, said: ‘O Moses, do you want to slay me just as you slew a soul yesterday? You merely want to be a tyrant in the land, and you do not want to be of the reformers’. The Egyptian heard this and realised that the slayer had been Moses. Thus he hurried off to Pharaoh to inform him of this. Pharaoh then ordered slaughterers to slay Moses, and they set off in his direction.
Verse 20
And a man, who was the [only] believer among Pharaoh’s kinsfolk, came from the outskirts of the city, hastening, walking fast, via a route quicker than theirs. He said, ‘O Moses, lo! the council, of Pharaoh’s folk, are conspiring, discussing [the means], to slay you. So leave, the city. Truly I am speaking to you in good faith’, in bidding you to leave.
Verse 21
So he departed from it, fearful, vigilant, lest any of the pursuers catch up with him, or [in the hope] that God might rescue him. He said, ‘My Lord, deliver me from the evildoing people’, Pharaoh’s people.
Verse 22
And when he turned his face towards Midian, in the direction thereof — and this [Midian] was the town of [the prophet] Shu‘ayb, eight day’s journeying from Egypt, [so] named after Midian son of Abraham; he [Moses] did not know the route to it — he said, ‘Perhaps my Lord will show me the right way’, that is to say, which route to follow, in other words, the simplest route to it. God thus sent forth to him an angel with a goat, which he [Moses] set off following towards it [the town].
Verse 23
And when he arrived at the Water of Midian, [the name of] a well therein, he found a group of people there watering, their flocks, and he found, besides them, two women holding back their flock, from the water. He, Moses, said, to the two: ‘What is your business?’, that is, ‘What is the matter with you, that you are not watering?’ They said, ‘We do not water [our flock] until the shepherds have moved on (ri‘ā’u, ‘shepherds’, the plural of rā‘in) that is to say, until they have returned from the watering, for fear of being crushed [by the throng], after which we go to water (a variant reading [for yasdiru, ‘move on’] is the 4th form [subjunctive] yusdira, ‘to drive away’, meaning, until they [the shepherds] have driven their flocks away from the water’) and our father is a very old man’, unable to [come and] water.
Verse 24
So he watered [their flock] for them, from another well nearby, by lifting a rock from on top of it, which only ten men could have lifted; then he retreated to the shade, of an acacia tree (samura), because of the extreme heat of the sun and he was hungry, and said, ‘My Lord, indeed I am in utter need of whatever good, [whatever] food, You send down to me’. The two women returned to their father quicker than usual and so he asked them why [it was so]. They told him about the man who had watered [their flock] for them. So he said to one of them, ‘Summon him to [come to] me’.
Verse 25
God, exalted be He, says: Then one of the two women came to him, walking bashfully — in other words, covering her face with the sleeve of her shirt, being shy of him — and said, ‘My father invites you, that he may pay you a wage for watering [our flock] for us’. He accepted her invitation, while inwardly he disapproved of accepting any wage, for it was as though she sought to remunerate him and as though he were of those who would want it [which he was not]. She walked in front of him but when the wind began to blow off her dress and reveal her legs, he said to her, ‘Walk behind me and show me the way’, which she did. Finally he came to her father, Shu‘ayb, peace be upon him, who was sitting with some supper in front of him. He said to him, ‘Sit and have some supper’. He [Moses] said, ‘I hope that this is not [some sort of] compensation for having watered [their flock] for them? For we are People of a House and do not demand compensation for good deeds’. He [Shu‘ayb] said, ‘No. It is [simply] a custom of mine and of my forefathers to be hospitable to guests and to offer them food’. Thus, he [Moses] ate and informed him of his predicament. God, exalted be He, says: So when he came to him and recounted to him the story (al-qasas is a verbal noun with the sense of al-maqsūs, ‘that which is recounted’), of his slaying of the Egyptian and their intention to slay him and his fear of Pharaoh, he [their father] said, ‘Do not be afraid. You have escaped from the evildoing people’, as Pharaoh had no authority over Midian.
Verse 26
One of the two women, the one that had been sent [by her father], either the elder or the younger, said, ‘O my father, hire him, employ him in return for a wage, that he may tend our flock instead of us. Surely the best [man] you can hire is the strong, the trustworthy man’, in other words, hire him on account of his strength and trustworthiness. He [Shu‘ayb] asked her about him and she told him, as mentioned above, how he had lifted the rock off the well and that he had said to her, ‘Walk behind me’, in addition to his lowering his head when he realised that she was coming towards him, refusing to lift it [until she left]. He [Shu‘ayb] therefore was keen to have him marry [one of his daughters].
Verse 27
He said, ‘I desire to marry you to one of these two daughters of mine, either the elder or the younger one, on condition that you hire yourself to me, that you are employed by me to tend my flock, for eight years. And if you complete ten, that is, the tending of ten years, that, completion, shall be of your own accord. I do not want to be hard on you, by making it [the marriage] conditional on ten [years service]. God willing — [expressed] to seek [God’s] blessing — you shall find me to be one of the righteous’, of those who fulfil their covenants.
