37. As-Saffat

Regarding the adjurative particle wa and my rendering it as "Consider", see first half of note 23 on 74:32. Most of the classical commentators assume that verses 1-3 refer to angels - an assumption which Abu Muslim al-Isfahani (as quoted by Razi) rejects, stating that the passage refers to the true believers among human beings. However, Razi advances yet another (and, to my mind, most convincing) interpretation, suggesting that what is meant here are the messages (ayat) of the Qur'an, which - in the commentator's words - "deal with various subjects, some speaking of the evidence of God's oneness or of the evidence of His omniscience, omnipotence and wisdom, and some setting forth the evidence of [the truth of] prophetic revelation or of resurrection, while some deal with man's duties and the laws [relating thereto], and yet others are devoted to the teaching of high moral principles; and these messages are arranged in accordance with a coherent system above all [need of] change or alteration, so that they resemble beings or things standing 'in serried ranks'."

Sc., "and of sun set" (cf. 55:17 and the corresponding note 7). The stress on the various "points of sunrise" (al-mashariq) brings out the endless variety of all created phenomena as contrasted with the oneness and uniqueness of their Creator. The mention of "the points of sunrise" and omission of "the points of sunset" in the wording (though not in the meaning) of the above phrase alludes, I believe, to the light-giving quality of the Qur'an spoken of in verses 1-3.

For an explanation of this passage, see note 16 on 15:17.

I.e., the angelic forces, whose "speech" is a metonym for God's decrees.

Lit., "excepting [or "except that"] anyone who ...", etc. However, as pointed out by some authorities (e.g., Mughni), the particle illa is occasionally synonymous with the simple conjunction wa, which in this case has the significance of "but".

For the meaning of this phrase, see note 17 on 15:18. After the stress on God's oneness in verses 4-5, the passage comprising verses 6-l0 points to the fact that human beings are precluded from really grasping the variety and depth of the universe created by Him. We have here an echo of 34:9 - "Are they, then, not aware of how little of the sky and the earth lies open before them, and how much is hidden from them?" and, thus, a new, oblique approach to the theme of resurrection, which is taken up in the sequence in the form of an indirect question.

I.e., out of primitive substances existing in their elementary forms in and on the earth (see surah 23, note 4) substances which are as nothing when compared with the complexity of "the heavens and the earth and all that is between them": hence, man's individual resurrection is as nothing when compared with the creation of the multiform universe.

I.e., at God's creative power as well as at the blind arrogance of those who deny it.

See note 6 on 77:13.

According to almost all of the earliest authorities - including 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, 'Abd Allah ibn 'Abbas, Qatadah, Mujahid, As-Suddi, Sa'id ibn Jubayr, Al-Hasan al-Basri, etc., - the expression azwaj denotes here "people resembling one another (in their dispositions)", or "people of the same kind" or "of the same ilk".

Cf. the contrasting - though verbally identical - passage in verses 50 ff. of the present surah. Whereas in the latter instance the verb yatasa'alun has its primary connotation of "asking one another [about something)", it signifies here "demanding [something) of one another" - as the sequence shows, to assume responsibility for their erstwhile denial of the truth.

I.e., "claiming that what you were asking us to do was right and good". The idiomatic phrase approaching one from the right" is more or less synonympus with "pretending to give a morally good advice", as well as "approaching another person from a position of power and influence" (Zamakhshari).

For an explanation see 28:62-64 and the corresponding notes.

Lit., "for [or "for the sake of") a mad poet" - thus alluding to the allegation that the Qur'an is a product of Muhammad's mind (see note 38 on 36:69). The reference to "deities" comprises, in this context, everything that man may "worship" in both the literal and the metaphorical senses of this word.

See surah 2, note 5. It is to be borne in mind that this refers to the fundamental teachings, which have always been the same in every true religion, and not to the many time-bound laws evident in the earlier religious codes.

Lit., "sincere servants". In contrast to the principle that "a bad deed will be requited with no more than the like thereof", implied in the preceding verse, the Qur'an states here that he who "shall come [before God] with a good deed will receive ten times the like thereof" (see 6:160).

Lit., "a known sustenance". For a tentative explanation of this phrase, see note 17 on 2:25.

For my occasional rendering of the plural noun surur as "thrones of happiness", see note 34 on 15:47.

