Al-Isra

Allah, may He be glorified, is exalted from everything not appropriate for him. It is He who took His servant, Mohammad (peace be upon him), on the night journey from the sacred masjid (mosque), in Makkah, to the masjid of Jerusalem, whose surroundings I have blessed with fruit, crops and dwellings of prophets (peace be upon them), For him to see some of our signs which show Allah's power and ability, may He be glorified. He is the One Who hears everything, no sound escapes Him, and the One who sees evrything, nothing is hidden from Him, and the One who sees from whom nothing seen is hidden.

I gave Moses (peace be upon him) the Torah and I made it a guide and manual for the Israelites. I said to the Israelites: Do not take besides me any guardian to whom you entrust your affairs. Rather, place your reliance in Me alone.

You are from the progeny of those I had favoured with salvation together with Noah (peace be upon him) from drowning in the flood. So remember this favour and thank Allah by worshipping and following Him alone. In this, follow the example of Noah for he was very thankful of Allah.

I told the Israelites and I informed them in the Torah that definitely they will be guilty of corruption on earth by their sin and arrogance twice, and they will rise over people with injustice and oppression, transgressing the limits in their rise.

When the first corruption occurred, I set against them servants of Ours, possessing great might and power, who killed and displaced them. They ransacked their homes destroying everything they passed by. Allah’s promise of that definitely occurred.

Then once again I gave you - O Israelites - the upper hand and dominance over those who were set against you when you repented to Allah, and I supplied you with wealth after your wealth had been looted, and children after your children were taken captive, and I made you a force more in number than your enemies.

If you do good actions - O Israelites - in the manner that is required of you, then the recompense of that will be to your benefit, for Allah is in no need of your actions. If you do bad actions the consequences of that will be to your detriment. Your good actions do not benefit Allah and nor do your bad actions harm Him. When the second corruption occurs I will set your enemies against you to humiliate you and make shame appear on your faces due to the various types of disgrace they will make you taste, and to enter Jerusalem and destroy it just as they entered and destroyed it the first time, and to completely ruin all the lands that they conquer.

Perhaps your Lord - O Israelites - will have mercy on you after this severe reprisal if you repent to Him and do good actions. But if you revert to causing corruption a third time or more than that, I will revert to taking reprisals from you. I have made Hell a prison for the disbelievers, from which they will not find any release.

This Qur’ān that is revealed to Muhammad (peace be on him) guides to the best way, which is the way of Islam, and it informs those who have faith in Allah and who do good deeds of something that will please them, which is that they will receive a great reward from Allah.

It informs those who do not have faith in the Day of Judgment of something that will distress them, which is that I have prepared for them a painful punishment on the Day of Judgement.

Man on account of his ignorance prays for evil against himself, his children and his wealth when he is angry, just as he prays for good for himself. If we had to answer his prayer for evil he will be ruined and so will his children and his wealth. Human beings are naturally hasty and therefore may hastily bring on something that is harmful.

I have created the night and the day as two signs indicating Allah’s oneness and power, due to their differences in terms of being long or short, hot or cold. I made the night dark for the purpose of rest and sleep and I made the day bright in which people can see and work for their livelihood. This was so that by the alternation of day and night you can know the number of years and calculate the months, days and hours that you require. I have explained everything in detail so that it may all become clear and the truthful can become distinguished from the liars.

For every person I have made the actions that proceed from him attached to him, like how a necklace is attached to the neck. They will not leave him until he is taken to account for them. On the Day of Judgement, I will bring out for him a book that contains every good or bad deed that he did, which he will find spread open before him.

I will say to him on that day: O Man! Read your book and take an account of your soul for your deeds. You are enough to take an account of yourself on the Day of Judgement.

Whoever is guided to faith, then the reward of his being guided is for his own good; and whoever goes astray, the punishment for his going astray is to his detriment. No soul carries the sin of another soul, nor do I ever punish a people until I establish proof against them by sending Messengers to them.

When I decided to destroy a town because of its wrongdoing, I instructed those who became reckless because of affluence, to obey Allah but they did not comply. And instead they disobeyed Him and transgressed, so the word of the decimating punishment became justified against them and I destroyed them completely.

And we have destroyed many generations after Noah, such as the Ad and Thamud. Your Lord - O Messenger - is sufficient as a Knower and Seer of the sins of His servants. Nothing is hidden from Him and He will recompense them for the same.

Whoever desires, by his acts of goodness, the life of the world and does not have faith in the afterlife nor pays any attention to it, I expedite for him the luxury that I want to give him, not what he wants. Then I have made for him Hell, where he will enter on the Day of Judgment to suffer from its heat, being condemned for his choosing the world and his denial of the Hearafter; banished from Allah’s mercy.

