Remembrance & Devotion

so remember Me, and I shall remember you; and be grateful unto Me, and deny Me not.

IT IS lawful for you to go in unto your wives during the night preceding the [day's] fast: they are as a garment for you, and you are as a garment for them. God is aware that you would have deprived yourselves of this right, and so He has turned unto you in His mercy and removed this hardship from you. Now, then, you may lie with them skin to skin, and avail yourselves of that which God has ordained for you, and eat and drink until you can discern the white streak of dawn against the blackness of night, and then resume fasting until nightfall; but do not lie with them skin to skin when you are about to abide in meditation in houses of worship. These are the bounds set by God: do not, then, offend against them - [for] it is thus that God makes clear His messages unto mankind, so that they might remain conscious of Him.

A divorce may be [revoked] twice, whereupon the marriage must either be resumed in fairness or dissolved in a goodly manner. And it is not lawful for you to take back anything of what you have ever given to your wives unless both [partners] have cause to fear that they may not be able to keep within the bounds set by God: hence, if you have cause to fear that the two may not be able to keep within the bounds set by God, there shall be no sin upon either of them for what the wife may give up [to her husband] in order to free herself. These are the bounds set by God; do not, then, transgress them: for they who transgress the bounds set by God it is they, they who are evildoers!

[But] they are not all alike: among the followers of earlier revelation there are upright people, who recite God's messages throughout the night, and prostrate themselves [before Him].

These are the bounds set by God. And whoever pays heed unto God and His Apostle, him will He bring into gardens through which running waters flow, therein to abide: and this is a triumph supreme.

And when you have finished your prayer, remember God - standing and sitting and lying down; and when you are once again secure, observe your prayers [fully]. Verily, for all believers prayer is indeed a sacred duty linked to particular times [of day].

Today, all the good things of life have been made lawful to you. And the food of those who have been vouchsafed revelation aforetime is lawful to you, and your food is lawful to them. And [lawful to you are], in wedlock, women from among those who believe [in this divine writ], and, in wedlock, women from among those who have been vouchsafed revelation before your time - provided that you give them their dowers, taking them in honest wedlock, not in fornication, nor as secret love-companions. But as for him who rejects belief [in God] - in vain will be all his works: for in the life to come he shall be among the lost.

O YOU who have attained to faith! Do not deprive yourselves of the good things of life which God has made lawful to you, but do not transgress the bounds of what is right: verily, God does not love those who transgress the bounds of what is right.

Thus, partake of the lawful, good things which God grants you as sustenance, and be conscious of God, in whom you believe.

Those who have attained to faith and do righteous deeds incur no sin by partaking of whatever they may, so long as they are conscious of God and [truly] believe and do righteous deeds, and continue to be conscious of God and to believe, and grow ever more 109 conscious of God, and persevere in doing good: for God loves the doers of good.

Say: "Who is there to forbid the beauty which God has brought forth for His creatures, and the good things from among the means of sustenance?" Say: "They are [lawful] in the life of this world unto all who have attained to faith - to be theirs alone on Resurrection Day." Thus clearly do We spell out these messages unto people of [innate] knowledge!

