Surah Ibrahim 14:1-6 - Quran Translation Commentary

1. Alif. Lam. Ra.¹ (This is) a Book which We have sent down to you (O Prophet!) so that you may bring out mankind from darkness into light² (thereby) by the willingness of their Lord, to the path of the Al-Mighty and Worthy of Praise.³

2. Allah, to whom belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth. And woe to the disbelievers for a severe punishment!

3. Those Who love the life of the world to the Hereafter,⁴ and debar (men) from the path of Allah, and seek to have it crooked⁵, they are far astray.

4. And We did not send a messenger (with Our message) except with the language of his people, in order that he might make it clear (the message) for them.⁶ Then Allah lets him go astray whom He will, and guides whom He will.⁷ He is the Al-Mighty, the All-Wise.

5. Verily We sent Moosa with Our signs, (saying) : “Bring out your people from darkness into light, and remind them of the annals ⁸ of Allah.” Surely therein are signs for every steadfast, thankful person.⁹

6. And (remind them of the time) when Moosa said to his people:¹⁰ “Remember Allah’s favour to you when He delivered you from Firaun‘s people who were afflicting you with dreadful torment , and were slaughtering your sons and letting your daughters alive;¹¹ and in that was a tremendous trial from your Lord.

Commentary

1. For the explanation of the separate letters or the abbreviations, please see Note No. 1 Surah Baqarah and Note No. 1, Surah Yunus.

2.This is the most significant purpose for which Qur’an was revealed, that is to bring out the people from the darknesses of wrong beliefs and actions into the light of faith and righteous deeds. The responsibility of the Prophet is that he should try to bring out the people into the light by dawah and communication, explaining and reminding, by educating and counselling, and it is the task of Allah to guide people to accept this light. In other words those who accepted the light did so with the guidance of Allah, but their means of receiving light were the Prophet and Qur’an.

3.The meaning of bringing into light is to bring them on the path of Allah. Here two attributes of Allah have been mentioned: one that is He is ‘Aziz’ (Mighty) and the other that He is Hamid (Worthy of Praise). The idea is to clarify that this religion which is the only path which leads man to God is such that by following it man can establish a relationship with a Being that has power over the entire universe, and Who is the possessor of all the good and excellent attributes, therefore, by establishing a relationship with Him man will be benefited immensely and there will have no desire unfulfilled.

4. For whatever man likes most he is prepared to sacrifice other things. Those who love the world and its pleasures, they cannot think of giving up their worldly interests, even if for this purpose they have to sacrifice their interest in the Hereafter. Their excess love for the world prepares them to deny the Hereafter. If they do not openly deny the Hereafter, it does not mean that they have in reality made the Hereafter as their goal in life, because had they made Hereafter as their goal, then whatever step they would have taken would have been for achieving success in the Hereafter.

5.This has been explained in Surah Aal-i- Imran, Note No. 125.

6. The object behind sending the prophets in the world was not to show wondrous acts, but to convey to the people the message of Allah. In view of this objective, the tradition of Allah was that in whatever nation He sent His messenger, he knew the tongue of that nation, so that he should be able to explain Allah’s message in clear terms. The appearance of the Arabian Prophet also followed this very divine tradition, and Qur’an too was revealed in Arabic, in order that he may be able to communicate with the Arab nation, which was the first direct addressee of that message, the grand message of Allah, and thus the task of convincingly conveying the Divine message to that nation may be satisfactorily accomplished.

7. After the satisfactory conveying of the message, only those people would accept the guidance who would be deserving to receive it in accordance with Allah’s will.

8. Means those historic days on which lesson providing events took place in the world by the will of God: on some nation the whip of Allah’s wrath cracked and some other group was lavishly rewarded by Allah’s bounties.

9. In these events there is sufficient provision for learning a lesson from the rise and fall of the various nations. But from such a guidance only those can benefit who have the qualities of patience and gratefulness in them: patience for persevering in the hope of receiving reward from Allah for bearing all sufferings in the path of Allah, and gratefulness for having received from Allah the blessing of His religion and the provision of spiritual tranquility that has been provided, and they should appreciate it fully.

10. That is: Said to Bani Israil.

11. This has been explained in Surah A’raf, Note No.205.

In the Bible it is narrated that the Egyptian king, fearing that the Israilis would outnumber the Egyptians, had ordered the midwives that whenever they would do midwifery work for an Israeli woman, then....

“If it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live, then the pharao commanded all his peoples, every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.” (Exodus 1: 16, 22)