But whoever desires, by his acts of goodness, the reward of the Hereafter, and pursues it as it should be pursued, free of show and reputation, while he has faith in that which Allah has made faith obligatory; these people who have these attributes - their effort will be accepted by Allah and He will recompense them for it.

To both these groups - the sinners and the dutiful - we freely extend the gift of your Lord - O Messenger. The gift of your Lord in the world is not withheld from anyone, whether sinner or dutiful.

O Messenger, reflect about how we favoured some over others in the world in respect of provision and rank. Yet the Hereafter is greater in the disparity between the ranks of luxury than that of the world, and greater in favours, so a believer should be eager for that.

O servant! Do not set up another deity that you worship together with Allah, or you will become condemned in the sight of Allah and His righteous servants, and forsaken by Him.

Your Lord - O servant - has instructed and made obligatory that you worship none but Him, and He has instructed that you be good to your parents, especially when they become old. If either of them or both of them reach old age with you, do not become annoyed with them by uttering words that indicate the same, do not scold them and do not be harsh when speaking to them, but say to them kind words that are soft and courteous.

Humble yourself before them in humility and out of compassion, and say: O My Lord, be merciful to them as they have brought me up in my childhood.

Your Lord - O People - knows best what is within you of the sincere devotion to Him in worship, acts of goodness and being dutiful to parents. If the intention in your acts of worship, treatment of your parents and other acts is righteous, then He, may He be glorified, is Forgiving towards those who frequently turn to Him in repentance. If anyone repents from his prior failure to be dutiful to his Lord or to his parents, Allah will forgive him.

O believer - give the relative his rights by keeping family ties, give to the poor and needy, and give the traveller who is stranded. Do not spend your wealth in sin or in a manner that is wasteful.

Those who spend their wealth in sin and those who are wasteful in their spending are the brothers of the devils, they follow their instructions of being wasteful and extravagant Satan is ever ungrateful towards His Lord, and he only does things that are sinful and only instructs that which displeases His Lord.

But if you refrain from giving these people, due to not having anything to give them, while waiting for Allah to bless you with provision, then say to them gentle and polite words such as praying for them to have abundant provision or promising to give them if Allah grants you wealth.

Do not withhold your hand from spending, and do not be wasteful when spending, if you do, you will be blameful amongst the people for your miserliness, or you will become uable to spend due to your extravagant expenditure.

Your Lord expands the provision for whoever He wills, and restricts it for whoever He wills based on far-reaching wisdom. He is fully aware and observant of His servants. Nothing of theirs is hidden from Him, and He disposes of His matter with respect to them however He wills.

Do not kill your children for fear of poverty in the future if you spend on them. I take charge of providing for them, and for you too. Killing them is a major sin, as they have done nothing wrong and there is no reason requiring them to be killed.

Be careful of fornication and avoid things that prompt it. It is extremely detestable and bad path to traverse as it leads to the mixing of lineages and punishment from Allah.

Do not kill the soul whose life Allah has protected through faith or a pledge of security, except if the killing is merited on the basis of treason or legal retribution. If someone is killed unjustly, without a valid reason permitting his being killed, I have given his successor who takes charge of his affairs certain authority over the killer. He may demand that the killer be killed in retribution, or he may forgive him without asking for any thing in return, or he may forgive him and take the blood money. But he shall not mutilate the killer, or by killing him with something that he did not use to kill, or by killing someone other than the killer, even if he was a helper and supporter.

Do not transact in the property of a child whose father has passed away, except in his best interests such as investing or preserving it until he reaches the age of mental and prudential maturity. Fulfill any pledge between yourselves and Allah, or between yourselves and His servants, without breaking or falling short in them. Allah will question the one who made a pledge on the Day of Judgement. Did he fulfill it, in which case He will reward him, or did he not fulfil it, in which case He will punish him.

Give full measure when you measure for others and do not cheat them. Weigh with an accurate scale that does not diminish or undervalue anything. That giving of full weight and measure is better for you in this world and the Hearafter, than giving short measure or weight.

Do not follow - O son of Adam - that which you have no knowledge of, by following suspicions and conjecture. A person will be questioned about the good or bad that he used his hearing, sight and heart for and he will rewarded for the good and punished for the bad.

Do not walk on earth with pride and arrogance. If you walk haughtily on earth you will not be able to split the earth, nor will your stature reach the mountains in height and elevation. Why then are you so proud?!

The evil of all that has been mentioned above is prohibited by your Lord - O man! Allah is not pleased with those who perpetrate this and He in fact detests them.

Those instructions, prohibitions and laws that we have explained to you are part of what your Lord has revealed to you. Do not take - O man - another deity together with Allah, for you will be thrown into Hell on the Day of Judgement, blamed by your own soul and by people and banished from every good.