Verse 28
He, Moses, said, ‘That, which you have said, is [settled then] between me and you. Whichever of the two terms, the eight or the ten (the mā [in ayyamā, ‘whichever of the two’] is extra), in other words, the tending thereof, I complete, there shall be no injustice [done] to me, by demanding [of me] to do more [tending]. And God is Guardian, Keeper or Witness, over what we, you and I, say’. The contract was agreed in this way. Shu‘ayb bid his daughter to give Moses a staff with which to beat off predatory beasts from his sheep — the staffs of the prophets were in his keeping. It was Adam’s staff, made from the myrtle of Paradise, that fell into her hands and so Moses took it, with Shu‘ayb’s knowledge.
Verse 29
So when Moses had completed the term, of his tending — of eight years, or of ten years, which is what is generally assumed — and was travelling with his family, his wife, with the permission of her father, in the direction of Egypt, he saw in the distance on the side of the Mount [Tūr] a fire (al-Tūr is the name of a mountain). He said to his family, ‘Wait, here; I see a fire in the distance. Maybe I will bring you from it news, about [how to rejoin] the route [to Egypt] — for he had strayed from it [along the way] — or a brand (read with any of the three vowels [jadhwa, jidhwa, or judhwa], which [either] means ‘a bundle’, or ‘a flame’) from the fire, that you may warm yourselves’ (tastalūna: the tā’ replaces the tā’ of the [8th verbal paradigm] ifta‘ala of the verb saliya, or salaya).
Verse 30
And when he reached it, a call came from the right bank, [the right] side, of the valley, to Moses, at the blessed spot, [blessed] for Moses, because of his hearing God’s speech therein, from the tree (mina’l-shajarati substitutes for min shāti’i, ‘from the [right] bank’, and the preposition [min, ‘from’] has been repeated because it [the tree] grows there) — the tree was a jujube, a bramble, or a boxthorn — [saying] that (an here is explicative, and not in its softened form) ‘O Moses! Indeed I am God, the Lord of the Worlds’.
Verse 31
And: ‘Throw down your staff’, and he threw it down. And when he saw it quivering, moving, as if it were a serpent (jānn: is a small snake [so called] because of the speed of its movement) he turned his back, to flee from it, and did not look back, in other words, he did not return, and so there called out [the voice]: ‘O Moses! Come forward, and do not be afraid. Indeed you are safe.
Verse 32
Insert your, right, hand, meaning, the palm, into your bosom (jayb is the neck [area] of the shirt) and [then] take it out, and it will emerge, not in its usual skin colour [but], white, without any blemish, any [vestige of] leprosy. So he inserted it and took it out and it shone as bright as the sun, blinding the eyes; and draw your arm [back] to your side [as a precaution] against fear (read rahab, rahb or ruhb), in other words, [against] the fear produced by the glow of the hand, so that you insert it [back] into your bosom and it is restored to its former state; it [the arm] is referred to as jināh, ‘wing’, because they are for humans what wings are for birds. These then (read fa-dhānika or fa-dhānnika) namely, the staff and the hand (both of which [‘asā and yad] are feminine nouns, but the demonstrative pronoun [dhānika] used for them, being the subject, is in the masculine because its predicate is masculine) shall be two proofs, to be sent, from your Lord to Pharaoh and his council; for surely they are an immoral people’.
Verse 33
He said, ‘My Lord, I have indeed slain a soul among them — the mentioned Egyptian — and so I fear that they will slay me, because of him.
Verse 34
And my brother Aaron is more eloquent, more intelligible, than me in speech. So send him with me as a helper, as an aid (a variant reading [for rid’an, ‘helper’] is ridan) to confirm me (read [either] in apocopated form, yusadiqnī, as a response to the request, or [as an indicative] with damma inflection, yusadiqunī, as an adjectival qualification of rid’an, ‘helper’), for I truly fear that they will deny me’.
Verse 35
He said, ‘We will strengthen your arm, We will make you strong, by means of your brother, and We will give authority, victory, so that they will not be able to touch [either of] you, with any evil; go both of you, with Our signs the two of you, and those who follow you [two], will be the victors’, over them.
Verse 36
But when Moses brought them Our clear signs (bayyinātin, a circumstantial qualifier) they said, ‘This is nothing but concocted, invented, sorcery. And we never heard of such [a thing], to have [ever] existed, in, the days of, our forefathers’.
Verse 37
And Moses said, (wa-qāla, or qāla, without the ‘and’) ‘My Lord knows best who brings guidance from Him (the suffixed pronoun [in ‘indihi] refers to the Lord) and whose (man here is a supplement to the previous man) will be (read takūna or yakūna) the sequel of the [Blissful] Abode, that is to say, the praiseworthy sequel in the Abode of the Hereafter, in other words, it is I [Moses], in both cases, and I speak truthfully in what I have brought [you]. Truly the evildoers, the disbelievers, will not be successful’.
