In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful
Extract from QUR’AANIC
STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir PART I:
138. Sibghata Allahi waman ahsanu
mina Allahi sibghatan
wanahnu lahu AAabidoona
2:138. Allah has done the
painting! 208 And who could be better than Allah in painting? And
worship Him, we209 do!
208.
Allah has done – and is, in fact, continuously re-doing – the painting on His
infinitely vast canvas stretching the entire Universe. We, the creatures, are
of course unable to see the full picture. But whatever parts of it we can see
make us marvel at the exquisite mingling of colours to produce the
breath-takingly beautiful pictures of natural sceneries. No human artist can
ever hope to come even remotely near the perfection divinely executed. Our
heads ought to automatically bow in recognition of and in utter submission to
the Great,
Inimitable Artist.
209. And who could the pronoun 'we' here, stand for?
The context of this Verse and the preceding one, suggests that it is the Angels
conveying the Qur'aanic Verses that 'we' refers to here. It is the Angels, moreover,
who can have a better view of the infinitely large divine Painting than we,
humans, and therefore can appreciate its grandeur, better. It is this better
appreciation that makes them sincerely worship Allah.
Friday, the 28th
of June 2019.
