To You What You Earn

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Extract from Chapter 2 of QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir, discussing implications of a Qur’aanic Verse immediately following a narrative about Children of Israel:

134. Tilka ommatun qad khalat laha ma kasabat walakum ma kasabtum wala tus-aloona AAamma kano yaAAmaloona

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134. That was a community, now dead and gone! To it what it earned, and to you what you have earned. And you shall not be questioned on what they did! ¹⁹⁹

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199. Important implications of this divine statement are:

·         Divine assessment of people would not be based on the performance of their forefathers, but on what they themselves do individually.

·         No one can claim to be one of God's chosen people, and hence exempt from assessment of one's own performance.

·          We need not just ape what the Islamic religious scholars in the past said and did! For, we shall not be questioned on what they said or did. But we shall certainly be questioned on what we do in compliance of the divine commands contained in the divinely preserved Qur'aan.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 26^th of May 2017.