O you who claim that the angels are Allah’s daughters! Has your Lord chosen you - O idolaters - to have male children, while taking for Himself daughters from among the angels? Allah is above what you are saying. You are indeed saying a terrible thing about Allah by ascribing children to him and claiming that He has daughters persisting in you disbelief.

I have explained in this Qur’ān laws, admonitions and examples so that people may take heed and tread the path that benefits them leaving that which harms them. But the situation is that the nature of some of them has degenerated to the extent that this only makes them further from the truth and they detest it even more.

Say - O Messenger, to these idolaters: If there were other deities along with Allah as they say as a fabrication and lie, then those supposed deities would have sought a way to Allah, the Owner of the Throne, to try to defeat and combat with Him over His dominion.

Allah, may He be glorified, is pure and sanctified from what the idolaters attribute to Him and He is far above what they say.

The heavens glorify Allah. The earth glorifies Allah. Every creation in the heavens and the earth also glorifies Allah. There is nothing except that it declares His purity together with His praise, but you do not comprehend their manner of glorifying Him. This is because you only understand the glorification of those who do so in your language. He is Forbearing, not quick to punish, and He is Forgiving to those who repent to Him.

When you - O Messenger - recite the Qur’ān and they hear the warnings and admonitions it contains, I place between you and those who do not have faith in the Day of Judgment a barrier that prevents them from understanding the Qur’ān, as a punishment for their turning away from it.

I have put covers on their hearts so that they cannot understand the Qur’ān, and heaviness in their ears so that they cannot listen to it in a beneficial manner. When you mention your Lord in the Qur’ān alone, and you do not mention their so-called gods, they turn on their heels being far away from accepting Allah’s pure Oneness.

I know best the way their leaders listen to the Qur’ān. They do not want to take guidance from it, but they want to mock at it and disrupt your recitation. I also know best what they secretly confer about with respect to their denial of and preventing others from it, when these people who wrong themselves by their denial say: You - O People - are only following a man who is bewitched and confused.

Consider - O Messenger - and be surprised at the various blameworthy attributes they describe you with. They have deviated from the truth and are confused. As a result they cannot find the true path.

The idolaters said in denial of resurrection: When we die and become bones and our bodies decompose, will we be resurrected again? This is impossible.

Say - O Messenger: Become if you can, O idolaters, as hard as stones or as strong as iron, but you will never be able to do this.

Or become some other creation greater than them amongst that which is considered great in your hearts. Allah shall restore you just as He initiated you and He shall bring you back to life just as He created you in the first instance. These opponents will say: Who will bring us back to life after we die? Say to them: He who created you in the first instance without any precedent shall restore you. Then they will shake their heads, mocking your response to them, and say unbelievingly: When will this restoration be? Say to them: Perhaps it is near, as everything which is coming will soon arrive.

Allah will restore you on the day He shall call you towards the plain of resurrection. You will then respond to Him, complying with His command and praising Him, and you will think you had not stayed in the grave, except for a while.

Say, O Messenger, to my believing servants: that they should say good words when speaking and refrain from bad off-putting words, because the satan exploits them to spread between them what will spoil their worldly life and their Hearafter. Surely, the satan is an open enemy, so it is necessary to be wary of him.

Your Lord, O people, knows you best. Nothing of yours is hidden from Him. If He wishes to have mercy on you, He will have grace you with having faith and doing good deeds. And if He wishes to punish you, He can punish you by depriving you of faith, leaving you to die on disbelief. And He as not sent the Messenger as a deputy over people, to force them to believe, or stop them from disbelief or to record their deeds. The Messenger is only a conveyor of what Allah has ordered him to convey on His behalf.

Your Lord, O Messenger, has full knowledge of all who are in the heavens and earth, and He fully knows their conditions and what they deserve. And I preferred some prophets over others through numerous followers and by revealing books to them. And I granted David my book, the Psalms.

Say - O Messenger, to these idolaters: O idolaters - call upon those you claim to be gods besides Allah when some harm befalls you. They will neither be able to remove the harm from you nor can they transfer it to someone else, due to their inability. Anything incapable cannot be a god

Those angels and others whom they call upon are themselves seeking good actions to bring them closer to Allah and competing to see who is closest to Him by obeying Him. They hope He has mercy on them and they fear His punishment. The punishment of your Lord, O Messenger, is what should be feared.

And there is no town or city except I will send upon it punishment and destruction in this worldly life due to their disbelief, or afflict it with a mighty punishment such as being killed, due to their disbelief. This destruction and punishment is a divine decree written in the Preserved Tablet.