See note 46 on 38:52, where the expression qasirat at-tarf (lit., "such as restrain their gaze") appears for the first time in the chronology of Qur'anic revelation.

This is an ancient Arabian figure of speech derived from the habit of the female ostrich, which buries its eggs in the sand for protection (Zamakhshari). Its particular application to the women who attain to paradise becomes clear from 56:34 ff., which states that all righteous women, irrespective of their age and condition at the time of death, will be resurrected as beautiful maidens.

Cf. verse 27 above and the corresponding note 11. Like the mutual reproaches of the sinners in that passage, the "conversation" of the blessed which follows here is, of course, allegorical, and is meant to stress the continuity of individual consciousness in the hereafter.

According to the lexicographers, the noun zaqqam (which occurs, apart from the present instance, in 44:43 and in 56:52 as well) denotes any "deadly food"; hence, the expression shajarat az-zaqqum, a symbol of hell, may be appropriately rendered as "the tree of deadly fruit" (undoubtedly identical with "the tree cursed in this Qur'an", mentioned in 17:60), symbolizing the fact that the otherworldly sufferings which the Qur'an describes as "hell" are but the fruit - i.e., organic consequence - of one's evil deeds done on earth.

It cannot be often enough repeated that all Qur'anic references to hell and paradise - and, for that matter, all descriptions of men's conditions in the hereafter - are, of necessity, highly allegorical (see Appendix I) and therefore liable to be grossly misunderstood if one takes them in their literal sense or, conversely, interprets them in an arbitrary manner (cf. 3:7 and the corresponding notes 5, 7 and 8): and this, to my mind, explains why the symbol of the "tree of deadly fruit" - one of the metonyms for the suffering of the sinners in the hereafter - has become "a trial (fitnah) for evildoers" (or "for men" in 17:60). See in this connection 74:31, which is the earliest Qur'anic instance of this concept of "trial".

According to Zamakhshari, "this purely verbal metaphor (isti'arah lafziyyah) is meant to express the ultimate in repulsiveness and ugliness ... inasmuch as Satan is considered to be the epitome of all that is evil".

Lit., "and upon it, behold, they will have an admixture [or "confusion"] of hamim". (For my rendering of the last term as "burning despair", see surah 6, note 62.)

See surah 6, note 31.

I.e., blind imitation (taqlid) of the - obviously absurd - beliefs, valuations and customs of one's erring predecessors, and disregard of all evidence of the truth supplied by both reason and divine revelation, is here shown to be the principal cause of the suffering referred to in the preceding passage (Zamakhshari).

Sc., "and are, therefore, in need of prophetic guidance": which explains the subsequent mention of stories relating to several of the prophets. The story of Noah, which is briefly referred to here, appears in greater detail in 11:25-48.

I.e., the Deluge.

Lit., "and We left upon him", sc., "this praise or "remembrance", expressed in the salutation which follows.

Abraham's argument goes thus: "Do you believe in the existence of a Creator and Lord of the universe?" a question which his people were bound to answer in the affirmative, since belief in a Supreme Deity was an integral part of their religion. The next stage of the argument would be: "How, then, can you worship idols - the work of your own hands - side by side with the idea of a Creator of the universe?"

Obviously an allusion to his early, futile attempts at identifying God with the stars, the sun or the moon (see 6:76-78).

Sc., "at your worshipping idols instead of God" (Ibn Kathir; cf. also Lane IV, 1384).

A metonym for "with all his strength". For what happened afterwards, see 21:58 ff.

Lit., "a building" or "a structure".

See surah 21, note 64.

Lit., "I shall go to my Sustainer: He will guide me."

I.e., Abraham's first-born son, Ishmael (Isma'il).

Lit., "attained to [the age of] walking [or "striving"] with him": evidently a metonym for the child's attaining to an age when he could understand, and share in, his father's faith and aims.

The above interpolation is, I believe, absolutely necessary for a proper understanding of this passage. As pointed out repeatedly in these notes, the verb aslama signifies, in Qur'anic usage, "he surrendered himself to God", or "to God's will", even if there is no express mention of God; hence, the dual form aslama occurring in the above verse might, on the face of it, have this meaning as well. Since, however, the sequence clearly shows that it was not God's will that Ishmael should be sacrificed, his and his father's "self-surrender to God's will" can have in this context only a purely subjective meaning- namely "to what they thought to be the will of God".

