Surah Al-An'am 6:71-82 - Quran Translation Commentary

71. Say: “Are we to invoke others, beside Allah, that can do us neither good nor harm¹¹⁸, and turn upon our heels after receiving guidance from Allah, like the one whom the devils be fooled in the wilderness, wandering bewildered¹¹⁹, his companions calling him to the right path, saying: ‘Come to us’¹²⁰? Say: “The guidance of Allah is the only guidance¹²¹. And we have been commanded to surrender ourselves to the Lord of the worlds.¹²²

72. “And to establish salat, and to fear Allah¹²³, and before Him you all shall be assembled.”

73. It is He who created the heavens and the earth in truth (with a purpose)¹²⁴. And on the day He will say: “Be”, it shall be¹²⁵. His word is the truth¹²⁶. His shall be the kingdom on the day when the trumpet is sounded. He knows of the visible and the unseen. He is Wise and All-knowing.

74. And (recall) when Ibrahim said to his father, Azar ;¹²⁷ “Do you take idols for gods? Verily I see you and your people in manifest error.’’

75. ¹²⁸ And in this way we showed Ibrahim the (order of the) kingdom of the heavens and the earth so that he might become a firm believer .¹²⁹

76. When night drew its shadow over him, he saw a star. He said; “This is my Lord.” But when it set, he said: “I do not like those that set.”

77. Then when he saw the moon rising in splendour, he said: “This is my Lord.” But when it set, he said: “If my Lord does not guide me, I shall surely be of those who go astray.”

78. Then when he saw the sun shining brightly, he said: “This is my Lord. This is the greatest. “But when it set, he said: “O my people! I am free from all that you associate with Him.¹³⁰

79. “I have turned my face towards Him, who created the heavens and the earth, in total submission, and I am not among those who ascribe partners to Allah.’’¹³¹

80. And his people disputed with him. He said: “Do you dispute with me concerning Allah when He has guided me.¹³² And I do not fear those whom you associate with Him, however, if my Lord wills¹³³ to do some harm (it is another matter). My Lord has , knowledge of all things.¹³⁴ Will you not be then reminded?

81. “And how should I fear those whom you associate with Him, while you do not fear to ascribe partners to Allah, for which no sanction (authority) has been sent down to you?¹³⁵ Which of us two groups is more deserving¹³⁶ of peace (salvation)? Tell me, if you know. ⁸².

82. “Those who believed and did not tarnish their faith by wrongdoing¹³⁷ – theirs is peace (salvation), and they are rightly guided.”

Commentary

118. Means idols, which are pieces of stone or mounds of clay. What power have they to benefit or harm anybody! The concept of the devis and devtas (deities) is merely imaginary. There is neither a devi of wealth that would enrich a man nor a goddess of adversity and sickness that would afflict some man with small pox, etc. This is mere superstition. These gods and goddesses have no existence at all.

119. The devil’s misguiding man in the wilderness means the same thing as devil’s causing man to forget his responsibilities, etc.

120. This is an example of those who wander aimlessly under the influence of Satan. This is the condition of the rejectors of Truth. Such people are so much bewildered that they are not willing to pay any attention to their companions who are calling them to the right path.

By this example it would appear that the people of faith are saying that the disbelievers themselves are wandering aimlessly and they want the faithful people to follow suit, while actually what was required was that the people who are astray should have joined the company of the people of faith and followed the right path.

121. The paths leading to God are not those which the people have devised according to the dictates of their wishes, or due to superstitions and imagination, or religious inventions, or philosophical interpretations, but the only path leading to God is the same that has been pointed out by Himself, and which is known as Islam.

122. And the reality of Islam is this that one should submit and surrender oneself entirely and without reservation to Allah.

123. The foremost manifestation of surrendering oneself to Allah is prayer (salat). So long as man does not establish salat, does not offer prayer, surrender to God has no meaning. And the practical proof of fearing Him can be given by man by following His Command of the Shariah.

124. That is: Allah has not created this universe without any purpose or aimlessly. It has a purpose and an objective, and that is the matter of reward and punishment, for which are required a new earth, a new heaven and a new order. This new order will emerge from the womb of this earth, and the Day of Resurrection is the name of this universal change.

125. That is: For Allah there will be no difficulty at all in causing to bring forth the Doomsday, the Day of Resurrection or the world of the Hereafter. As he brought into being this universe by merely saying “Be” in the same way he can cause the Doomsday to occur.

