Peace be upon you: yet they shall not enter therein, although they earnestly desire it. (48) And when they shall turn their eyes towards the companions of hell-fire, they say, O LORD, place us not with the ungodly people! || (49) And those who stand on Al Aráf shall call unto SULS. certain men, whom they shall know by their marks, and 6 R 13 shall say, What hath your gathering of riches availed you, and that you were puffed up with pride? (50) Are these the men on whom you swear that GOD would not bestow mercy? Enter ye into Paradise; there shall come no fear on you, neither shall ye be grieved. (51) And the inhabitants of hell-fire shall call unto the inhabitants of Paradise, saying,. Pour upon us some water, or of those refreshments which GOD hath bestowed on you. They shall answer, Verily GOD hath forbidden them unto the unbelievers, (52) who made a laughing-stock and a sport of their religion, and whom the life of the world hath deceived: therefore this day will we forget them, as they did forget the meeting of this day, and for that they denied our signs to be from God. (53) And now have we brought unto those of Makkah a book of divine revelations: we have explained it (49) Certain men. "The chiefs and ringleaders of the infidels" (Sale, Baidhawi), e.g., Walid Bin Mugháira, Abu Jahl, and Aas Bin Wail.-Tafsir-i-Raufi. (50) Are these the men, &c. The poorer believers, e.g., Bilál and Amár, &c., some of whom had been slaves. Enter ye. "These words are directed, by an apostrophe, to the poor and despised believers above mentioned. Some commentators, however, imagine these and the next preceding words are to be understood of those who will be confined in Al Aráf; and that the damned will, in return for their reproachful speech, swear that they shall never enter Paradise themselves; whereupon God of his mercy shall order them to be admitted by these words.”—Sale, Baidhúwí. (51-54) Compare this passage with the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke xvi. 19-26). (52) See notes on chap. vi. 69. (53) A book, i.e., the Qurán, spoken of here as a complete volume. Assuming the pre-existence of the Qurán, as Muslims do, there could be no ground for the charge of imposture referred to in the Prelim. Disc., p. 96. But regarding Muhammad as its author, as his European apologists, in common with ourselves, do, we think there is in this language very good reason for believing that author to have with knowledge; a direction and mercy unto people who shall believe. (54) Do they wait for any other than the interpretation thereof? On the day whereon the interpretation thereof shall come, they who had forgotten the same before shall say, Now are we convinced by demonstration that the messengers of our LORD came unto us with truth shall we therefore have any intercessors, who will intercede for us? or shall we be sent back into the world, that we may do other works than what we did in our lifetime? But now have they lost their souls; and that which they impiously imagined hath fled from them. RAT (55) Verily, your LORD is GOD, who created the heavens and the earth in six days; and then ascended his throne: he causeth the night to cover the day; it succeedeth the same swiftly: he also created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, which are absolutely subject unto his command. Is not the whole creation and the empire thereof his? Blessed be GOD, the LORD of all creatures! been an impostor. There can be no reasonable doubt that the meaning which Muhammad intended to attach to this expression is that a book was sent down to him from heaven through the medium of the Angel Gabriel, as the Taurát or Pentateuch had been sent down to Moses, which, though revealed to his disciples piecemeal, was nevertheless a complete volume. Indeed, it may fairly be doubted whether this expression ever is used in the Qurán to designate a portion of the Qurán, except in the sense that it is a part of a whole already existing. (54) The interpretation, i.e., the fulfilment of its promises and threats. Intercessors. Allusion is to the gods whom they worshipped, and whom they regarded as intercessors. Sent back. The expression looks like an allusion to the doctrine of metempsychosis. That which they imagined; their false gods. See chap. vi. 23, note. (55) Six days. Compare Gen. i. 14-19, and Exod. xx. 11. Some understand the creation days to be each one thousand solar years in length. Tafsir-i-Raufi. Then ascended. The commentators place this sentence among the Mutashabi át or difficult passages of the Qurán, which none but God and his prophet understand. The Tafsir-i-Raufi says, God only knows the truth of this matter; as the how about God himself is a mystery, so is the how about his ascent upon the throne of the heavens a mystery. (56) Call unto your LORD humbly and in secret; for he loveth not those who transgress. (57) And act not corruptly in the earth after its reformation; and call upon him with fear and desire: for the mercy of GOD is near unto the righteous. (58) It is he who sendeth the winds, spread abroad before his mercy, until they bring a cloud heavy with rain, which we drive into a dead country; and we cause water to descend thereon, by which we cause all sorts of fruits to spring forth. Thus will we bring forth the dead from their graves; that peradventure ye may consider. (59) From a good country shall its fruit spring forth abundantly, by the permission of its LORD; but from the land which is bad it shall not spring forth otherwise than scarcely. Thus do we explain the signs of divine providence unto people who are thankful. || (60) We formerly sent Noah unto his people: and he R said, O my people, worship GOD: ye have no other GOD than him. Verily I fear for you the punishment of the Empire his. Because he sits in the throne of heaven. (56) Humbly and in secret, i.e., not behaving themselves arrogantly while they pray, or praying with an obstreperous voice, or a multitude of words and vain repetitions."