Аль-Маида 5:103–120

God has not ordained, He has not stipulated [in His Law], anything such as a Bahīra, a Sā’iba, a Wasīla or a Hām, in the way that people did at the time of paganism. Al-Bukhārī reported [in a hadīth] from Sa‘īd b. al-Musayyab, who said: ‘The bahīra is that [camel] whose milk is consecrated to idols and whom no human may milk; the sā’iba is the one they would leave to roam freely for their gods and was forbidden to bear any load; the wasīla is the young she-camel that would give birth to a young female, as its first offspring, followed by another female, bearing one after the other without a male in between: she would then be left to roam freely for their idols; the hām is the mature male camel, which after completing a certain number of copulations with a female, would then be consigned to their idols and be exempt from bearing any load, and they would call it hāmī; but the disbelievers invent lies against God, in this matter, by attributing [the sanctioning of] such [practices] to Him; and most of them do not understand, that this is mendacity, for in this they have [merely] followed the example of their forefathers.

And when it is said to them, ‘Come to what God has revealed and to the Messenger’, that is, to His ruling concerning the permitting of what you have forbidden, they say, ‘What we have found our fathers following suffices us’, in the way of religion and laws. God, exalted be He, says: What, does that suffice them, even if their fathers knew nothing and were not guided?, to any truth (the interrogative is meant as a disavowal).

O you who believe, you are responsible for your own souls, in other words, preserve them and do what is in their best interest; he who is astray cannot hurt you, if you are rightly guided: it is said that this means, ‘None of those misguided ones from among the People of the Scripture can hurt you’; it is also said to mean others, on the basis of the [following] hadīth of Abū Tha‘laba al-Khushanī: ‘I asked the Messenger of God (s) about it [this verse] and he said, “Enjoin one other to decency and forbid one another indecency, and then if you see niggardliness being obeyed, whims being followed, this present world being preferred, and every intelligent person proud of his own opinions, then you are [still] responsible for [looking after] your own soul”,’ as reported by al-Hākim and others. Unto God you shall return, all together, and He will inform you of what you used to do, and requite you for it.

O you who believe, let testimony between you, when death, that is, [one of] its causes, draws near to one of you, at the time of a bequest, be that of two men of justice among you (ithnāni dhawā ‘adlin minkum, ‘two men of justice among you’, is the predicate expressed with the sense of an imperative, in other words, ‘let [two men] bear witness … [etc.]’; the genitive annexation of shahāda, ‘testimony’, and bayn, ‘between’, is meant to allow for a range [of alternatives]; hīn, ‘at the time of’, is a substitute for idhā, ‘when’, or an adverbial qualifier of time for [the verb] hadara, ‘draws near’); or of two others from another folk, that is, [from] other than your own religious community, if you are travelling in the land and the affliction of death befalls you. Then you shall empanel them, you shall detain them (tahbisūnahumā, ‘you shall empanel them’, is an adjectival qualification of ākharān, ‘two others’) after the, mid-afternoon, prayer and, if you are in doubt, [if] you are uncertain about it [their testimony], they shall swear by God, both of them saying: ‘We will not sell it, [our testimony] in [swearing by] God, for any price, [for] any compensation that we might take in exchange for it from this world, neither by swearing by Him [falsely], nor by testifying falsely for the sake of that [price]; even if he, the person before whom it is being sworn or the one for whose sake testimony is being given, be a near kinsman, a close relative of ours, nor will we hide testimony to God, which He has commanded us [to give], for then, if we were to hide it, we would surely be among the sinful’.