Verse 38
And Pharaoh said, ‘O [members of the] council, I do not know of any god for you other than me. So kindle for me, O Hāmān, [a fire] over the clay, and bake for me bricks [of clay], and make me a tower, a lofty palace, that I may take a look at the god of Moses, to observe him and inspect him; for truly I consider him to be a liar’, in his claim of [the existence of] some other god and that he is his messenger.
Verse 39
And he and his hosts acted arrogantly in the land, the land of Egypt, without right, and thought they would not return to Us (read active yarji‘ūna, or passive yurja‘ūna, ‘they would [not] be brought back’).
Verse 40
So We seized him and his hosts, and flung them into the waters, the sea, and they drowned. So behold how was the sequel for the evildoers, when they ended up being destroyed.
Verse 41
And We made them, in this world, leaders (read a-imma, pronouncing both hamzas, or by changing the second one into a yā’), chieftains of idolatry, who invite to the Fire, by inviting to idolatry, and on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped, by having the chastisement averted from them.
Verse 42
And We made a curse, ignominy, pursue them in this world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be among the spurned, those banished [from God’s mercy].
Verse 43
And verily We gave Moses the Scripture, the Torah, after We had destroyed the former generations, the people of Noah, ‘Ād, Thamūd and others, [containing] eye-openers for mankind (basā’ira, is a circumstantial qualifier referring to al-kitāb, ‘the Scripture’, the plural of basīra, which is the [perceptive] light of the heart), in other words, illumination for the hearts [of mankind], and as guidance, from error, for those who implement it, and mercy, for those who believe therein, that perhaps they might remember, [that] they might be admonished by the admonitions it [the Scripture] contains.
Verse 44
And you were not, O Muhammad (s), on the western side, of the mountain, the valley, or the spot, [to the west] of Moses at the time of the communion, when We decreed, revealed, to Moses the commandment, to deliver the Message to Pharaoh and his people, nor were you among the witnesses, to this, to know it and inform of it;
Verse 45
but We brought forth generations, communities, after Moses, and life was prolonged in their case, in other words, they lived long lives and so they forgot the covenants [made with God], knowledge disappeared and revelation ceased. Then We brought you as Messenger and revealed to you the story of Moses and others. And you were not a dweller, a resident, among the people of Midian reciting to them Our revelations (tatlū ‘alayhim āyātinā, a second predicate [after thāwiyan, ‘dweller’), to know their story and inform of it; but truly We are the senders, of you [as Messenger] and [the senders] to you of the stories of former generations.
Verse 46
And you were not on the side of the Mount when We called out, to Moses to take the Scripture earnestly; but, We have sent you, as a mercy from your Lord, that you may warn a people to whom no warner came before you — these are the people of Mecca — and that perhaps they may remember, they may be admonished.
Verse 47
Otherwise, if an affliction, a punishment, should befall them because of what their own hands have sent before them, in the way of disbelief and otherwise, they might say, ‘Our Lord, why did You not send a messenger to us, that we might have followed Your signs, the ones sent with the messengers, and been of the believers?’ (the response to [the conditional particle] lawlā, ‘if’, has been omitted, and what follows it is a [new] subject; the meaning is: ‘were it not for the affliction that is the cause of their saying’, or, ‘were it not for their saying that is the cause of their affliction, We would have hastened on for them their punishment and We would not have sent you as a messenger to them’).
Verse 48
But when the truth, namely, Muhammad (s), came to them from Us, they said, ‘Why has he not been given the like of what Moses was given?’, in the way of signs, such as the glowing hand, the staff and others, or [by having] the Book revealed all at once. God, exalted be He, says: And did they not disbelieve in what was given to Moses before?; [before] when, they said, regarding him and Muhammad (s), ‘Two sorcerers (sāhirān; a variant reading has sihrān, ‘two sorceries’, namely [what they said regarding] the Qur’ān and the Torah) abetting each other.’ And they said, ‘We indeed disbelieve in both’, the two prophets and the two Scriptures [of Moses and Muhammad].
Verse 49
Say, to them: ‘Then bring some Scripture from God that is better in guidance than these two, Scriptures, that I may follow it, if you are truthful’, in what you say.
Verse 50
Then if they do not respond to you, regarding your invitation [to them] to bring a Scripture, know that they are only following their desires, in [persisting in] their disbelief. And who is more astray than he who follows his desire without any guidance from God?, in other words, there is no one more astray than such [a person]. Truly God does not guide the evildoing, the disbelieving, folk.
Verse 51
And now verily We have brought, We have explained [to], them the Word, the Qur’ān, that perhaps they might remember, [they might] be admonished and believe.
Verse 52
Those to whom We gave the Scripture before this, that is, [before] the Qur’ān, they believe in it, too. This was revealed regarding certain Jews who became Muslims, such as ‘Abd Allāh b. Salām and others, and [certain] Christians who had come from Abyssinia and Syria [who also became Muslims].
Verse 53
And, when it is recited to them, the Qur’ān, they say, ‘We believe in it. It is indeed the Truth from our Lord. Lo! [even] before it we had submitted’, we affirmed God’s Oneness.
