Аль-Маида 5:48–102

And We have revealed to you, O Muhammad (s), the Book, the Qur’ān, with the truth (bi’l-haqq is semantically connected to anzalnā, ‘We have revealed’) confirming the Book that was before it and watching over it, testifying [to it] — the ‘Book’ means the Scriptures. So judge between them, between the People of the Scripture, if they take their cases before you, according to what God has revealed, to you, and do not follow their whims, deviating, away from the truth that has come to you. To every one of you, O communities, We have appointed a divine law and a way, a clear path in religion, for them to proceed along. If God had willed, He would have made you one community, following one Law, but, He separated you one from the other, that He may try you in what He has given to you, of the differing Laws, in order to see who among you is obedient and who is disobedient. So vie with one another in good works, strive hastily thereunto; to God you shall all return, through resurrection, and He will then inform you of that in which you differed, in the matter of religion, and requite each of you according to his deeds.

And judge between them according to what God has revealed, and do not follow their whims, and beware of them lest they seduce you, [lest] they lead you astray, from part of what God has revealed to you. But if they turn away, from the judgement revealed, and desire some other, then know that God desires to smite them, with punishment in this world, for some of their sins, [those] which they have committed, among them, their turning away, and [that He desires] to requite them for all of their sins in the Hereafter; surely, many of mankind are wicked.

Do they desire (yabghūn, is also read tabghūn, ‘[do] you desire?’), [do] they seek, the judgement of paganism, through their deceit and deviation when they turn away? (this is an interrogative meant as a disavowal). Yet who, that is, no one, is better in judgement than God for a people knowing, Him, with certainty? These [people] are singled out for mention because they are the ones who reflect.

O you who believe, do not take Jews and Christians as patrons, affiliating with them or showing them affection; they are patrons of each other, being united in disbelief. Whoever amongst you affiliates with them, he is one of them, counted with them. God does not guide the folk who do wrong, by affiliating with disbelievers.

And you see those in whose hearts is sickness, weakness of faith, the like of ‘Abd Allāh b. Ubayy the hypocrite; vying with one another for them, to affiliate with them, saying, as an excuse for this: ‘We fear lest we suffer a turn of fortune’, which time will bring round against us, such as drought or defeat, and that if Muhammad’s affair should come to nothing, they will cease to supply us with provisions. God, exalted be He, says: But it may be that God will bring victory, by assisting His Prophet and making His religion prevail; or some commandment from Him, that will reveal the secrets of the hypocrites, disgracing them; and then they will end up, for what they kept secret within themselves, in the way of doubt and affiliating with disbelievers, remorseful.

And they say (read wa-yaqūlu, or just yaqūlu, to indicate a new [independent] sentence; or wa-yaqūla as a supplement to what follows), those who believe, to one another in amazement, when their secrets are revealed: ‘Are these the ones who swore by God their most earnest oaths, making the utmost effort thereby [to swear], that they were surely with you?, in religion. God, exalted be He, says: Their, good, works have failed, are invalid; and they have become, they have ended up as, the losers’, in this world, through ignominy, and in the Hereafter, through their punishment.

O you who believe, whoever of you apostatises (read either yartadid, with separation [of the two dāl letters], or yartadd, with assimilation [of one of the dāl letters with the other]), turns back, from his religion, to disbelief — this is a notification of what God knew would happen, for some of them apostatised upon the death of the Prophet (s) — God will assuredly bring, in their place, a people whom He loves and who love Him: the Prophet (s) said, ‘They are people like him’, and he pointed to Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī, as reported by al-Hākim [al-Naysābūrī] in his Sahīh; humble, sympathetic, towards believers, stern, severe, towards disbelievers, struggling in the way of God, and fearing not the reproach of any reproacher, therein, in the way that the hypocrites fear the reproach of the disbelievers. That, description mentioned, is God’s bounty; He gives it to whom He will; and God is Embracing, of abundant bounty, Knowing, of those who deserve it.

When [‘Abd Allāh] Ibn Salām said, ‘O Messenger of God, our people have shunned us’, the following was revealed: Your patron is God only, and His Messenger, and the believers who establish prayer and pay the alms, bowing down, humble, or performing voluntary prayers.

Whoever affiliates to God and His Messenger and the believers, He will help them and assist them; for verily the party of God, they are the victors, because of His assistance to them (He has made this [hizb Allāh, ‘the party of God’] to fall in the place of [an implied] fa-innahum, ‘for verily they’, as an explication, since they belong to His party, that is, [they] His followers).