I.e., the moral significance of Abraham's dream-vision consisted in a test of his readiness to sacrifice, at what he thought to be God's behest (see preceding note), all that was dearest to him in life.

I.e., a trial of this severity clearly implied that Abraham would be capable to bear it, and thus constituted a high moral distinction - in itself a reward from God.

The epithet 'azim ("tremendous" or "mighty") renders it improbable that this sacrifice refers to nothing but the ram which Abraham subsequently found and slaughtered in Ishmael's stead (Genesis xxit, 13). To my mind, the sacrifice spoken of here is the one repeated every year by countless believers in connection with the pilgrimage to Mecca (al-hajj), which, in itself, commemorates the experience of Abraham and Ishmael and constitutes one of the "five pillars" of Islam. (See 22:27-37, as well as 2:196-203.)

See note 30 on verse 78.

I.e., commit evil. With this prediction the Qur'an refutes, as in so many other places, the spurious contention of the Jews that they are 'the chosen people" by virtue of their descent from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and therefore a priori 'assured", as it were, of God's acceptance. In other words, God's blessing a prophet or a saint does not, by itself, imply the conferment of any special status on his descendants.

I.e., in consideration of their own merit, and not because of their descent from Abraham and Isaac (see preceding verse and note).

I.e., "the Torah, wherein there was guidance and light ... unto those who followed the Jewish faith" (5:44).

The Hebrew prophet Elijah (Ilyas in Arabic) is mentioned in the Bible (I Kings xvii if. and 11 Kings i-ii) as having lived in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reigns of Ahab and Ahaziah - i.e., in the ninth century B.C. - and having been succeeded by Elisha (Al-Yasa in Arabic). The above stress on his, too, having been "one of the message-bearers" (min al-mursalin) recalls the Qur'anic principle that God makes "no distinction between any of His apostles" (cf. 2:136 and 285, 3:84, 4:152, and the corresponding notes).

As regards this rendering of ahsan al-khaliqin, see surah 23, note 6. - The term ba'l (conventionally spelt Baal in European languages) signified "lord" or "master" in all branches of ancient Arabic, including Hebrew and Phoenician; it was an honorific applied to every one of the many "male" deities worshipped by the ancient Semites, especially in Syria and Palestine. In the Old Testament this designation has sometimes the generic connotation of "idol-worship" - a sin into which, according to the Bible, the early Israelites often relapsed.

The form Il-Yasin in which this name appears in the above verse is either a variant of Ilyas (Elijah) or, more probably, a plural - "the Elijahs" - meaning "Elijah and his followers" (Tabari, Zamakhshari, et al). According to Tabari, 'Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud used to read this verse as "Peace be upon Idrasin", which, apart from giving us a variant or a plural of Idris ("Idris and his followers"), lends support to the view that Idris and Ilyas are but two designations of one and the same person, the Biblical Elijah. (See also note 41 on 19:56.)

See 7:8~84 and 11:69-83.

As is evident from 7:83 and 11:81, that woman was Lot's wife, who had chosen to stay behind (cf. note 66 on 7:83).

Lit., "you pass by them", i.e., by the places where they lived (see 15:76 and the corresponding note 55).

I.e., when he abandoned the mission with which he had been entrusted by God (see surah 21, note 83, which gives the first part of Jonah's story), and thus, in the words of the Bible (The Book of Jonah i, 3 and 10), committed the sin of "fleeing from the presence of the Lord". In its primary significance, the infinitive noun ibaq (derived from the verb abaqa) denotes "a slave's running-away from his master"; and Jonah is spoken of as having "fled like a runaway slave" because - although he was God's message-bearer - he abandoned his task under the stress of violent anger.

The subsequent mention of "the laden ship" alludes to the central, allegorical part of Jonah's story. The ship ran into a storm and was about to founder; and the mariners "said everyone to his fellow, Come and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us" (The Book of Jonah i, 7) a procedure to which Jonah agreed.

Lit., "he cast lots [with the mariner], and was among the losers". According to the Biblical account (The Book of Jonah i, 10-l5), Jonah told them that he had "fled from the presence of the Lord", and that it was because of this sin of his that they all were now in danger of drowning.

"And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea, so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this tempest is upon you .... So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging."

In all the three instances where Jonah's "great fish" is explicitly mentioned in the Qur'an (as al-hut in the above verse and in 68:48, and an-nun in 21:87), it carries the definite article al. This may possibly be due to the fact that the legend of Jonah was and is so widely known that every reference to the allegory of "the great fish" is presumed to be self-explanatory.