But if it be discovered, [if] it be ascertained after they have sworn their oaths, that both of them have merited [the suspicion of] sin, that is, that they have done something to incur it, in the way of a breach of faith or perjury in the testimony; for example, if what they are accused of is found with them and then they claim that they had bought it from the deceased or that he had bequeathed it to them, then two others shall take their place, so that the oaths are to be taken from them, being the nearest (al-awlayān is a substitution for ākharān, ‘two others’; a variant reading has al-awwalīn, plural of awwal, as an adjectival qualification of, or a substitution for, alladhīna, ‘of those’), in kinship to the deceased, of those most concerned, with the bequest, namely, the inheritors, and they shall swear by God, to the breach of faith of the two witnesses, and they shall both say, ‘Verily, our testimony, our oath, is truer, is more faithful, than their testimony, their oath, and we have not transgressed, we have [not] overstepped the [bounds of] truth in our oaths, for then we would assuredly be among the evildoers’: meaning, let the one about to die call two men as witnesses to his bequest, or let him instruct in his bequest that the two be from among his co-religionists or from among others, if he cannot find any [from among the former] because he is travelling or for some similar reason. If the inheritors have doubts about the two men and claim a breach of faith on the part of the two for having taken something or given it to some other person — alleging that the deceased bequeathed it to him — then let the two men swear in full [in the way mentioned above]. If then some indication surfaces that the two men have been lying and these two then claim some motivation for this action [of theirs], the nearest of the inheritors in kinship [to the deceased] shall swear to the perjury of the two men and to the truth of what they [the inheritors] suspected. This stipulation holds for the two trustees, but is abrogated in the case of the two witnesses. Likewise, the testimony of non co-religionists is abrogated. The reason for [stipulating] the mid-afternoon prayer is to consecrate the oaths. The specification in this verse that the oath be from the two inheritors nearest in kinship concerns the incident regarding which it was revealed. This [incident], as reported by al-Bukhārī, involved a man from the Banū Sahm who had set out on a journey with Tamīm al-Dārī and ‘Adiyy b. Baddā’, when they were both [still] Christians. The man from the Banū Sahm died in a place where there were no Muslims. When the two came back with his bequest, they [his relatives] found that a silver bowl plated with gold was missing and so the two were brought before the Prophet (s); thereupon this verse was revealed. The Prophet (s) made the two swear oaths. The bowl was later discovered in Mecca, where the owners said that they had bought it from Tamīm and ‘Udayy. The next verse was then revealed, after which two of the Sahmī man’s close kin came to swear their oaths; in al-Tirmidhī’s version, ‘Amr b. al-‘Ās, who was closer to the deceased man, stood up with one other from among the kin, and they swore an oath; in yet another version, the [Sahmī] man fell ill and instructed them as to his bequest and asked them to deliver what he had left to his family, but when he died, they took the bowl [and sold it] and then gave what remained [of that money] to his family.

That, ruling mentioned, where the oath devolves to the inheritors, [makes it] likelier, brings closer [the eventuality], that they, the witnesses or the trustees, will bear the testimony in its true form, [the form] in which they have been charged to bear it, without distortion or breach of faith, or, it is likelier, that they will be afraid that after their oaths other oaths may be taken, from the inheritors, the plaintiffs, who would swear to the two men’s breach of faith or perjury, in which case they would be disgraced and would incur penalties, and so [because of this] they will not lie. Fear God, by refraining from betrayal and perjury, and listen, to what you have been commanded, listening in acceptance. God does not guide the wicked people, those rebelling against obedience to Him; [He does not guide the wicked] to the way of goodness.

Mention, the day when God shall gather the messengers, which is the Day of Resurrection, and He will say, to them, as a rebuke for their peoples: ‘What answer were you given?’, when you summoned [them] to proclaim God’s Oneness; they shall say, ‘We have no knowledge, of this; You, only You, are the Knower of things unseen’, those things which are hidden from [God’s] servants and that which they [the messengers] have forgotten all knowledge of on account of the great terror of the Day of Resurrection and their fright; but when they have calmed down, they [proceed to] bear witness against their communities.

Mention, when God said, ‘O Jesus, son of Mary, remember My favour to you and to your mother, be thankful for it; when I strengthened you with the Holy Spirit, Gabriel, to speak to people (tukallimu’l-nāsa is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the [suffixed pronoun] kāf in ayyadtu-ka) in the cradle, that is, as a child, and in maturity — this implies that he will descend before the Hour, since he was raised up [to God] before middle age, as has already been mentioned in [sūrat] Āl ‘Imrān [Q. 3:55], and when I taught you the Scripture, and wisdom, and the Torah, and the Gospel; and how you create out of clay the likeness (ka-hay’at: the kāf here functions like a noun and is a direct object), the image, of a bird by My permission, and you breathe into it and it becomes a bird by My permission, by My will, and you heal the blind and the leper by My permission, and you raise the dead, from their graves back to life, by My permission; and how I restrained the Children of Israel from you, when they intended to kill you, when you brought them clear proofs, miracles, and the disbelievers among them said, “This, what you have done, is nothing but manifest sorcery” (a variant reading [for sihrun, ‘sorcery’] has sāhirun, ‘sorcerer’, in other words, [he] Jesus [is nothing but a manifest sorcerer]).