O you who believe, do not take as patrons those who take your religion in mockery, [as something] to be mocked, and as a game, from among (min is explicative) those who were given the Scripture before you and [from among] the disbelievers (read al-kuffāri or al-kuffāra), the idolaters — and fear God, by refraining from affiliating with them, if you are believers, [if you are] truthful in your faith.

And, those who, when you make the call to prayer, take it, that is, the prayer, in mockery and as a game, mocking it and laughing at it among themselves; that, [mocking] attitude, is because they are a people who do not understand.

The following was revealed when the Jews said to the Prophet (s), ‘Whom among the messengers do you believe in?’, and he replied: in God and in that which has been revealed to us [Q. 2:136], and when he mentioned Jesus they said, ‘We know of no religion worse than yours!’ Say: ‘O People of the Scripture, do you spite, [do] you repudiate, us for any other cause than that we believe in God, and what has been revealed to us, and what was revealed, to the prophets, before, and that most of you are wicked?’ (wa-anna aktharakum fāsiqūn is a supplement to an āmannā, ‘that we believe’), that is to say, ‘What you repudiate, in fact, is our faith and your opposition [to it], in refusing to accept it — [a refusal] which is described as ‘wickedness’, [this wickedness] itself being the necessary consequence of such [a refusal] — but in fact this [faith of ours] is not something to be repudiated’.

Say: ‘Shall I tell you, [shall] I inform you, of what is worse than, the followers of, that, about which you are spiteful, by way of reward, requital, from God? They are, those whom God has cursed, [whom] He has removed from His mercy, and with whom He is wroth, and some of whom He has turned into apes and swine, by transformation, and, those who, worship the false deity, Satan, by obeying him (the particle minhum, ‘some of whom’, takes into account the [potentially plural] import of the particle min, ‘[those] whom’, and in what precedes [minhum, ‘some of whom’], the [singular] form [of min is taken into account]; a variant reading has ‘abuda al-tāghūt as [the genitive of] an annexation, ‘abud being a [variant] plural of ‘abd; the accusative ending [of ‘abuda] is because the clause is a supplement to al-qirada, ‘apes’), and these were the Jews. They are worse situated (makānan is for specification), for their abode shall be the Fire, and further astray from the even way’, from the path of truth (al-sawā’ originally means al-wasat, ‘middle’); the use of sharrun, ‘worse’, and adallu, ‘further astray’, is intended to counter their saying, ‘We know of no religion worse [sharrun] than yours’.

When they, the hypocrites from among the Jews, come to you, they say, ‘We believe’; but they have entered, unto you ensconced, in disbelief, and so they have departed, from you ensconced, in it, and they have not believed. And God knows very well what they were hiding, of hypocrisy.

And you see many of them, namely, the Jews, vying, falling headlong, in sin, in calumny, and enmity, wrongdoing, and their consuming of unlawful gain, what is illicit, like bribes; evil is that, deed of theirs, which they have been committing.

Why do the rabbis and the priests, among them, not forbid them from uttering sin, calumny, and consuming unlawful gain? Evil is what they have been doing, in refraining from forbidding them.

The Jews said, when their circumstances became straitened, on account of their denial of the Prophet (s), after having been the wealthiest of people: ‘God’s hand is fettered’, withholding the sending forth of provision upon us — this was their metaphor for niggardliness — may God be exalted above this. God, exalted be He, says: Fettered be, withheld be, their hands, from the performance of good deeds, as an invocation against them; and they are cursed for what they have said. Nay, but His hands are extended out wide — a hyperbole for the attribute of generosity — the use of [yadā] the dual for yad, ‘hand’, is intended to imply abundance, since the utmost that an affluent person can give freely of his wealth is when he gives it with both hands. He expends how He will, in giving abundantly or straitening, and there can be no objection to this. And what has been revealed to you from your Lord, of the Qur’ān, will surely increase many of them in insolence and disbelief, because of their [very] disbelief in it; and We have cast between them enmity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection, and so every sect among them is opposed to the other. Every time they light the fires of war, that is, for war against the Prophet (s), God extinguishes them, that is, every time they desire it [war], He repels them. And they hasten about the earth in corruption, that is, [they hasten about] corrupting, through acts of disobedience, and God does not love corrupters, meaning that He will punish them.