Verse 54
Those will be given their reward twice over, for believing in both Scriptures, for the patience they showed, for having been steadfast in implementing [the prescriptions in] them; and they ward off, from themselves, evil with good, and expend, give as voluntary alms, of that which We have provided them.
Verse 55
And when they hear vanity, vile words and hurtful intent from the disbelievers, they disregard it and say, ‘To us [belong] our deeds and to you [belong] your deeds. Peace to you — a parting truce (salām mutāraka), in other words you are secure from any abuse or the like on our part. We do not desire [friendship with] the ignorant’, we do not seek companionship with them.
Verse 56
The following was revealed regarding the Prophet’s longing for his uncle Abū Tālib to embrace faith: You cannot guide whom you like, to be guided, but [it is] God [Who] guides whomever He will, and He knows best those who will be guided.
Verse 57
And they, his people, say, ‘If we were to follow the Guidance with you, we will be deprived from our land’, torn out of it swiftly. God, exalted be He, says: Have We not established for them a secure Sanctuary, [one] in which they are secure from the raids and killings that occur among the Arab tribes, to which are brought (read tujbā or yujbā) fruits of all kinds, [fruits] from every direction, as a provision, for them, from Us? But most of them do not know, that what We say is the truth.
Verse 58
And how many a town We have destroyed whose lifestyle was one of arrogant ungratefulness — by ‘town’ is meant the inhabitants thereof. Those are their dwellings, which have not been dwelt in after them except a little, by passers-by, for a day or part of it. And it was We Who were the [sole] inheritors, after them.
Verse 59
And your Lord never destroyed the towns, because of evildoing on their part, until He had raised up in their mother-town, that is, the major [town] among them, a messenger to recite Our signs to them. And We never destroyed the towns unless their inhabitants were committing evil, by denying the messengers.
Verse 60
And whatever things you have been given are [only] the [short-lived] enjoyment of the life of this world and an ornament thereof, in other words, [things] which you enjoy and adorn yourselves with for the days of your lives, after which they perish; and what is with God, in other words, His reward, is better and more lasting. Will you not understand? (ta‘qilūna; or read ya‘qilūna, ‘will they [not] understand’) that what lasts is better than what perishes.
Verse 61
Is he to whom We have given a fair promise, which he will receive, which he will attain, and that [promise] is Paradise, like him to whom We have given the enjoyment of the life of this world, [enjoyment] which will disappear soon, then on the Day of Resurrection he will be of those arraigned?, before the Fire. The former is the believer, the latter the disbeliever: in other words the two are not equal.
Verse 62
And, mention, the day when He, God, will call to them and say, ‘Where [then] are My partners, those whom you used to claim?’, were partners of Mine.
Verse 63
Those against whom the Word [of punishment] will have become due, the justified [Word], that they be admitted into the Fire — and these are the leaders of misguidance — they shall say, ‘Our Lord! These are the ones whom we led astray (hā’ūlā’i’lladhīna aghwaynā is both a subject and an adjectival qualification). We led them astray (aghwaynāhum, the predicate thereof) and they went astray, even as we went astray — we did not compel them to [follow] error. We declare our innocence, of them, before You; it was not us that they worshipped’ (mā, ‘not’, is for negation; the direct object [iyyānā, ‘us’] precedes [the verb ya‘budūna, ‘they worshipped’] in order to concord with the end-rhyme of the verses).
Verse 64
And it shall be said, ‘Call [now] to your associates!’, namely, the idols you alleged to be partners of God. So they will call to them, but they will not answer them, their call, and they, the former, will see, they will sight, the chastisement: [they will wish] if only they had been guided!, in this world, they would not have seen it in the Hereafter.
Verse 65
And, mention, the day when He will call to them and say, ‘What response did you give to those [messengers] who were sent?’, to you.
Verse 66
The tidings, the news of deliverance contained in the response, will be obscured to them on that day, in other words, they will not find any statement that might contain [hope of] deliverance for them; so they will not question one other, about this, and will fall silent.
Verse 67
But as for him who repents, of idolatry, and believes, in the affirmation of God’s Oneness, and acts righteously, he observes the duties [of religion], maybe he will be among the successful, those delivered according to God’s promise.
Verse 68
And your Lord creates whatever He will and chooses, whatever He will. They, the idolaters, do not have the choice, the right to choose anything. Glory be to God and exalted be He above what they associate, [above] their idolatry.
Verse 69
And your Lord knows what their breasts conceal, [what] their hearts keep secret of disbelief and otherwise, and what they proclaim, by their tongues of such things.
Verse 70
And He is God; there is no god except Him. To Him belongs [all] praise in the former, namely, the life of this world, and in the latter, Paradise. And to Him belongs the judgement, the decree effective in [the case of] all things, and to Him you will be returned, through resurrection.
Verse 71
Say, to the people of Mecca: ‘Have you considered, in other words, inform Me: if God were to make the night everlasting over you until the Day of Resurrection, what god other than God, as you [are wont to] claim, could bring you light?, daylight [hours] during which you could earn [a living]. Will you not then listen?’, to this in a way so as to understand it and so repent of your idolatry.
