Righteousness

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Excerpt from Chapter 3 of QUR’ AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir:

92. Lan tanaloo albirra hatta tunfiqoo mimma tuhibboona wama tunfiqoo min shay-in fa-inna Allaha bihi AAaleemun

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92. Never shall you attain to righteousness unless you spend from what you love. And Allah is indeed aware of anything you spend.^{105 to 107}

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105. Man loves wealth. He thinks it could bring him comfort in this worldly life. His thoughts do not go beyond, to the life in the Hereafter. But Islam teaches him that this worldly life is temporary and only a test; it is the everlasting life in the Hereafter that really matters. And the Verse 92 here tells us that unless we overcome our love of wealth by spending from it, we cannot be righteous enough to deserve comfortable lives in the Hereafter.

106. We can of course incur necessary expenses, from our own wealth, on our own selves. But we cannot waste the wealth on our own selves beyond our genuine needs. Allah would be aware of it, if and when we do it. And Verse 2:215 tells us on whose genuine needs to spend our wealth that is in excess of our own individual needs.

107. Man loves other things also, besides wealth. He loves his spouse and children, for example. Verse 92 here could be extended in its implications to cover these other objects of love too. Our love for our own children, for instance, should not come in our way of standing firmly for justice in any matter involving them.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 29^th December 2017.

Promoting Shirk

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Promoting Shirk

Excerpt from Chapter 3 of QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir:

78. Wa-inna minhum lafareeqan yalwoona alsinatahum bialkitabi litahsaboohu mina alkitabi wama huwa mina alkitabi wayaqooloona huwa min AAindi Allahi wama huwa min AAindi Allahi wayaqooloona AAala Allahi alkathiba wahum yaAAlamoona

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78. And, indeed, there is among them a section who so twist their tongues with the Book that you may think it is from the Book, and it is not from the Book. And they say it is from Allah and it is not from Allah. And they knowingly utter a lie about Allah.⁹³

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93. This Verse might well have been revealed in the perspective of the Jews and the Christians trying then to change the contents of the revealed Books with them. But, in our present-day perspective, we need not get concerned with what those people did then. The Qur'aan is valid for all times. Let us therefore look at this Verse in our own perspective. And let us first look to what we ourselves do with our own Qur'aan, before looking to what the Jews and the Christians are doing with their Books. We are fortunate, by Allah's Grace, that the Arabic text of the Qur'aan is divinely protected. But Arabic is not known to all the Muslims. In fact, a majority from among them do not know Arabic; nor are any sincere efforts made to make Arabic a compulsory subject for all Muslims to learn, all over the world. In this scenario, Satan has manoeuvred the majority Muslim mind into thinking that it is enough for them to learn just to read the Qur'aan. It is indeed a satanic handiwork to delude the intelligence of the Muslim mind against the imperative need to understand what one reads from the Qur'aan. The Moulvis and the Mullahs have, in the circumstances, become the Arbaab (Lords), besides the One Lord, of the common Muslims. For, they (the common Muslims) literally gulp down what their religious leaders tell them, right or wrong. And the Moulvis and Mullahs, many of them semi-literates themselves, often give the commoners a wrong picture of Islam. Besides, in the translations & commentaries of the Qur'aan in other languages, not only do human mistakes creep in inadvertently, but deviations are advertently made to cater to views promoting shirk.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 22^nd December 2017.

Divine Punishment

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Excerpt from Chapter 3 of QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir:

56. FapaImma allatheena kafaroo faoAAaththibuhum AAathaban shadeedan fee alddunyta waal-akhirati wama lahum min nasireena

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56. "So I punish, with severe punishment in this world and the Hereafter, ⁷¹ those who suppress the Truth. And they shall have none to help them."

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71. Had the preposition fee (in) been used also before akhirati (Hereafter), then it would have meant that the severe punishment would be given both here and in the Hereafter. But the construction of the phrase here, – treating 'here and the hereafter' as one unit in relation to the prefix 'in' – indicates that some suppressors of the Truth may not be subjected to the severe punishment, in this world. Suppressors of the Truth, as the Qur'aan repeatedly says, are bound to be punished severely in the Hereafter. And incorrigible suppressors of the Truth like the people of Noah and the people of Lot are known to have suffered severe punishment in this world also.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 15^th of December 2017.

Lord of the Easts

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Excerpt from Chapter 37 of QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir:

5. Rabbu alssamawati waal-ardi wama baynahuma warabbu almashariqi

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5. (And the One Whom you should worship is the) Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is in between, and Lord of the easts! ²

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2. The Sun has many planets other than the earth. All these planets have rotational movements around their respective axes. So, like the earth, these other planets have their respective easts. Besides, there are innumerable stars out there in the vast cosmos. And these stars, like our own Sun, may also have their respective planets revolving and rotating around them. All these planets should therefore be having their own respective easts. ‘Lord of the easts’ is Lord of all these innumerable planets. The planets are of course included in the Arabic expression wama baynahuma contained in the earlier part of this Verse, but by mentioning ‘easts’ Allah Ta’ala has brought to light the factual positions of the planets, orbiting the Sun and other stars that were unknown to mankind at the time the Qur’aan was revealed. [The people then thought that the Sun moved round the earth.] This also shows the need for interpreting Qur’aanic Verses in the light of knowledge gained by mankind from time to time. Those who advocate sticking to the interpretation at the time of revelation are advocates of stagnation.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 8^th of December 2017.