But had the People of the Scripture believed, in Muhammad (s), and feared unbelief, We would have absolved them of their evil deeds and We would admitted them to Gardens of Bliss.

And had they observed the Torah and the Gospel, by implementing what is in them, including believing in the Prophet (s), and what was revealed to them, of scriptures, from their Lord, they would surely have received nourishment from above them and from beneath their feet, by their being given provision in abundance, with it pouring forth from every place. Some of them, a group [among them], are a just community, implementing it [the Torah], and they are the ones who believed in the Prophet (s), the likes of ‘Abd Allāh b. Salām and his companions; but many of them — evil is that, thing, which they do.

O Messenger, make known, all of, that which has been revealed to you from your Lord, and do not conceal any of it out of fear that you may suffer some harm; for if you do not, that is, if you do not make known all of what has been revealed to you, you will not have conveyed His Message (risālatahu, or read plural, risālātihi, ‘His Messages’) since to conceal some of it is to conceal it all. God will protect you from people, who may try to kill you. The Prophet (s) used to have guards up until [the time that] this [verse] was revealed, then he said, ‘Depart, for God protects me now’, as reported by al-Hākim. God does not guide the unbelieving folk.

Say: ‘O People of the Scripture, you have no basis, in religion, on which to rely, until you observe the Torah and the Gospel and what was revealed to you from your Lord’, by implementing what is therein, including believing in me [Muhammad (s)]. And what has been revealed to you from your Lord, of the Qur’ān, will surely increase many of them in insolence and disbelief, because of their disbelief in it; so do not grieve for the disbelieving folk, if they do not believe in you, in other words, do not be concerned with them.

Surely those who believe and those of Jewry ([this constitutes] the subject of the clause), namely, the Jews, and the Sabaeans, a sect among them, and the Christians (and [what follows] substitutes for the [above] subject): whoever, of them, believes in God and the Last Day and behaves righteously — no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve, in the Hereafter (this [fa-lā khawfun ‘alayhim wa-lā hum yahzanūn, ‘no fear shall befall them, neither shall they grieve’] is the predicate of the subject and also indicates the predicate of [the clause beginning with] inna, ‘surely’).

And We made a covenant with the Children of Israel, to believe in God and His messengers, and We sent messengers to them. Every time a messenger came to them, from among them, with what their souls did not desire, in the way of truth, they denied it; some, of them, they denied, and some, of them, they slay, such as Zachariah and John (the use of [the present tense] yaqtulūn, ‘they slay’, instead of [the perfect tense] qatalū is to narrate past events [as if in the present] and to conclude [in harmony with] the end-rhyme of the verses).

And they thought, they presumed that, there would be no (read as an lā takūnu, where an has been softened; or read an lā takūna, where it [an] requires a [following] subjunctive, that is to say, ‘that there would [not] befall [them]’) trial, a punishment against them, for their denial of the messengers and their slaying of them; and so they were wilfully blind, to the truth and could not see it, and deaf, [unable] to hear it. Then God relented to them, when they repented, then they were wilfully blind and deaf, a second time, many of them (kathīrun minhum substitutes for the [third] person [‘they’]); and God sees what they do, and will requite them for it.

They indeed are disbelievers those who say, ‘Indeed God is the Messiah, son of Mary’ (a similar verse has preceded [Q. 5:17]). For the Messiah said, to them, ‘O Children of Israel, worship God, my Lord and your Lord, for, I am a servant and not a god. Verily he who associates anything with God, in worship, for him God has made Paradise forbidden, He has forbidden him admittance to it, and his abode shall be the Fire; and for wrongdoers (wa-mā li’l-zālimīna min, the min is extra) there shall be no helpers’, to guard them against the chastisement of God.

They are indeed disbelievers those who say, ‘God is the third of three’, gods, that is, He is one of them, the other two being Jesus and his mother, and they [who claim this] are a Christian sect; when there is no god but the One God. If they do not desist from what they say, when they declare a trinity, and profess His Oneness, those of them who disbelieve, that is, [those] who are fixed upon unbelief, shall suffer a painful chastisement, namely, the Fire.

Will they not turn in repentance to God and seek His forgiveness?, for what they say (the interrogative is intended as a rebuke); God is Forgiving, to the one who repents, Merciful, to him.

