Ас-Саффат 37:97–182

They said, amongst themselves: ‘Build for him a structure, then fill it with firewood and set it on fire, and when it is ablaze, then cast him into the fierce fire’.

So they sought to outwit him, by flinging him into the fire, so that it may destroy him, but We made them the lowermost, the vanquished, as he came out of the fire unharmed.

And he said, ‘I shall indeed depart to my Lord, I shall emigrating to Him from the abode of disbelief — He will guide me, to the place to which My Lord has commanded that I end up in, and this was Syria. When he reached the Holy Land, he said:

My Lord! Grant me, a child, of the righteous’.

So We gave him the good tidings of a forbearing son.

And when he was old enough to walk with him, that is, to go about with him and help him out — this is said to have been [either] at the age of seven or at the age of thirteen — he said, ‘O my dear son, I see, that is, I have seen, in a dream that I shall sacrifice you — and the visions of prophets are [always] true and their actions are [inspired] by the command of God, exalted be He. So see what you think’, of this dream. He consulted him so that he [his son] might accept the idea of being sacrificed and comply with the command for it. He said, ‘O my father (the [final] tā’ [in abati] replaces the yā’ of the genitive [possessive] annexation [yā abī]) do whatever you have been commanded, to do. You shall find me, God willing, of the steadfast’, in this [affair].

And when they had both submitted, [when] they had submitted to and were prepared to comply with God’s command, exalted be He, and he had laid him down on his forehead, [when] he had pushed him down to the ground thereon — every human being has two brows (jabīn) between which is the forehead (jabha); this was at Minā. Abraham passed the knife across his [son’s] throat but it did not do anything, by some impediment of the Divine Power,

We called to him, ‘O Abraham!

Verily you have fulfilled the vision’, by what you have done, in that you were able to go through with the act of sacrifice. In other words, that [which you have done] suffices for you [as redemption] (the statement nādaynāhu, ‘We called to him’, is the response to the lammā, ‘when’, so that the wāw [in wa-nādaynāhu, ‘We called to him’] is extra). So, in the same way that We have rewarded you, do We reward those who are virtuous, to their own souls in obeying the Command [of God], by removing from them their distress.

Truly this, sacrifice to which he was commanded, was indeed a clear test’, that is to say, the ultimate test [of faith].

Then We ransomed him, the one whom he had been commanded to sacrifice, namely, Ishmael or Isaac — two different opinions — with a mighty sacrifice, [a mighty] ram from Paradise, the same one that Abel had offered as as sacrifice: Gabriel, peace be upon him, brought it and the lord Abraham sacrificed it as he cried, Allāhu akbar, ‘God is Great’.

And We left, We preserved, for him among posterity, fair praise [namely]:

‘Peace, from Us, be to Abraham!’

So, in way that We rewarded him, do We reward those who are virtuous, to their own souls.

Indeed he is one of Our faithful servants.

And We gave him the good tidings of [the birth of] Isaac — some have argued that this proves that the one who was sacrificed was not him [Isaac] — a prophet (nabiyyan is a future circumstantial qualifier, that is to say, ‘he will come to be, with his prophethood decreed), one of the righteous.

And We blessed him, by multiplying his descendants, and Isaac, his son, [We also blessed] by appointing the majority of prophets from among his progeny. And among their descendants is he who is virtuous, [he who is] a believer, and he who plainly wrongs his soul, [he who is] a disbeliever, whose disbelief is manifest.

And verily We favoured Moses and Aaron, with prophethood,

and We delivered them and their people, the Children of Israel, from the great distress, namely, Pharaoh’s enslavement of them.

And We helped them, against the Egyptians, so that they became the victors.

And We gave them the enlightening scripture, the one whose statements concerning prescribed punishments and rulings and otherwise are excellently expressed — this is the Torah.

And We guided them to the straight path, [the straight] way,

and We left, We preserved, for them among posterity, fair praise [namely]:

‘Peace, from Us, be to Moses and Aaron!’

So, just as We rewarded them both, do We reward the virtuous.

Indeed both were among Our faithful servants.