The inside of the fish that "swallowed" Jonah apparently symbolizes the deep darkness of spiritual distress of which 21:87 speaks: the distress at having "fled like a runaway slave" from his prophetic mission and, thus, "from the presence of the Lord". Parenthetically, the story is meant to show that, since "man has been created weak" (4:28), even prophets are not immune against all the failings inherent in human nature.

I.e., to remember God and to repent: see 21:87, which reveals in its very formulation the universal purport of Jonah's story.

I.e., to shade and comfort him. Thus, rounding off the allegory of Jonah and the fish, the Qur'an points out in the figurative manner so characteristic of its style that God, who can cause a plant to grow out of the most arid and barren soil, can equally well cause a heart lost in darkness to come back to light and spiritual life.

Cf. the reference to the people of Jonah in 10:98. For the Biblical version of this story, see The Book of Jonah iii.

Lit., "for a time": i.e., for the duration of their natural lives (Razi; also Manar XI, 483).

This reference to people who ascribe divinity to beings other than God connects with verse 4 ("verily, most surely, your God is One") as well as with verses 69-70 ("behold, they found their forebears on a wrong way, and [now] they make haste to follow in their footsteps").

For an explanation of this passage, see 16:57-59 and the corresponding notes.

Lit., "they".

Cf. 6:100 ("they have invented for Him sons and daughters") and the corresponding notes 87 and 88. See also note 49 on 17:40, as well as 53:19-22 and the corresponding notes.

Lit., "how do you judge?"

Lit., "they".

See Appendix III. Whereas most of the classical commentators are of the opinion that the term al-jinnah denotes here the angels, since they - like all beings of this category - are imperceptible to man's senses, I believe that the above verse refers to those intangible forces of nature which elude all direct observation and manifest themselves only in their effects: hence their designation, in this context, by the plural noun al-jinnah, which primarily denotes "that which is concealed from [man's] senses".

Inasmuch as people who refuse to believe in God often tend to regard those elemental forces as mysteriously endowed with a purposeful creative power (cf. Bergson's concept of the elan vital), the Qur'an states that their votaries invent a "kinship" between them and God, i.e., attribute to them qualities and powers similar to His.

For this metaphorical attribution of "knowledge" to the elemental forces of nature, see verses 164-166 and the corresponding note 71.

See note 88 on the last sentence of 6:100.

True belief in God precludes all temptation to define Him who is undefinable, or to associate, conceptually, anyone or anything with Him; conversely, the blasphemy inherent in such attempts destroys the potential value of one's belief in God and, thus, brings about the spiritual ruin of the person concerned.

The metaphorical "saying" that follows is in tune with many other Qur'anic passages which speak of even inanimate objects as "praising God", e.g., "The seven heavens extol His limitless glory, and the earth, and all that they contain" (17:44), or "We caused the mountains to join David in extolling Our glory" (21:79), or "O you mountains! Sing with him the praise of God!" (34:10); similarly, even the shadows of material things are spoken of as "prostrating themselves before God"'(16:48).

Lit., "a reminder (dhikr) from those of old": see note 27 on verses 69-70 above. Most of the commentators assume that the term dhikr connotes here, as so often in the Qur'an, a "divine writ". In my opinion, however, it is far more probable - because more in tune with the context - that in this case it signifies an ancestral tradition bearing on the (to them astonishing) message of God's oneness and uniqueness as promulgated by the Qur'an.

I.e., as people who are bent on deceiving themselves. In this context, the verb basura (lit., "he saw" or "became seeing") is used tropically, in the sense of "seeing mentally" or "gaining insight".

I.e., they will realize the truth as well as the suffering which its rejection entails: obviously a reference to the Day of Judgment.

This is an allusion to the sarcastic demand of the people who refused to regard the Qur'an as a divine revelation, to be punished forthwith "if this be indeed the truth from God" (see 8:32 and the corresponding note).

Lit., "when it alights in their courtyard, evil [or "hapless"] is the morning of those ...", etc. In ancient Arabic usage, the idiomatic phrase "chastisement [or "suffering"] has alighted (nazala) in so-and-so's courtyard" denotes its coming-down upon, or befalling, the person or persons concerned (Tabari). Similarly, the "morning" (sabah) is a metonym for "awakening".