The Messiah, son of Mary, was only a messenger; messengers passed away before him, and so he passed away like them, for he is not a god as they claim, otherwise he would not have passed away; his mother was a truthful woman, [siddīqa means] extremely truthful; they both used to eat food, like all other human beings, and one who is such cannot be a god because of his compound being and fallible nature, and because of the [impurities such as] urine and excrement that he produces. Behold, in amazement, how We make the signs, of Our Oneness, clear to them, then behold, how they are turned away!, [how] they are turned away from the truth despite the proof being established.

Say: ‘Do you worship besides God, that is, other than Him, what cannot hurt or profit you? God is the Hearer, of your sayings, the Knower’, of your circumstances (the interrogative is meant as a disavowal).

Say: ‘O People of the Scripture, Jews and Christians, do not go to extremes, do [not] overstep the bounds, in your religion, other than those, extremes, of truth, neither lowering nor elevating Jesus above his proper place, and do not follow the whims of a people who went astray formerly, on account of their extremism — these were their forefathers — and have led many, [other] people, astray, and strayed from the even way’, from the path of truth (al-sawā’ originally means ‘middle’).

Cursed were the disbelievers of the Children of Israel by the tongue of David, when he invoked God against them and they were transformed into apes — these were the people of Eilat — and by Jesus, son of Mary, when he invoked God against them and they were transformed into pigs — they were the ones [who ate] at the Table [cf. Q. 5:115, below] — that, cursing, was because of their disobedience and their transgression.

They did not prevent one another, that is, one would not forbid the other from committing again, any indecency that they committed; verily evil was what they used to do, [verily evil] was this deed of theirs.

You, O Muhammad (s), see many of them affiliating with those who disbelieve, from among the Meccans, out of spite for you. Evil is that, in the way of deeds, which their souls have offered on their behalf, for [the day of] their inevitable return, such that God is wroth with them and in the chastisement they shall abide.

Yet had they believed in God and the Prophet, Muhammad (s), and what has been revealed to him, they would not have affiliated with them, namely, [with] the disbelievers; but many of them are wicked, rebellious against faith.

You, O Muhammad (s), will truly find the most hostile of people to those who believe to be the Jews and the idolaters, of Mecca, because of the intensity of their disbelief, ignorance and utter preoccupation with following whims; and you will truly find the nearest of them in love to those who believe to be those who say ‘Verily, we are Christians’; that, nearness of theirs in love to the believers is, because some of them are priests, scholars, and monks, devout worshippers, and because they are not disdainful, of following the truth, as the Jews and the Meccans are.

This [verse] was revealed when the Negus’s delegation from Abyssinia came to him (s): when the Prophet (s) recited sūrat Yā Sīn, they cried and submitted [to Islam], saying, ‘How similar this is to what used to be revealed to Jesus!’ God, exalted be He, says: And when they hear what has been revealed to the Messenger, of the Qur’ān, you see their eyes overflow with tears because of what they recognise of the truth. They say, ‘Our Lord, we believe, we accept the truth of your Prophet and your Book, so inscribe us among the witnesses, those who affirm their acceptance of the truth.

And, in response to those Jews who reviled them for their Islam, they would say: why should we not believe in God and what has come to us of the truth, the Qur’ān, that is to say, there is nothing to prevent us from faith when its prerequisites are present; and hope (natma‘u is a supplement to nu’minu, ‘we believe’) that our Lord should admit us with the righteous people?’, the believers, into Paradise?

God, exalted be He, says: So God has rewarded them for what they have said with Gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they will abide; that is the requital of those who are virtuous, by believing.

But those who disbelieve and deny Our signs — they are the inhabitants of Hell-fire.

When a number of Companions resolved to practise fasting and night vigil continuously, and to abstain from women, perfume, consumption of meat, and sleeping on beds, the following was revealed: O you who believe, do not forbid the good things that God has made lawful for you and do not transgress, do [not] exceed God’s command; God does not love transgressors.

And eat of the lawful and good food which God has provided you (halālan tayyiban, ‘lawful and good food’, is the direct object and the preceding genitive construction [mimmā, ‘of … which’] is a circumstantial qualifier connected to the former); and fear God, in Whom you are believers.