And truly Elias (read [wa-inna Ilyās] with the initial hamza or without [wa-inna’l-yāsa) was [also] one of the messengers. Some think that this [Elias] was the son of Aaron’s brother — [Aaron] the brother of Moses; but some say that this [Elias] was some other [person], who was sent to the people living in and around Baalbak.

When (idh is dependent because of an implicit [verb] udhkur, ‘mention’) he said to his people, ‘Will you not fear [God]?

Do you call on Baal — this was the name of an idol of theirs which was made of gold, from which the name of their city derives, with the addition of [the suffix] bak — that is to say, do you worship him, and abandon the Best of Creators, and not worship Him,

God, your Lord, and the Lord of your forefathers?’ (read [as predicates] allāhu, rabbukum and rabbu, in the nominative, because of the [implicit] omitted huwa [being the subject]; or read allāha, rabbakum and rabba, in the accusative, as supplements to ahsana, ‘the best of’).

But they denied him. So they will indeed be arraigned, in the Fire,

— [all] except God’s delivered servants, namely, the believers, who will be saved from it,

and We left for him among posterity, fair praise [namely]:

‘Peace, from Us, be to Elias!’. It is said that this [ilyāsīn] is [the same] Elias mentioned above; but it is also said that this denotes him together with [all] those who were believers with him, and so they have been coupled [under the same term] with him being the predominant, as when one might say al-Muhallabūn, ‘the Muhallabids’, to mean al-Muhallab and his folk; a variant reading has āl yāsīn, by which is meant his family as well as Elias himself.

Indeed so — just as We rewarded him — do We reward the virtuous.

Truly he is one of Our faithful servants.

And indeed Lot was one of the messengers;

mention, when We delivered him together with all his family,

except an old woman [who was] among those who stayed behind, in other words, those who stayed behind in the chastisement.

Then We destroyed [all] the others, the disbelievers from among his people.

And indeed you pass by them, by their remains and [the remains of] their dwellings during your travels, [both] in the morning, that is, during the daytime,

and at night: will you, O people of Mecca, not then understand?, what befell them and so take heed therefrom?

And indeed Jonah was one of the messengers;

when he fled to the laden ship — after he became furious with his people, as the chastisement which he had promised them did not come down on them; so he boarded the ship, which then stopped out in the deep sea. The seamen said, ‘There is a runaway slave here [upon this ship] who has fled from his master: a casting of lots should expose him!’

Then he drew lots, with the passengers on the ship, and was of those rejected, of the losers in the draw and so they threw him into the sea.

Then the whale swallowed him while he was blameworthy, that is, while he was guilty of a blameworthy thing, having gone to sea and embarked the ship without his Lord’s permission.

And had he not been one of those who glorify [God], that is to say, those who make remembrance [of God], for inside the whale’s belly he was repeatedly saying [the words] ‘There is no god except You. Glory be to You! I have indeed been one of the wrongdoers’ [Q. 21:87],

he would have tarried in its belly until the day when they are raised, in other words, the whale’s belly would have been his tomb until the Day of Resurrection.

Then We cast him, We flung him out of the belly of the whale, onto the barren land, onto the face of the earth, that is, onto the shore on that same day — or three, or seven, or twenty, or forty days later — and he was sick, ailing like a [newly-born] featherless chick.

And We made a gourd plant to grow above him, to provide shade for him with its stem, which is not the case usually with gourds, as a miracle for him; a mountain goat would come to him in the morning and in the evening and he would drink its milk, until he finally regained his strength.

And We sent him, afterwards — as [We had done] before, to a people in Nineveh, in the region of Mosul — to a [community of a] hundred thousand or, in fact, more — [a community of] twenty, thirty or seventy thousand.

And they believed, after they saw [with their own eyes] the chastisement which they had been promised. So We gave them comfort, We kept them alive to enjoy their wealth, for a while, until their terms [of life] would be concluded [while they took comfort] therein.

So ask them, inquire of the Meccan disbelievers, by way of reproach: are daughters to be for your Lord, after their claim that the angels were God’s daughters, while sons are to be for them?, so that the best becomes exclusively theirs?