And when I revealed to the disciples, [when] I commanded them by the tongue of Jesus: “Believe in Me and in My Messenger”, Jesus; they said, “We believe, in both; bear witness that we have submitted”.’

Mention, when the disciples said, ‘O Jesus, son of Mary, is your Lord able, that is, would He (a variant reading has hal tastatī‘a rabbaka, ‘Are you able to ask of Him?’) to send down on us a Table from the heaven?’ He, Jesus, said, to them: ‘Fear God, when you request signs, if you are believers’.

They said, ‘We desire, to request this in order, to eat of it and that our hearts be reassured, through increased certainty, and that we may know, that we may acquire more awareness [of the fact], that you (annaka is softened to an) have spoken truthfully to us, in your claim to prophethood, and that we may be among the witnesses thereof’.

Jesus, son of Mary, said: ‘O God, our Lord, send down upon us a Table from the heaven, that it shall be, that is, the day of its sending down [shall be], a celebration for us, which we shall consecrate and honour, for the first (li-awwalinā is an inclusive substitution for lanā, ‘for us’, with the repetition of the [oblique] preposition [li-]) and the last of us, those who will come after us, and a sign from You, of Your power and my prophethood. And provide, it, for us; You are the Best of Providers’.

God said, granting his supplication: ‘Verily I shall send it down (read munziluhā or munazziluhā) to you; but whoever of you disbelieves afterward, after it has been sent down, I shall surely chastise him with a chastisement wherewith I chastise no other being from among all the worlds’: and so the angels descended with it from heaven, on it were seven loaves and seven large fish, and so they ate of it until they were full, as related by Ibn ‘Abbās. In one hadīth it is said that the Table sent down from heaven consisted of bread and meat, and they were commanded not to be treacherous and nor to store anything for the next day: but they were and they stored some of it, and were [consequently] transformed into apes and swine.

And, mention, when God says, that is, when God will say, to Jesus at the Resurrection in rebuke of his followers: ‘O Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to mankind, “Take me and my mother as gods, besides God”?’ He, Jesus, says, shuddering: ‘Glory be to You!, exalted be You above all that does not befit You, such as [having] a partner and so on. It is not mine, it is unjustified [for me], to say what I have no right to (bi-haqq, ‘right to’, is the predicate of laysa, ‘not’; lī, ‘mine’, is explicative). If I indeed had said it, You would have known it. You know what is, hidden by me, in my self, but I do not know what is within Your Self, that is, what You keep hidden of Your knowledge: You are the Knower of things unseen.

I only said to them that which You commanded me, to [say], and that is: “Worship God, my Lord and your Lord.” And I was a witness, a watcher, over them, preventing them from [saying] what they used to say, whilst I was amongst them; but when You took me [to You], [when] You raised me up to the heaven, You were Yourself the Watcher over them, the Observer of their deeds, and You Yourself are Witness over all things, Aware and knowing them, including what I said to them and what they said after me, and whatever else.

If you chastise them, that is, those among them who are fixed upon disbelief, verily they are Your servants, and You are their Master, disposing of them as You will: there can be no objection to [what] You [do]; and if You forgive them, that is, those of them who are believers, You, only You, are the Mighty, in His affair, the Wise’, in His actions.

God says, ‘This, namely, the Day of Resurrection, is the day those who were truthful, in the world, like Jesus, shall profit by their truthfulness, because this is the Day of Requital. Theirs will be Gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they shall abide forever. God is well-pleased with them, because of their obedience to Him, and they are well-pleased with Him, with His reward — that is the great triumph’. The sincerity of those who were liars in this world shall not avail them on that Day, just as [it shall not avail] the disbelievers when they believe upon seeing the chastisement.

To God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth, the storehouses of rain, vegetation, sustenance and everything else, and all that is in them (wa-mā fīhinna: the use of mā, ‘that’, indicates the predominance of all those non-rational creations); and He has power over all things, including the rewarding of the truthful and the punishing of the liar — He is specifically addressing rational beings, for there is none among them with power over all things.