Verse 72
Say, to them: ‘Have you considered, if God were to make the day everlasting over you until the Day of Resurrection, what god other than God, as you [are wont to] claim, could bring you night wherein you rest?, from [any] weariness. Will you not then see?, the error you are upon when you ascribe partners [to God], and so repent of it.
Verse 73
And of His mercy, exalted be He, He has made for you night and day, that you may rest therein, in the night, and that you may seek, in the day, of His bounty, to earn [your livelihood], that perhaps you might give thanks’, for the grace [of God] during both of these [times].
Verse 74
And, mention, the day when He will call to them and say, ‘Where [now] are My associates those whom you used to claim?’ — this is mentioned again in order to expound upon it:
Verse 75
And We shall draw, bring forth, from every community a witness, and this will be their prophet, who will bear witness against what they say, and We shall say, to them: ‘Produce your evidence’, for [the justification of] the idolatry which you asserted. Then they will know that the right, to divineness, is God’s — none share it with Him. And that which they used to invent, in this world, of His having an associate, exalted be He [high] above such [associations], will fail them.
Verse 76
Indeed Korah belonged to the people of Moses — [being] his paternal and maternal cousin, and he had believed in him [in Moses] — but he became insolent towards them, through [his] disdain, haughtiness and great wealth. For We had given him so many treasures that [the number of] their keys would verily have burdened a group of strong men, in other words, they would have been too heavy for such [men] (the bā’ of [bi’l-‘usbati, ‘a group’] is to render transitive [the intransitive] verb); the number of such [men required] is estimated to be 70, 40 or 10; other estimates are also given. Mention, when his people, the believers among the Children of Israel, said to him, ‘Do not be exultant, in [your] great wealth, an exultation of insolence; truly God does not love the exultant, in such [things];
Verse 77
but seek, in that which God has given you, of wealth, the Abode of the Hereafter, by expending it in obedience to God, and do not forget your share of this world, that is, [do not forget] to strive in it for the sake of the Hereafter; and be good, to people, by [giving] voluntary alms, just as God has been good to you. And do not seek to cause corruption in the earth, by committing acts of disobedience. Surely God does not love the agents of corruption’, meaning that He will punish them.
Verse 78
He said, ‘In fact I have been given it, that is, [this] wealth, because of knowledge I possess’, in other words, in return for it — he was the most knowledgeable of the Children of Israel in the Torah, after Moses and Aaron. God, exalted be He, says: Does he not know that God had already destroyed before him generations, communities, of men stronger than him in might and greater in the amassing?, of wealth; in other words, he does know this. And God destroys them, and the guilty will not be questioned about their sins, because of God’s knowledge of these [sins], and so they will be admitted into the Fire without a reckoning.
Verse 79
So he, Korah, emerged before his people in his finery, with his large retinue [all of them] in procession dressed in gold and silk garments and mounted on adorned horses and mules. Those who desired the life of this world said, ‘O (yā is for drawing attention) would that we had the like of what Korah has been given, this world. Truly he enjoys great fortune’, abundant [fortune] in it.
Verse 80
But those to whom knowledge had been given, [knowledge] of what God had promised in the Hereafter, said, to them: ‘Woe to you! (waylakum, is an expression of reprimand) God’s reward, of Paradise in the Hereafter, is better for him who believes and acts righteously, than what Korah has been given in this world; and none will obtain it, namely, the Paradise that is given as a reward, except those who are steadfast’, in [their adherence to] obedience and [refrain] from disobedience.
Verse 81
So We caused the earth to swallow him, Korah, and his dwelling, and he had no host to help him besides God, that is, other than Him, to protect him from destruction, nor was he of those who can rescue themselves, from it.
Verse 82
And those who had longed to be in his place the day before, that is, only recently, were saying, ‘Alas! God expands provision for whomever He will of His servants and straitens [it], He restricts it for whomever He will (way-ka’anna: way is a noun of action, with the sense of ‘How astonished I am’, while the kāf functions as a [causative] lām, ‘because’). Had God not been gracious to us, He would have made us to be swallowed too’ (read active la-khasafa, or passive la-khusifa). Lo! indeed those who are ungrateful, for God’s grace, such as Korah, never prosper.
Verse 83
That is the Abode of the Hereafter, namely, Paradise, which We shall grant to those who do not desire to be haughty in the earth, through insolence, nor [to cause] corruption, by committing acts of disobedience. And the, praiseworthy, sequel will be for those who fear, God’s punishment, by performing deeds of obedience.
Verse 84
Whoever brings a good deed shall have better than it, as a reward, because of it, and this will be the like of it tenfold; while whoever brings an evil deed, those who commit evil deeds shall only be requited, the requital, for what they used to do, in other words, [only] the like of it.
Verse 85
Indeed He Who has prescribed for you the Qur’ān, [He Who] has revealed it, will surely restore you to a place of return, to Mecca — he had yearned for it. Say: ‘My Lord knows best him who brings guidance and him who is in manifest error’ — this was revealed in order to refute what the Meccan disbelievers had said to him: ‘Indeed, you are error’. In other words [God is saying that] he [the Prophet] is the one who has brought guidance, while they are the ones in error.