Or did We create the angels females while they were witnesses?, to Our [act of] creation, that they might then say such a thing?

Lo! it is indeed out of their [own] mendacity, their [own] lies, that they say,

‘God has begotten’, when they say that the angels are God’s daughters. And verily they are liars, in this [respect].

Has He preferred daughters to sons? (read a’stafā, ‘has He preferred’, indicating an interrogative [hamza], which stands in place of the omitted conjunctive hamza).

What is wrong with you? How do you judge?, [how do you make] such a depraved judgement?

Will you not then remember? (tadhakkarūna: the tā’ [of tatadhakkarūna] has been assimilated with the dhāl), that He, glory be to Him, is exalted above having a child?

Or do you have a clear warrant?, plain definitive proof that God has a child?

Then produce your scripture, the Torah, and show Me this [as it is mentioned] in it, if you are being truthful, about this statement of yours.

And they, namely, the idolaters, have set up between Him, exalted be He, and the jinn, namely, the angels (jinna: they are so called because they are hidden [ijtinān] from vision) a kinship, by saying that they are God’s daughters, while the jinn certainly know that they, that is, those who say this, shall indeed be arraigned, into the Fire, to be chastised therein.

Glory be to God, affirming that He is exalted, above what they attribute, [to Him] in the way of His having a child,

— [all] except God’s devoted servants, namely, believers (the exceptive clause here is discontinuous) in other words, [that is] because they declare that God transcends what such individuals attribute [to Him].

For indeed you and what you worship, of idols,

— you cannot tempt, anyone, thereto, that is, to [incline to] your [worshipped] idols (‘alayhi, ‘thereto’, is semantically connected to His saying [bi-fātinīna], ‘you cannot tempt’),

except him who will burn in Hell, in God’s knowledge, exalted be He.

Gabriel said to the Prophet (s): And there is not one of us, [us] the company of angels, but has a known station, in the heavens, in which he worships God and which he does not transgress.

And indeed it is we who are the rangers, of our feet in prayer.

And indeed it is we who give glory, [it is we] who declare that God transcends what does not befit Him.

And indeed (in, is softened in place of the hardened one) they, the Meccan disbelievers, used to say,

‘If we had but a reminder, a scripture, from the ancients, that is, from among the scriptures of past communities,

we would have surely been God’s devoted servants’, [devoting] worship purely to Him.

God, exalted be He, says: Yet they disbelieved in it, in other words, in the Book that came to them, namely, the Qur’ān, more glorious than [all] those other scriptures; but they will come to know, the consequences of their disbelief.

And verily Our Word, [containing the promise] of victory, has gone beforehand in favour of Our servants, the messengers: and that [Word] is, I shall assuredly prevail, I and My messengers [Q. 58:21] —

or it is His [following] saying — assuredly they shall be helped,

and assuredly Our hosts, namely, the believers, they will indeed be the victors, over the disbelievers by [their being given] the definitive proofs and assistance against them in this world. And if some of these [believers] are not victorious over them in this world, then assuredly in the Hereafter [they will be so].

So leave them, in other words, shun the Meccan disbelievers, for a while, until [such time as] you are commanded to fight them;

and watch them, when the chastisement is sent down on them; for they will [soon] see, the consequences of their disbelief.

They then said in mockery, ‘When will this chastisement be sent down?’ God, exalted be He, threatens them by saying: Do they seek to hasten Our chastisement?

But when it descends in their courtyard — al-Farrā’ said that the Arabs find it sufficient to refer to a people by referring to ‘their courtyard’ — how awful, how terrible a morning, will be the morning for those who were warned (the overt noun [al-mundharīn] has replaced the [third person] pronominalisation [in sāhatihim]).

So leave them for a while,

and watch; for they will [soon] see — this [statement] is repeated in order to emphasise the threat made to them and to reassure the Prophet (s).

Glory be to your Lord, the Lord of Might, of Triumph, [exalted is He] above what they allege!, in the way of His having a child.

And peace be to the messengers, who convey from God the Message of the Oneness [of God] and [His] Laws.

And praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds, for granting these [messengers] victory and destroying the disbelievers.