God will not take you to task for a slip, contained, in your oaths, which is what the tongue utters spontaneously, without intending to swear an oath, such as when one says, ‘No, by God’, or ‘Yes, by God’; but He will take you to task for that to which you have pledged (read ‘aqadtum, ‘aqqadttum or ‘āqadttum) oaths, where you have sworn an oath intentionally; the expiation thereof, of the oath if you break it, is the feeding of ten of the needy, for each needy person one mudd measure, of the midmost food, from which, you feed your families, that is, the closest or the principal [food you consume], neither better, nor worse; or the clothing of them, with what may be [properly] called clothes, such as a shirt, a turban, or a loin cloth — it is not sufficient that these [items] mentioned be given only to one needy person, according to al-Shāfi‘ī; or the setting free of a, believing, slave, as applies in the expiation for slaying or repudiation through zihār, interpreting the general [stipulation] in a restricted sense; and whoever does not find the means, for any one of the [expiations] mentioned, then the fasting of three days, as an expiation for him — as it appears [in this verse], it is not obligatory to follow the [above] sequence [of alternatives when making an expiation], and this is the opinion of al-Shāfi‘ī. That, which is mentioned, is the expiation of your oaths if you have sworn, and have broken them; but keep your oaths, do not break them, unless it be for a righteous deed or setting right between people, as stated in the verse of sūrat al-Baqara [Q. 2:225]. So, in the same way that He has explained to you what has been mentioned, God makes clear to you His signs, so that you might be thankful, to Him for this.

O you who believe, verily wine, that intoxicates and overcomes the mind, and games of chance, gambling, and idols, and divinatory arrows are an abomination, an evil deemed vile, of Satan’s work, which he adorns; so avoid it, this abomination consisting of the things mentioned, do not do it; so that you might prosper.

Satan desires only to precipitate enmity and hatred between you through wine and games of chance, when you partake of them, because of the evil and discord that result therefrom; and to bar you, by your being preoccupied with them, from the remembrance of God and from prayer — He has specifically mentioned it [prayer] so as to magnify it. So will you then desist?, from partaking of them? In other words: Desist!

And obey God and obey the Messenger, and beware, of disobedient acts; but if you turn away, from obedience, then know that Our Messenger’s duty is only to proclaim plainly, to convey clearly [the Message] — your requital falls on Us.

Those who believe and perform righteous deeds are not at fault in what they may have consumed, of wine and [indulged in] of gambling before the prohibition, so long as they fear, the forbidden things, and believed and performed righteous deeds, and then were God-fearing and believed, [and then] adhered to fear of God and belief, and then were God-fearing and virtuous, in deeds; God loves the virtuous, meaning that He will reward them.

O you who believe, God will surely try you, He will surely test you, with some game, which He releases to you, the smaller of, which will be caught by your hands and, the larger of which by, your lances: this was in [the plain of] al-Hudaybiyya; while they were in [the state of] pilgrimage inviolability, beasts and birds would flock to their caravans; so that God may know, through knowledge outwardly manifested, who fears Him in the Unseen (bi’l-ghayb is a circumstantial qualifier), in other words, while He is absent [to the eyes], one who does not see Him but nonetheless avoids hunting game. Whoever transgresses thereafter, after that prohibition against it, and hunts, his shall be a painful chastisement.

