31. The word naqib in Arabic denotes supervisor and censor. There were twelve tribes among the Israelites and each tribe was required to appoint one of its members as a naqib, to look after their affairs and try to prevent them from becoming victims of irreligiousness and moral corruption. Although the Book of Numbers in the Bible does mention these twelve men, it does not seem to convey the sense of their being religious and moral mentors, as the term naqib employed by the Qur'an does. The Bible simply mentions them as the chiefs and dignitaries of their tribes.
32. The assurance of God's support is made conditional upon their continuous response to the call of God and for support of His Prophets.
33. This expression signifies spending one's wealth for the sake of God. Since God has promised to return to man every penny that he spends in His way along with His reward, which will be several-fold, the Qur'an characterizes this spending as a loan to God. This spending is considered a loan provided it is a 'good loan', that is, provided the money spent in the cause of God has been acquired by legitimate means and has been spent in accordance with the laws of God and with sincerity and earnestness.
34. To efface someone's evil deeds signifies two things. First, that if a man decides to follow the Straight Path and strives to follow God's directives in both thought and action his soul will be purged of many evils and his way of life will gradually become free of corruption. Second, if, in spite of this reform, weaknesses still persist in a man's life he is assured that God will not punish him and will have his failing erased from his record. For God is not too exacting over trivial errors, providing a man has sincerely accepted the basic guidance and reformed his character.
35. That is, they once found the 'right way' and then allowed it to be lost
and thus put themselves on the road to perdition. We have translated the Qur'anic
expression 'sawa' al-sabil' as the 'right way' for the sake of brevity. A better
rendering could be, 'the highroad of balance and moderation', but even this
would fail to bring out the meaning fully.
In order to grasp the full significance of what is being said here one should
bear in mind that in himself man constitutes a microcosm of society. He has
innumerable powers and potentialities, myriad desires, feelings and inclinations,
and a host of divergent urges. Social life consists of a huge network of complex
relationships, and with the growth of civilization and culture the complexity
of these relationships increases. There is also a rich fund of resources in
the world and there are countless possibilities for their utilization; as a
result, man is confronted with a plethora of choices and problems.
The fact that man has inherent limitations means that he is incapable of viewing
in one sweep and in a balanced way the entire span of existence. Hence, man
is in no position to prescribe for his kind a judicious way of life - a way
of life wherein justice is done to all his powers and capacities; in which a
wholesome balance is maintained between all his inherent potentialities; in
which all his urges are given their due; in which his two-fold need for inner
satisfaction and external self-realization is fully met; in which various aspects
of human life are taken into proper consideration, giving birth to an integrated
scheme with a built-in capacity to harmonize the multifarious strains and stresses
of social life; in which material resources are fully exploited in the best
interests of both the individual and society and within the framework of equity,
justice and righteousness. When man takes upon himself the task of prescribing
the guidelines for his life and becomes his own law-maker, his mind tends to
become preoccupied with one specific aspect of human life, with one of the numerous
demands of his nature, with one of the myriad problems calling for solution.
His mental involvement is liable to be so intense that he adopts - consciously
or otherwise - an unjust attitude towards all the other aspects, requirements
and problems of human life. Consequently, when such opinions are imposed, the
balance which ought to prevail in man's life is disrupted and he begins to swing
either towards one extreme or the other. Gradually, this deviation assumes intolerable
proportions. A reaction sets in, and justice is demanded for the neglected aspects
of human life. Still, human life remains deprived of justice. The reason for
this failure is that man's reaction to imbalance is itself devoid of balance.
The new dispensation in turn persists in excessive preoccupation with either
one specific aspect, problem or requirement of human life at the expense of
all the others. Thus human life is denied judicious and balanced progress. Man
continues to stumble hither and thither; from one form of self-destruction to
another. All courses of life charted by man himself are winding and crooked.
They move in the wrong direction, reach the wrong end and then turn back in
another wrong direction.
Among these numerous ways - all false - there is just one way that lies exactly
in the middle. This way alone does full justice to all of man's various potentialities
and urges, to all his instincts and predispositions, to all the multifarious
claims of both the body and the spirit; in short, to all aspects of his life.
In this way there is no crookedness; it is the one course of life in which nothing
is given either too much consideration or too little, and nothing suffers inequity
and injustice. Man's very nature thirsts for such a way, and the succession
of revolts against false ways of life is merely a manifestation of his constant
quest for this right and straight way. Left to himself, man is incapable of
charting this way. It is God alone Who can direct him to it; and indeed the
Prophets were sent for this very purpose.
The Qur'an designates this way as sawa al-sabil ('the right way') in the present
verse and elsewhere as al-sirat al-mustaqim ('the straight way'). (See Towards
Understanding the Qur'an, vol. I, (Surah 1, verse 5, and n. 8.) This is the road
which goes amidst the countless winding and crooked paths of life; the road
which leads man, disregarding all the curved and crooked paths, straight on
to his success, right from this world to the Hereafter. Whoever goes along it
enjoys rectitude in this world and success and felicity in the Next, but whoever
loses this road is bound to become a victim of false beliefs and false ways
of conduct and thus comes to have a wrong orientation in life. This will lead
him to Hell, where all bent and crooked paths end. The following illustrates
man's dilemma.
In modern times some philosophers have been so impressed by this constant swinging
in human life, from one extreme to another, as to have mistakenly argued that
the dialectical process is the natural course of human life. They conclude,
therefore, that the only way for human life to progress is that a thesis should
first swing it in one direction, and then an antithesis swing it in the opposite
direction, after which there will emerge a synthesis which constitutes the course
of human progress. These curved lines from one extreme to the other do not indicate
the correct course of human progress. Rather they represent the tragic stumblings
which again and again obstruct the true progress of human life. Every extreme
thesis sets life on a certain course and continues to pull it in that direction
for some time. When human life is thus thrown off its 'right course' the result
is that certain realities of life - which had not received their due - rise
up in revolt, and this revolt often assumes the form of an antithesis. This
revolt begins to pull life in the opposite direction. As the 'right way' is
approached the conflicting ideas - the thesis and antithesis - begin to effect
some kind of mutual compromise, leading to the emergence of a synthesis. This
synthesis comprises many elements conducive to the good of mankind. But since
societies which do not submit to the guidance of the Prophets are deprived both
of the signposts that might indicate the 'right way' and of faith to help steady
man's feet thereon this synthesis does not permit human life to maintain the
golden mean. Its momentum is so powerful that it once more pushes life to the
opposite extreme. At this point, certain realities are once again denied their
due, with the result that another antithesis emerges in reaction to the iniquities
of the earlier ideology. Had the light of the Qur'an been available to these
short-sighted philosophers, and had they been able to perceive the 'right way'
envisaged by the Qur'an, they would have realized that this was the true course
of human progress.