Surah Yunus 10:31-40 - Quran Translation Commentary

31. Ask (them): “who provides for you from the heavens and the earth, or who has power over hearing and sight, and who brings out the living from the dead and the dead from the living ⁵⁵, and who administrates everything?” They will soon say: Allah. So say: Are you not afraid⁵⁶!”

32. Such then is Allah, your true Lord⁵⁷. After the truth, what remain” except misguidance⁵⁸? How then are you being turned away (from truth) ⁵⁹?

33. Thus the Word of your Lord was corroborated concerning those who do wrong that they would not believe⁶⁰.

34. Ask them: Can any of your partners (you ascribe to Allah) begin the process of creation and then repeat it⁶¹? Say: It is Allah that begins the process of creation and then repeats it. How are you then misled?

35. Ask them: Can any of your partners (you ascribe to Allah guides you to the Truth? Say: Allah guides to the Truth⁶². Is He who guides to the Truth more worthy to be followed or he who does not find the way unless he (himself) is guided⁶³? What has come over you? How do you judge?

36. And most of them follow nothing but conjecture⁶⁴. Verily, conjecture by no means can replace the truth⁶⁵. Surely Allah knows well what they are doing.

37. And this Qur’an is not such as can be invented by any other beside Allah⁶⁶, but it is a confirmation of that (teaching) which is existing from before⁶⁷, and is a detailed exposition of Al-Kitab(the Book)⁶⁸. There is no doubt that it is from the Lord of the worlds.

38. Do they say that he has invented it? Say: then bring a surah like this, and for help call anybody beside Allah, whom you can⁶⁹. If you are truthful.

39. Nay, but (the fact is) they belied what their knowledge could not compass and whose ultimate interpretation has not come to them⁷⁰. Similarly those also who passed before them belied. Then see what was the fate of the wrong-doers!

40. And some of them believe therein and some of them do not believe therein. and your Lord knows who are the mischief-makers.

Commentary

55. For explanation please see Note No.177. of Surah Al-An’am.

56. When the Provider of everything is Allah alone, when Allah alone has power over hearing and sight, when He alone ordains life and death of His creatures, and He alone is managing the affairs of the universe, and the polytheists of Makkah held such a belief-then what is the basis for considering anybody else as worthy of worship! And are you not afraid of joining others with Him in your prayers which would attract His punishment!

57. When Allah is nourishing you and this system of Lordship has been established by Him only, then how can regarding someone else as the master of your destiny and calling that someone else for help be right?

58. That is: To consider one Allah as Lord is’ right and just, and all else as straying and misguided acts.

59. That is: Are you aware who is turning you away from the clear truth and where he is taking you! Beware! He is Satan, who is holding your lead and misguiding you to the wrong path and you are blindly following him.

60. Corroboration of Allah’s word here means to be liable to be punished under that law (divine tradition) which has been ordained for straying away from the path of truth, according to which those who consider obedience to their Lord as something that interferes with their freedom and who live unrestricted lives like animals, are deprived of receiving guidance.

61. This is another rational argument which shows that the gods of the polytheists are without any substance or reality. They admit that their gods have played no part in bringing them into existence, and similarly they have no power to give them life after their death, yet they do not realise how such gods can be regarded worthy of worship and how can they be regarded as gods and Lords?

It may be noted that the polytheists of Arabia believed that their Creator and that of the universe was Allah only, and if in any polytheistic religion the concept of there being someone other than one God who has created man and others, then such a concept is absolutely false as it is not based on any rational or academic argument.

62. Here Truth means the universal truth, that is, those basic realities which govern the human life and the universe, and without knowing which man cannot follow the right path. It is obvious that these realities are known to Allah alone, and therefore, He alone can give right guidance to man. For this guidance He has arranged for sending down His revelations, and these revelations are today available in the form of the holy Qur’an. Contrary to this none of the partners that have been falsely ascribed to Him can guide man to the Truth, because it is not within anybody’s power. Then what is the meaning of calling them gods?

63. Points to those personalities who were worshipped as gods by the polytheists. These personalities, being human. were themselves in need of receiving guidance, How then can they be equal to God, who is the rightful Guide?

Do they say that he has invented it? Say: then bring a surah like this, and for help call anybody beside Allah, whom you can. If you are truthful.(Al-Quran)

64. That is: It was merely the superstition of the polytheists that was responsible for their turning their religion into mythology.

65. All the religions that man has invented are based on conjecture, superstition and imaginary ideas. That is the reason why there are basic differences among all of them, while Islam is the original religion which is based on truthful knowledge, and this fact makes it distinguishable from all the other religions. It is obvious that in religious matters imaginary ideas are useless, and they cannot take the place of truthful knowledge. Inspite of this undeniable fact a majority of the people in the world today follow imaginary ideas in matters of religion.

66. There is a vast’ difference between the Divine Word and the human word. This basic difference between the two is like the difference between the divine creation and the human creation, and as man cannot create anything like anything created by God, in the same way man cannot compose any scripture like the divine scripture. This is the special characteristic of the Divine Word (Qur’an) which is in Arabic. As for its translation, it is merely communicating its sense and that too within the human capability which is limited. Therefore, from the translations of Qur’an, one can merely get a rough idea of this special characteristic of the Divine Word .

67. That is: Qur’an has not come with any new religion, but that it has come with the same teaching which was existing and had earlier come with the revealed books (The Torah and the Injeel) in broad outlines. A comparative study of these books will reveal that the source of Qur’an is the same from which the spring of these two revealed books had spurted.

68. Al-Kitab (The Book) means all those revealed books which were sent down before the Qur’an, which has not only included their teachings in its message but also has presented them with elaborate details. In other words, Qur’an is the perfection of this chain of guidance, and it is a proof of the fact that it is not humanly composed.

69. This has been explained in Note No.30, Surah Baqarah.

70. That is: they belie the revelation (wahi) because it being concealed, is beyond the area of their knowledge, and another reason is that the divine revelation is imparting information particularly about the occurrence of the Doomsday which event is yet to occur, but our inability to grasp the truth about revelation does not mean that it is unreal and it should be denied, when it is supported by strong and undeniable arguments. Furthermore, the subject matter of the divine revelation itself testifies that it cannot be the word of any man. Similarly, the events which will take place in the future, as prophesied by the revelation, are such as must occur in accordance with the demands of intelligence, nature and justice. A child cannot comprehend all the things which a man of mature age can comprehend, and a lay man cannot comprehend all the things which a scientist, an astronomer and a thinker can comprehend. Then, how can a thing, merely because it cannot be comprehended by someone, be denied on such grounds? If the answer is in the negative, then how can it be right to deny the teachings imparted by the prophets about the hidden and unseen things merely on the grounds that the layman has not understood them? The personalities who imparted these teachings about the hidden realities were exalted and sublime and were most trustworthy and the veracity of their teachings is confirmed by the Innumerable signs that are found in the world all around us, in the universe and in the living beings.