O you who believe, do not slay game while you are in the state of pilgrimage inviolability, for the hajj or the ‘umra; whoever of you slays it wilfully, then the compensation shall be (read fa-jazā’un, ‘then the compensation [shall be]’, followed by a nominative [mithlu, ‘the like of’]) that is to say, a compensation is incumbent on him, and that is, the equivalent of what he has slain, of flocks, in other words, a similar creature (a variant reading has an annexation construction for jazā’, ‘compensation’, [sc. fa-jazā’u mithli, ‘then the compensation of’]), to be judged, that is, the equivalent [is to be judged], by two just men among you, both possessing astuteness, with which they are able to identify the nearest [animal] in equivalence to it [the slain animal]. Ibn ‘Abbās, ‘Umar and ‘Alī, may God be pleased with them, all adjudged a beast of sacrifice [as redemption] for an ostrich [slain]; Ibn ‘Abbās and Abū ‘Ubayda adjudged a cow [as redemption] for wildebeest or wild ass; [‘Abd Allāh] Ibn ‘Umar and [‘Abd al-Rahmān] Ibn ‘Awf, a sheep for a gazelle, and, as Ibn ‘Abbās, ‘Umar and others did, [a sheep] also [as a redemption] for [slaying] pigeons, because they [pigeons] resemble these [sheep] in taking scoops of water [when drinking]; an offering (hadyan is a circumstantial qualifier referring to jazā’, ‘compensation’) to reach the Ka‘ba, that is, to be taken into the Sanctuary, sacrificed there and given as a voluntary offering to its needy [residents], and it cannot be sacrificed wherever [else] it may be (bāligha l-ka‘ba, ‘to reach the Ka‘ba’, is in the accusative because it is an adjectival qualification of what precedes, even if it stands as an annexation, since such an annexation is only morphological and not [valid] as a [grammatical] characterisation); if there is no equivalent beast of flock for the game slain, as in the case of a small bird or locusts, then the person is obliged [to compensate] with [equivalent] value. Or, it is incumbent on him [to make], an expiation: other than compensation, and if he should find the means then this [expiation] is, food for the poor, [food] to be taken from the principal food of the town, equivalent to the value of the compensation, being one mudd measure for each poor person (a variant reading has kaffāra, ‘expiation’, in an annexation with the following noun [sc. kaffāratu ta‘āmin, ‘the expiation of food’] as an explication [of kaffāra, ‘expiation’]); or, it is incumbent on him [to compensate with], the equivalent of that, food, in fasting, so that he fasts one day for every mudd measure [that he is unable to provide]; but if he has the means to [provide the food] then it is incumbent on him to do so, so that he may taste the evil consequence, the burden of the compensation, of his deed, the one he has perpetrated. God has pardoned what is past, of game slain before it was prohibited; but whoever offends again, God will take vengeance on him; God is Mighty, His way will prevail, Lord of Retribution, against those who disobey Him. Unintentional slaying [of game] is also included with intentional slaying in what has been mentioned [of required compensation or expiation].

Permitted to you, O people, be you in pilgrimage inviolability or not, is the game of the sea, for consumption, and it is what can only live in the sea, such as fish, but not what is able to live both in the sea and on land, such as crabs; and food from it, what it casts out that is dead, is a provision for you, for you to consume, and for the wayfarers, the travellers among you, to take as their provisions; but forbidden to you is the hunting of game on the land, and this consists of those edible beasts that live on it; do not hunt them, so long as you remain in pilgrimage inviolability: if it is caught by one not in pilgrimage inviolability, then it is permissible for a person in pilgrimage inviolability to consume it, as is clarified in the Sunna; and fear God, to whom you shall be gathered.

God has appointed the Ka‘ba, the Sacred, inviolable, House as an [enduring] institution for mankind, [an institution] by which their religious affair is sustained, through pilgrimage to it, as is their this-worldly [affair], on account of the security [guaranteed] for those who enter it and the fact that they are not interfered with, and because all manner of fruits are brought to it (a variant reading [for qiyāman] has qiyaman, ‘[always] standing’, as the verbal noun from [1st form] qāma, ‘to remain standing’, without defectiveness [of the middle radical]); and the sacred month, meaning the sacred months of Dhū’l-Qa‘da, Dhū’l-Hijja, Muharram and Rajab, instituted for them to be secure from fighting during them; the offering and the garlands, instituted for their owner so that he does not suffer any interference; that, mentioned appointment, is so that you may know that God knows all that is in the heavens and in the earth, and that God has knowledge of all things: thus that appointing of His in order to secure benefits for you and to ward off harm from you, before such things came to pass, testifies to His knowledge of all that is in existence and all that will be.

Know that God is severe in punishment, of His enemies, and that God is Forgiving, to His friends, Merciful, to them.

The duty of the Messenger is only to convey [the Message], to you; and God knows what you reveal, what deeds you manifest, and what you hide, and what of these you conceal, and He will requite you for it.

Say: ‘The evil, the unlawful, and the good, the lawful, are not equal, even though the abundance of the evil attract you.’ So fear God, in avoiding it, O people of pith, so that you might prosper, triumph.

The following was revealed when they began to ask the Prophet (s) too many questions: O you who believe, do not ask about things which, if disclosed to you, [if] revealed, would trouble you, because of the hardship that would ensue from them; yet if you ask about them while the Qur’ān is being revealed, during the time of the Prophet (s), they will be disclosed to you: meaning that if you ask about certain things during his lifetime, the Qur’ān will reveal them, but once these things are disclosed, it will grieve you. So do not ask about them; indeed: God has pardoned those things, you asked about, so do not ask again; for God is Forgiving, Forbearing.

Verily a people before you asked about them, that is, [they asked] their prophets about such things and they received the response in the form of [revealed] explications of the rules concerning them; and then they disbelieved in them, by neglecting to implement them.