Verse 86
And you never expected that the Scripture, the Qur’ān, would be conferred on you; but it was, conferred on you, as a mercy from your Lord. So never be a supporter of the disbelievers, in that religion of theirs to which they summon you.
Verse 87
And never let them bar you (yasuddunnaka is actually yasuddūnannaka, but the nūn of the indicative [ending] has been omitted because of the apocopating particle [lā], as has the wāw of the [third person plural] subject of the verb because of its coming together with an unvocalised nūn) from God’s signs after they have been revealed to you, in other words, do not consult with them in such [matters], and summon, people, to your Lord, by affirming His Oneness and worshipping Him, and never be of the idolaters, by supporting them (lā takūnanna: the apocopating particle does not affect the [ending of the] verb here because of its invariability).
Verse 88
And do not call on, [do not] worship, another god with God; there is no god except Him. Everything will perish except His Countenance, except Him. His is the judgement, the effective decree, and to Him you will be brought back, by being raised from the grave.
Verse 1
Alif lām mīm: God knows best what He means by these [letters].
Verse 2
Do people suppose that they will be left to say, that is, [that they will be left alone] because of their saying, ‘We believe’, and they will not be tried?, tested with that which will reveal the sincerity of their belief. This [verse] was revealed regarding a group of individuals who when they became believers endured suffering at the hands of the idolaters.
Verse 3
And certainly We tried those who were before them. So God shall surely know those who are sincere, in their faith — a knowledge of direct vision — and He shall surely know those who are liars, regarding it.
Verse 4
Or do those who commit evil deeds, idolatry and acts of disobedience, suppose that they can elude Us?, so that We will not be able to requite them. Evil is that, judgement of theirs, which they judge!
Verse 5
Whoever expects to encounter God, [should know that] God’s [appointed] term, for this [encounter], will indeed come; so let him prepare for it. And He is the Hearer, of the sayings of His servants, the Knower, of their actions.
Verse 6
And whoever struggles, in war or against [the temptations of] his own soul, struggles only for his own sake, because the benefits [to be reaped] from his struggle will be for his sake and not for God’s. For truly God is Independent of [the creatures of] all the Worlds, mankind, jinn and angels, and [He is also without need] of their worship.
Verse 7
And those who believe and perform righteous deeds, We will surely absolve them of their misdeeds, by their performance of righteous deeds, and We will indeed requite them with the best of what they used to do, namely, their righteous deeds (it [ahsana] is in the accusative because the operator of the oblique [bi] has been omitted).
Verse 8
And We have enjoined on man kindness to his parents, that he should be dutiful towards them; but if they urge you to ascribe to Me as partner that of which you do not have any knowledge, [any knowledge] that accords with reality, and so is meaningless, then do not obey them, in [such incitements to] idolatry. To Me will be your return whereat I will inform you of what you used to do, and I will requite you for it.
Verse 9
And those who believe and perform righteous deeds, assuredly We shall admit them among the righteous, [among] the prophets and the saints, by gathering in the company of one another [at the Resurrection].
Verse 10
And among people there are those who say, ‘We believe in God’, but if such [a person] suffers hurt in God’s cause, he takes people’s persecution, that is, their harming of him, to be [the same] as God’s chastisement, in terms of his fear of it, and so he obeys them and behaves hypocritically. Yet if (la-in: the lām is for oaths) there comes help, to believers, from your Lord, and they take spoils, they will assuredly say (la-yaqūlunna: the [final] nūn [of the indicative] has been omitted because of the other nūn coming after it, and likewise the wāw, indicating the plural person [has been replaced by a damma], because of two unvocalised consonants coming together), ‘We were indeed with you’, in faith, so give us a share of the booty. God, exalted be He, says: Does God not know best what is in the breasts of all creatures?, [what is] in their hearts of faith or hypocrisy? Indeed [He does].
Verse 11
And God shall surely ascertain those who believe, in their hearts, and He shall surely ascertain the hypocrites, and He will requite each group accordingly (the lām in both verbs [la-ya‘lamanna, ‘He shall ascertain’] is for oaths).
Verse 12
And those who disbelieve say to those who believe, ‘Follow our path, our religion, and we will bear [responsibility for] your sins’, when you follow us, should there be any [such sins] (the imperative here functions as a predicate). God, exalted be He, says: But they will not [be able to] bear anything of their sins. Truly they are liars, in [saying] this.
Verse 13
And they shall certainly bear their [own] burdens, their sins, and other burdens along with their [own] burdens, [as punishment] for saying to believers: Follow our path [previous verse] and for their leading astray those who follow them [blindly]; and on the Day of Resurrection they shall surely be questioned concerning what they used to invent, [what] they used to fabricate of lies against God, a questioning of rebuke (the lām in both verbs [la-yahmilunna and la-yus’alunna] is for oaths; in both [verbs] the [plural] indicators of the subject, wāw and nūn [-ūna], have been omitted).