those who shall follow the [last] Apostle, the unlettered Prophet whom they shall find described in the Torah that is with them, and [later on] in the Gospel:124 [the Prophet] who will enjoin upon them the doing of what is right and forbid them the doing of what is wrong, and make lawful to them the good things of life and forbid them the bad things, and lift from them their burdens and the shackles that were upon them [aforetime]. Those, therefore, who shall believe in him, and honour him, and succour him, and follow the light that has been bestowed from on high through him - it is they that shall attain to a happy state." 115 The whole of verse 149 is a parenthetic clause (jumlah mu'taridah) referring to a later time for the repentance of the Israelites came after Moses' return from Mount Sinai, of which the next verse speaks. 116 Lit., "outrun". The expression "one has outrun a forsaken it" or "left it undone" (Zamakhshari). 117 Lit., "made me [or "deemed me"] utterly weak". Contrary to the Biblical account (Exodus xxxii, 1-5), the Qur'an does not accuse Aaron of having actually participated in making or worshipping the golden calf; his guilt consisted in having remained passive in the face of his people's idolatry for fear of causing a split among them (cf. 20:92-94). 118 Sc., "for my anger and my harshness" (Razi). 119 Throughout the Qur'an, this expression is used to describe (a) the attribution of divine qualities to any concrete or imaginary object or person, and (b) the making of false statements about God, His attributes, or the contents of His messages. In the above context it refers to any false imagery which deflects man from the worship of the One God. 120 Lit., "after'it". 121 According to the Bible (Exodus xxxii, 19), Moses broke the tablets when he threw them down in anger; the Qur'anic narrative, however, shows them as having remained intact. 122 Most of the commentators take rajfah to mean here "earthquake", as it evidently does in other places in the Qur'an (e.g., in verses 78 and 91 of this surah). However, it should be remembered that this noun denotes any "violent commotion" or "trembling", from whatever cause; and since there is no reason to suppose that in this context an earthquake is meant, we may assume that the violent trembling which seized the seventy elders was caused by their intense regret and fear of God's punishment. 123 Cf. 6:12 (and the corresponding note 10), as well as 6:54. 124 The interpolation of the words "later on" before the reference to the Gospel is necessitated by the fact that the whole of this passage is addressed to Moses and the children of Israel, that is, long before the Gospel (in the Qur'anic sense of this term - cf. surah 3, note 4) was revealed to Jesus. The stories of some of the earlier prophets given in this surah - beginning with the story of Noah and ending with that of Moses and the children of Israel - constitute a kind of introduction to this command to follow the "unlettered Prophet", Muhammad. The stress on his having been "unlettered" (ummi), i.e., unable to read and write, serves to bring out the fact that all his knowledge of the earlier prophets and of the messages transmitted by them was due to divine inspiration alone, and not to a familiarity with the Bible as such. For the Old Testament predictions of the advent of the Prophet Muhammad (especially in Deuteronomy xviii, 15 and 18), see surah 2, note 33; for the New Testament prophecies to the same effect, see 61:6 and the corresponding note 6. 125 A reference to the many severe rituals and obligations laid down in Mosaic Law, as well as to the tendency towards asceticism evident in the teachings of the Gospels. Thus the Qur'an implies that those "burdens and shackles", intended as means of spiritual discipline for particular communities and particular stages of man's development, will become unnecessary as soon as God's message to man shall have achieved its final, universal character in the teachings of the Last Prophet, Muhammad.

And bethink thyself of thy Sustainer humbly and with awe, and without raising thy voice, at morn and at evening; and do not allow thyself to be heedless.

Behold, those who are near unto thy Sustainer are never too proud to worship Him; and they extol His limitless glory, and prostrate themselves before Him [alone]. 165 The noun ta'if (also forthcoming in the forms tayf and tayyif denotes any ungraspable phantom, image or suggestion, as in a dream, or "an imperceptible obsession which obscures the mind" (Taj al-'Arus). Since, in the above context, it is described as coming from Satan, "a dark suggestion" seems to be an appropriate rendering. 166 I.e., by goading them to anger or trying to engage them in futile argument. "Their brethren" are those who wilfully remain ignorant of the truth (with the pronoun referring to the God-conscious). The conjunctive particle wa preceding this clause has here the meaning of "although" or "even though". 167 Sc., "if thou art really His apostle" (cf. 6 :37 and 109, and the corresponding notes). Some of the commentators assume that the term ayah - translated by me as "miracle" - denotes here a verbal "message" which would answer the objections of those who did not believe in the Prophet. Since, however, the continuous revelation of the Qur'an was full of such messages, the demand of the unbelievers must have related to some particular manifestation or "proof" of his divinelyinspired mission: namely, to a concrete miracle which would establish the truth of his claim in a supposedly "objective" manner. In its wider implication, the above verse relates to the primitive mentality of all who regard miracles, and not the message itself, as the only valid "proof" of prophethood. 168 Lit., "those who are with thy Sustainer": a metaphorical description of utter God-consciousness.

[The hypocrites among] the bedouin are more tenacious in [their] refusal to acknowledge the truth and in [their] hypocrisy [than are settled people], and more liable to ignore the ordinances which God has bestowed from on high upon His Apostle - but God is all-knowing, wise.

[It is a triumph of] those who turn [unto God] in repentance [whenever they have sinned], and who worship and praise [Him], and go on and on [seeking His goodly acceptance], and bow down [before Him] and prostrate themselves in adoration, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong, and keep to the bounds set by God. And give thou [O Prophet] the glad tiding [of God's promise] to all believers.

but extol thou thy Sustainer's limitless glory and praise Him, and be of those who prostrate themselves [before Him] in adoration,

HAVE, THEN, they [who deny the truth] never considered any of the things that God has created 54 - (how] their shadows turn right and left, prostrating themselves before God and utterly submissive [to His will]?

For, before God prostrates itself all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth - every beast that moves, and the angels:56 [even] these do not bear themselves with false pride:

AND SO, partake of all the lawful, good things which God has provided for you as sustenance, and render thanks unto God for His blessings, if it is [truly] Him that you worship.