And I did not stop sending tangible miracles which the idolaters requested, such as reviving the dead, except because I had sent them to previous nations but they rejected them. I had given Thamud a great, clear sign, namely the camel, but they rejected and so I hastened their punishment. And I do not send miracles at the hands of the Messengers except as a warning for their people, so that they believe.

And remember, O Messenger, when I said to you: Your Lord has encompassed the people in His power and they are in His control. Allah will protect you from them, so convey what you have been ordered to convey. And I did not make what I clearly showed you on the Night Journey except as a test for the people; do they believe it or reject it? And I did not make the tree of Zaqqum, which is mentioned in the Qur’ān as growing from the bottom of the Hellfire, except as a test for them. Thus, if they do not believe in these signs, they will never believe in anything else. And I frighten them by sending signs, but they do not increase through them except in disbelief and remaining further in misguidance.

And remember, O Messenger, when I said to the angels: Prostrate to Adam, as a prostration of greeting, not worship, so they complied and all prostrated to him. However, Iblis refused to prostrate to him out of arrogance, saying: Should I prostrate to the one You created out of clay whereas You created me out of fire? I am better than him.

Iblis said to his Lord: Do you see this creature You have honoured above me by ordering me to prostrate to him? If you keep me alive until the end of this worldly life, I shall allure his children and misguide them from Your straight path, except a few of them You have saved and who are Your chosen servants.

His Lord said to him: Go with those amongst them who obey you, because Hell is your recompense and their recompense, a complete and full recompense for your actions.

And mislead those you can mislead through your voice which calls towards disobedience, call out to them through your horsemen and foot soldiers who invite towards obeying you, become a partner to them in their wealth by making attractive every action which opposes the sacred law. And become a partner to them in their children by falsely making a claim to them, attaining them through adultery and making them worship others besides Allah when taking Allah’s name. And make attractive to them false promises and futile aspirations. And the satan only makes false promises which deceive them.

You have no control - O Iblis - over My believing servants who act in My obedience, because Allah has repelled your evil from them. And Allah is sufficient as a guardian for one who relies upon Him in his affairs.

Your Lord - O people - is the one who makes the ships sail for you in the sea, hoping to seek your sustenance through the profits from trade and the like. He is Merciful to you as He facilitated these means for you.

And when you are afflicted - O idolaters - by some calamity or misfortune at sea such that you fear destruction, those whom you worship besides Allah leave your thoughts, and you only remember Allah and seek His assistance. Then when He assists you and saves you from your fears, and you return to land, you turn away from His Oneness and supplicating Him alone, returning to your idols. And man rejects the blessings of Allah.

So do you feel secure - O idolaters - when Allah has delivered you safely to land that He will not make it collapse with you? Or do you feel secure that He will not make stones rain down on you as He did with the people of Lot, then you will not find any protector to protect you nor any helper to save you from being destroyed?

Or do you feel secure that Allah will not return you to sea a second time, then send a strong wind upon you, drowning you due to your being ungrateful for Allah’s blessings after He saved you the first time, then you will not find any claimant against Him for what He did to you and to defend you?

And I have honoured the children of Adam through intellect, making the angels prostrate to their father, and I subjugated for them the animals and vehicles that carry them on land, and the ships that carry them by sea. And I provided them with good food, drink, spouses and other things, and I granted them much virtue over much of My creation. They must be grateful therefore for Allah’s favours on them.

And remember, O Messenger, when every group will be called out by their leader whom they used to follow in life. So whoever is given his book of deeds in his right hand - they will read their books happily. And nothing will be decreased from their reward, be it as small as the thread on a date seed.

And whoever’s heart is blind to accepting and submitting to the truth in this worldly life will be more blind on the Day of Judgment, not finding guidance to the path of paradise, and will be more astray from guidance. And the reward will be equal to the deed.

And the idolaters were about to turn you away, O Messenger, from the Qur’ān I revealed to you, so that you invent something else in my name which conforms to their desires. And if you did what they wanted, they would have chosen you as their beloved friend.

And had I not favoured you by making you firm on the truth, you were about to incline towards them slightly and then agree with them in what they requested of you, due to their severe deception and scheming, alongside your extreme eagerness for them to bring faith. However, I protected you from inclining towards them.

And had you inclined towards them in what they requested you, I would have given you multiplied punishment in this life and the Hereafter, then you would not find any helper to assist you against Me and avert punishment from you.

And the disbelievers were close to troubling you, due to their enmity towards you, to exile you from Makkah. However, Allah stopped them from exiling you until you yourself migrated on the command of your Lord. And had they exiled you, they would not have remained after exiling you except for a short while.

The issue of their not remaining after you except for a short while is the constant practice of Allah with respect to the Messengers before you, namely that whenever a Messenger was exiled by his people, Allah sent punishment upon them. And you will not find, O Messenger, any change in my practice, but rather you will find it to be established and constant.