Verse 14
And verily We sent Noah to his people, when he was forty years of age or older, and he remained among them a thousand-less-fifty years, calling them to affirm God’s Oneness, but they denied him; so the Flood engulfed them, a deluge of water drifted against them, rising above them and drowning them, for they were wrongdoers, idolaters.
Verse 15
Then We delivered him, namely, Noah, and the occupants of the ship, those who were with him in it, and We made this a sign, a lesson, for all peoples, for [all] peoples that would come after them, should they disobey the messengers sent to them. Noah lived for a further sixty years or more after the Flood, until mankind multiplied [again].
Verse 16
And, mention, Abraham, when he said to his people, ‘Worship God and fear Him, fear His punishment; that is better for you, than the worship of idols which you practice, if you only knew, what is good from what is otherwise.
Verse 17
What you worship besides God, that is, other than Him, are only graven images and you fabricate a calumny, you speak lies [such as]: ‘[These] graven images are God’s partners’. Truly those whom you worship besides God have no power to provide for you. So seek your provision from God, request it from Him, and worship Him, and be thankful to Him; to Him you shall be returned.
Verse 18
But if you deny, that is, if you deny me, O people of Mecca, then [many] communities have denied before you, that is, before my time; and the messenger’s duty is only to communicate [the Message] clearly’. Both stories are meant to comfort the Prophet (s). And regarding his people, God, exalted be He, says:
Verse 19
Have they not seen (yaraw, or taraw, ‘have you not seen?’), observed, how God originates creation (yubdi’u, from [4th form] abda’a; a variant reading has yabda‘u from [1st form] bada’a, both with the same meaning: ‘He creates them originally’) then, He, restores it, namely, creation, just as He originated them? Surely that, which is mentioned of the first and the second [acts of] creation, is easy for God, so how can they deny the second one?
Verse 20
Say: ‘Travel in the land and observe how He originated creation, of those before you, and [how He] made them die. Then God shall bring about the other genesis (al-nashā’a, or al-nash’a). Truly God has power over all things, among them the origination [of creation] and the restoration [thereof].
Verse 21
He chastises whomever He will, to chastise, and has mercy on whomever He will, to have mercy, and to Him you shall be returned.
Verse 22
And you will never be able to thwart [Him], your Lord [and prevent Him] from catching up with you, on earth, or in the heaven, were you to be in it, in other words, you cannot elude Him; and you do not have besides God, that is, other than Him, any guardian, to defend you against Him, or any helper, to help you [escape] from His chastisement.
Verse 23
And those who disbelieve in God’s signs and the encounter with Him, namely, the Qur’ān and the Resurrection [respectively], they have despaired of My mercy, that is, [of attaining] My Paradise, and for those there shall be a painful chastisement.
Verse 24
God, exalted be He, says with regard to the tale of Abraham, peace be upon him: But the only answer of his people was that they said, ‘Slay him, or burn him!’ Then God delivered him from the fire, into which they threw him, by making it cool and harmless for him. Surely in that, namely, [in that] deliverance of him from it, there are signs — namely, the fact that it did not have any affect on him despite its greatness, and the fact that it was extinguished and that within a brief period meadows sprung up in its place — for a people who believe, [a people who] affirm the truth of God’s Oneness and His power, for they are the ones to benefit from these [signs].
Verse 25
And he, Abraham, said: ‘You have adopted mere idols besides God, which you worship (mā [of innamā] relates to the verbal noun) for the sake of [mutual] affection between you (mawaddatu baynikum: this is the predicate of inna [of innamā]; the accusative reading [mawaddata baynikum] would denote a direct object denoting reason, so that the mā would denote ‘entirety’) — in other words, you are friends of one another in your worship of them, in the life of this world. Then on the Day of Resurrection you will disown one another, the leaders will dissociate from those who followed [them]; and you will curse one another, those who followed will curse their leaders; and your abode, your destination all together, will be the Fire, and you will have no helpers’, to protect you against it.
Verse 26
And Lot believed in him, he affirmed the sincerity of Abraham, and he was his [paternal] nephew, from his brother Hārān, and he, Abraham, said, ‘Indeed I am migrating, away from my people, toward my Lord, to where my Lord commands. So he shunned his people and emigrated from the rural lands of Iraq to Syria. Indeed He is the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise’, in what He does.
Verse 27
And We gave him, after Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob, after Isaac; and We ordained among his descendants prophethood, thus all prophets after Abraham are descended from him, and the Scripture, meaning, the [Holy] Books, the Torah, the Gospels, the Psalms and the Criterion (al-furqān). And We gave him his reward in this world, which is fair praise [of him] by members of all the [Abrahamic] religions. And in the Hereafter he shall truly be among the righteous, for whom there shall be the highest degrees [of reward].
Verse 28
And, mention, Lot, when he said to his people ‘Truly you (read a-innakum, pronouncing both hamzas, or not pronouncing the second and inserting an alif between the two in either case and in both instances) commit lewdness, namely, [coming in unto] the rears of men, such as none in [all] the worlds, of jinn or men, has committed before you.
