Surah Fatir 35:8-14 - Quran Translation Commentary

8. Is he the evil of whose deeds is made fairseeming to him and he sees it good, ( like the person who is rightly guided? ¹⁴) Verily Allah leaves in error whom He will and guides Whom He pleases. So (O Prophet!) let not your soul dissolve in sighs in grief for them¹⁵. Allah is aware of what they do.

9. And it is Allah who sends the winds and they raise the clouds; then We lead them to a dead land and revive there with the earth after its death. Such is the Resurrection.¹⁶

10. Whoever seeks power and honour, (let him know that) all power and honour belong to Allah.¹⁷ To Him ascend good words and He exalts pious deeds.¹⁸ And those who plot evil, for them is severe punishment, and their plotting will come to nothing.¹⁹

11. Allah created you from dust ²⁰, then from spermdrop.²¹ Then He made you pairs (male and female). No female conceives and is delivered without His knowledge. And no one grows old who grows old ²², nor has his life cut short, but it is recorded in a Book. Verily, this is easy for Allah.²³

12. The two seas are not alike. The one is fresh, sweet and pleasant to drink from, while the other is salt and bitter. And from both you eat fresh meat ²⁴ and derive the ornaments that you wears.²⁵ And you see the ships plough their course through them so that you may seek His bounty ²⁶ and give thank.

13. He causes the night to pass into the day ²⁷ and the day into the night. He has subdued the sun and the moon into service, each running to an appointed term. ²⁸ Such is Allah, your Lord. His is the sovereignty, ²⁹ and those whom you invoke beside Him do not own so much as the thin membrane on a date-stone.³⁰

14. If you pray to them, they cannot hear you, and even if they hear you, they cannot answer you. On the Day of Resurrection they will reject your associating others with Allah.³¹ None can inform you like Him who is Aware.³²

Commentary

14. It is a psychological fact that when a man performs an evil act thinking it to be good, it is not possible for him to give up its practice until he realizes that it is evil. And Allah’s rule of misguidance is this that a person to whom his evil acts appear to be fair, for him the path of right guidance is closed, and he is abandoned to wander in misguidance.

15. When they persist in their evil acts and do not want to come out of the darkness of their misguidance, then how long will you grieve for them. Leave them to their condition.

For further explanation, please see Surah Kahf, Note No.7.

16. As after the rains vegetables grow out of the earth, and seeing the greenery it is felt that the dead earth has been revived, similarly on the Day of Resurrection when the second bugle will be sounded then all the dead people will come out of earth.

17. That is: To give power and honour is in the hands of Allah.

18. By good words is meant the sacred kalimah : LA ILAHA ILLALLAH, which is the kalimah of monotheism. By its ascending to Allah is meant that it is the means of closeness to Allah, and by exalting the pious deeds means that Allah bestows the blessing of His acceptance on such acts. Here the idea is to show that power and honour are not with the other beings, nor can they be achieved by worshipping them, but that they belong to Allah and they can be achieved by faith and righteous deeds.

19. Those who are striving utmost to oppose the truth and for that purpose are plotting various conspiracies will ultimately face defeat. When the time for results will come, all their plans will turn to dust.

20. The creation of mankind had begun with dust. Adam was created from dust.

21. Then Adam’s descendants were born from the lowly fluid, man’s seed of life-germ or sperm.

22. To increase or reduce anyone’s age is within the power of Allah alone, and in this connection His decisions are recorded in a Book. It means that the increasing or reducing of anyone’s age nobody other than Allah has any power.

23. To fix the ages of countless persons and to get them recorded in a Book is not at all difficult for Allah.

24. That is: You obtain fish from the sweet water rivers as also from the salt water seas.

25. Like pearls and other precious stones, and from some rivers diamonds, and gold are also obtained from the river basins. Particles of gold are found in the sands obtained from some rivers. The Encyclopedia clarifies that-

“Alluvial deposits of native gold found in or along streams were the principal sources of the metal for ancient civilization of the middle East.

“The alluvial deposit mined by placer methods are the gold-bearing sands and the gravel that have been deposited by rapidly moving streams and other rivers at places where they widen or for some other reason lose speed.”

-(The New Encyclopedia Britannica Vol. 8 page 237).

And about diamonds this clarification is found in the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology:

“But a significant amount (of diamonds) comes from individual operations from stream-bed deposits in Sierra Leone, Ghana and the Union of South Africa.”

-(McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, New York Vol. 4, page 164.)

For further explanation, please see Surah Nahl, Note No. 24.

26. That is: Seek Allah’s bounty by undertaking commercial voyages, as facilities for the sea travel is Allah’s bounty.

27. For explanation, please see Surah Al-e- Imran Note No.39.

28. For explanation, please see Surah Ra’d Note No.8.

29. That is: His rule covers the whole of the universe, including man, and only His commands are enforced in the universe.

30. The word used is ‘Qitmir’ which means the thin membrane found on the date-stone, i.e. they do not have even the lightest power.

31. On the Day of Resurrection those who will reject the contention of the polytheists will be those angels and pious persons who used to be invoked by them for help and relief. About them it is stated that in the first place they do not hear the invocation of their followers, and even if they hear it, they are unable to answer them. The spirits of the pious people are lying in the world of Barzakh and they are unable to hear anything from this world, and any view to the contrary is false. It is not necessary that the meaning of this ayah be restricted to the refutation of idolatry only, for in its wider sense it means that it also refutes saint-worship and grave-worship, therefore, those Muslims who shout the slogans of ‘O Ali, help!’ and ‘O Ghaus! (Abdul Qadir Jilani) help! ‘are guilty of committing polytheism openly. The question of these pious persons coming to their help is a remote thing, they do not even hear their slogans and call for help. And it is worth contemplating that when these holy men did not hear the invocation of every caller during their lifetime, nor was it in their power to relieve their callers for help, then from where this power has been gained by them after their death?

32. That is: The information about the next world which is Unseen can be given only by a being who is Aware of everything, and such an Aware being is Allah alone, and there is none other than Him who can give you this information. Therefore, the information about the Unseen which Allah is supplying you through His Book and His messenger should be believed unhesitatingly, ignoring those talks which are given as more guesses and conjectures.