-Sale, Baidhawi. Muslim prayers now come far short of fulfilling either the letter or spirit of this injunction. Compare Matt. vi. 5-7. (57) Act not corruptly, by strife, and blasphemy, and idolatry, after its reformation, i.e., "after God hath sent his prophets and revealed his laws for the reformation and amendment of mankind." -Sale. (58) A dead country. This refers probably to those parts of the desert which depend upon the rain alone for productive power. Thus will he bring forth the dead. Compare 1 Cor. xv. 35-38. This doctrine of the resurrection was undoubtedly one of the most attractive of those borrowed from Judaism, and well calculated to commend him to the Arabs as a prophet. The term nushran, translated by Sale spread abroad, is bushran in all the copies current in India, and is rendered heralds, as in Rodwell's translation. (60) Noah. "Noah the son of Lamech, according to the Muhammadan writers, was one of the six principal prophets, though he had no written revelations delivered to him, and the first who appeared after his great-grandfather Idris or Enoch. They also say he was by trade a carpenter, which they infer from his building the ark, and that the year of his mission was the fiftieth, or, as others say, the fortieth of his age."-Sale. R 16 great day. (61) The chiefs of his people answered him, Húd. Noah's experience, as pictured here, is the experience of Muhammad himself. His nation was a nation of idolaters, who persistently refused to accept his preaching concerning the true God, who rejected his prophetic claims, and accused him of imposture, and who perished on account of their infidelity. The great day. "Either the day of the resurrection, or that whereon the flood was to begin."-Sale. (64) By a man. "For said they, If God had pleased, he would have sent an angel, and not a man; since we never heard of such an instance in the times of our fathers.”—Sale, Baidháwi. In this interpretation of this expression the commentators have followed the example of their Prophet, and made the objections of the antediluvians to Noah's prophetic claim to be the same as those made by the Quraish to Muhammad's pretensions. See chap. vi. 111, and notes thereon. (65) Those . . . in the ark. "That is, those who believed on him, and entered into that vessel with him. Though there be a tradition among the Muhammadans, said to have been received from the Prophet himself, and conformable to the Scripture, that eight persons, and no more, were saved in the ark, yet some of them report the number variously. One says they were but six, another ten, another twelve, another seventy-eight, and another fourscore, half men and half women, and that one of them was the elder Jorham, the preserver, as some pretend, of the Arabian language."-Sale, Zamakhshari, Jalaluddin. (66) Ad. "Ád was an ancient and potent tribe of Arabs, and zealous idolaters. They chiefly worshipped four deities, Sákia, Háfidha, Rázika, and Sálima; the first, as they imagined, supplying them with rain, the second preserving them from all dangers abroad, other GOD than him; will ye not fear him? (67) The chiefs of those among his people who believed not answered, Verily we perceive that thou art guided by folly; and we certainly esteem thee to be one of the liars. (68) He replied, O my people, I am not guided by folly; but I am a messenger unto you from the LORD of all creatures. (69) I bring unto you the messages of my LORD; and I am a faithful counsellor unto you. (70) Do ye wonder that an admonition hath come unto you from your LORD by a man from among you, that he may warn you? Call to mind how he hath appointed you successors unto the people of Noah, and hath added unto you in stature largely. Remember the benefits of GOD, that ye may prosper. (71) They said, Art thou come unto us, that we should worship GOD alone, and leave the deities which our fathers worshipped? Now bring down. that judgment upon us with which thou threatenest us, if thou speakest truth. Húd answered, Now shall there suddenly fall upon you from your LORD vengeance and indignation. (72) Will ye dispute with me concerning the names which ye have named and your fathers, as to the third providing food for their sustenance, and the fourth restoring them to health when afflicted with sickness, according to the signification of the several names."-Sale. See also the Prelim. Disc., p. 20. Húd. See Prelim. Disc., p. 21, and my note there. Húd, like Noah, had experiences like unto those of Muhammad. The language ascribed to him and "his people" is mostly verbatim, the same as that ascribed to Noah and the antediluvians. Chiefs... who believed not. Some of the chiefs did believe on Húd. Baidhawi says one of them was Murthad Ibn Saad. (70) Successors unto the people of Noah. "Dwelling in the habitations of the antediluvians, who preceded them not many centuries, or having the chief sway in the earth after them; for the kingdom of Shidad, the son of Ad, is said to have extended from the sands of Alaj to the trees of Omán.”—Sale, Baidháwi. And... stature. See Prelim. Disc., p. 22. (71) Bring down that judgment. This was just what the infidel Quraish said to Muhammad. See chap. vi. 56. (72) The names. The idols, whose names are given in note on ver. 66. |