Verse 29
What! Do you come unto men, and cut off the way, the [travel] roads of passers-by, committing lewd acts with whoever passes your way, such that people ceased to pass by [where] you [live], and you discuss in your gatherings, in your conversations, indecency?’, [you discuss] committing lewd acts with one another. But the only answer of his people was that they said, ‘Bring us the chastisement of God, if you are truthful’, in your deeming such [acts] vile and that chastisement will befall those who do such things.
Verse 30
He said, ‘My Lord, help me, by making that of which I spoke come true regarding the sending down of chastisement, against the people who work corruption’, those who are disobedient, by coming unto men. So God answered his call.
Verse 31
And when Our messengers came to Abraham with the good tidings, of Isaac and Jacob after him, they said, ‘We shall assuredly destroy the people of this town, namely, the town of Lot, for truly its people are evildoers’, disbelievers.
Verse 32
He, Abraham, said, ‘Lo! Lot is in it.’ They, namely, the messengers, said, ‘We know very well who is in it. Assuredly We shall deliver him (read la-nunjiyannahu or la-nunajjiyannahu) and his family, except his wife: she is of those who will stay behind’, [of those] who will remain behind in the chastisement.
Verse 33
And when Our messengers came to Lot, he was distressed on their account, he was grieved because of them, and he was constrained [unable] to help them, because they had handsome faces, dressed as guests, and thus he feared for them from his people. So they informed him that they were the messengers of his Lord. But they said, ‘Do not be afraid, nor grieve. We shall surely deliver you (read munajjūka or munjūka) and your family, except your wife: she is of those who will remain behind (ahlaka, ‘your family’, is in the accusative as a supplement to the [suffixed direct object pronoun] kāf [of munajjūka, ‘We shall surely deliver you’]).
Verse 34
We are indeed going to bring down (read munzilūna or munazzilūna) upon the people of this town a scourge, a chastisement, from the heaven because of, on account of the acts of, their immorality’.
Verse 35
And verily We have left of that a clear sign, a manifest one — namely, the remains of its [the town’s] ruins — for a people who understand, [a people who] reflect.
Verse 36
And, We sent, to Midian, their brother Shu‘ayb. He said, ‘O my people! Worship God and anticipate the Last Day, fear it, namely, the Day of Resurrection; and do not be degenerate in the earth, working corruption’ (mufsidīna is a circumstantial qualifier, emphasising its operator [wa-lā ta‘thaw, ‘do not be degenerate’]; it [the verb] derives from ‘athiya, meaning afsada, ‘he corrupted’).
Verse 37
But they denied him, and so the earthquake, the violent tremor, seized them, and they ended up lying lifeless prostrate in their habitations, keeled over their knees, dead.
Verse 38
And, We destroyed, ‘Ād, and Thamūd (may be fully declined, or not [as diptotes], denoting both the district or the tribe [respectively])— it is indeed evident to you, their destruction, from their [former] dwellings, in al-Hijr and in Yemen. For Satan adorned for them their deeds, of disbelief and disobedience, and thus barred them from the Way, the way of truth, though they had been discerning, perceptive people.
Verse 39
And, We destroyed, Korah, and Pharaoh, and Hāmān! And verily Moses brought them, beforehand, clear signs, manifest proofs, but they acted arrogantly in the land; and they could not thwart Us, they could not elude Our chastisement.
Verse 40
So each, of those mentioned, We seized for his sin; and among them were some upon whom We unleashed a squall of stones, as in the case of the people of Lot, and among them were some who were seized by the Cry, such as Thamūd, and among them were some whom We made the earth swallow, such as Korah, and among them were some whom We drowned, like the people of Noah, Pharaoh and his people. And God never wronged them, by chastising them for [having committed] no sin, but they wronged themselves, by committing sins.
Verse 41
The likeness of those who choose besides God [other] patrons, namely, idols, from whom they hope to profit, is as the likeness of the spider that makes a home, for itself in which to shelter. And truly the frailest, the weakest, of homes is the home of the spider, for it neither protects it from heat nor cold — likewise, idols cannot benefit those who worship them — if they only knew, this, they would not worship them.
Verse 42
Truly God knows whatever thing (mā functions like alladhī) they call on, [what] they worship (read yad‘ūna, ‘they call on’, or tad‘ūna, ‘you call on’) besides Him, other than Him. And He is the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise, in what He does.
Verse 43
And such similitudes, in the Qur’ān, We strike them, We coin them, for [the sake of] mankind; but none understands them, [none] grasp them, except those who know, those who reflect.
Verse 44
God created the heavens and the earth with truth, that is, rightly. Surely in that there is a sign, indicating His power, exalted be He, for believers — they are specifically mentioned because they are the ones to benefit thereby in their faith, in contrast to disbelievers.
Verse 45
Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book, the Qur’ān, and maintain prayer; truly prayer prohibits lewd acts and indecency, [defined as such] according to the Law. In other words, that is its purpose provided that the person adheres to [observance of] it. And the remembrance of God is surely greater, than other acts of obedience, and God knows what you do, and He will requite you for them.