126. That is: His word will essentially prove to be truthful. Therefore, with regard to the Day of Resurrection His word will also prove truthful.

127. prophet Ibrahim lived in (circa) 2000 B.C. He lived in the city of ’Ur’ in Iraq, on the bank of the river Euphrates.

Azar is the name of prophet Ibrahim’s father. He was an idolater. In the Bible his name appears as ‘Tareh’. It appears that this name was recorded by a mistake of some editor or translator, and Quran has expressly mentioned his name, probably to correct this mistake so that the correct parentage of prophet Ibrahim be recorded.

128. The community to which prophet Ibrahim belonged was of the idol worshippers. when he set to raise his voice against idolatry, he started his mission with his home. Accordingly, in the beginning he pointed out the wrong beliefs of his father to him and invited him to accept the faith of monotheism. The words used here show that this dawah was presented without any reservations and with full courage of a faithful, in such a way that the unreasonableness and the falsehood of the polytheism and idolatry became quite obvious. Idolatry has been termed as manifest error, because common sense is not prepared to accept as god a thing which man himself has made.

129. Though prophet Ibrahim was. born in an idolatrous family and community, the falsehood of idolatry became manifest to him on account of his using his God-given intelligence. In the same way he came to believe firmly in the oneness of God by pondering over the system of working of the heavens and the earth, because this universal system testifies that here there is rule of only one and one Being, who has bound all the things of the universe in His Law. prophet Ibrahim did not follow blindly the practice of his forefathers in the matter of religion and belief in God, but he used his intelligence and tried to reach the right conclusion by observing the system of this universe. Therefore, Allah blessed him with insight and guided him. At another place in the Quran it is stated:

“And verily We had bestowed guidance on Ibrahim aforetime,” (Al-Anbiya-5 1).

A prophet has normal, healthy nature, and prophet Ibrahim also enjoyed these gifts from God. He believed in Allah to be his Lord. He was never in doubt about this fact. However, by observing God’s handiwork and complete order in nature, his concept of monotheism became more firm and his belief in God became absolute, Quran calls people to observe nature in the same manner. whoever will ponder on the order and smooth working of the universal system and then think whether it has a creator or not, and whether it is ruled by one Being or more, will surely come to the inevitable conclusion that there is only one God, Creator of the entire universe.

Since the scientists and astronomers of the modern times do not observe the universe from this aspect, and their observation in this regard is not objective, and since their observation is tinged with prejudice and without giving due thought to God, they are deprived of attaining the right guided conclusion, and they do not achieve the guidance and the belief leading to God.

And we gave him Ishaq and Yaqub, and guided all of them; and We had guided Nooh earlier, and among his progeny Dawood, Sulaiman, Ayub, Yusuf, Moosa and Haroon. In this way We reward the virtuous. (Al-Quran)

130. For understanding this event it is necessary to keep the following points in view:

(A) prophet Ibrahim’s community was star worshipper. planet Venus, which was called ‘Ashtra’ “was the goddess of love and beauty. The moon was Nannar and was the god of prosperity. Sun (Shams) was according to them the greatest god. They had made a number of idols and named them after the various planets and stars. These idols represented the gods after which they were named. To propitiate these gods, they used to worship these idols. They treated these idols as their gods and offered presents before them. Thus they had manufactured their own gods.

(B) Since idolatry was connected with starworship, prophet Ibrahim proffered an argument which referred to the setting of all the heavenly gods, and with that the earthly gods were also compelled to set.

(C) This observation by prophet Ibrahim of the star, the moon and the sun might not have taken place in one day and night. It is likely that some time might have elapsed between the observation of the star and then the moon, and after some days the sun.

(D) The event narrated here was in the nature of a debate as is clear from a reference to the context. It would be therefore wrong to consider it as an evolution of the thinking of prophet Ibrahim, and to treat his observation about the star, the moon and the sun that they were his Lord and his proceeding step by step to the true Lord would be faulty. It is a pity that some commentators have also been victims of this misunderstanding. But as is explained by Allama Ibn Katheer, this event was in the nature of a debate between prophet Ibrahim and his community, and not his personal observation. prophet Ibrahim had uttered the words “This is my Lord” during the debate, which meant: “Is it really my Lord?” To declare the star, moon, etc. as the Lord was to express amazement and also to question the community whether these things are really worth treating as Lord.

From the context it will be seen that before this there is a mention of prophet Ibrahim’s presenting dawah before his father, and immediately thereafter in Verse No.80 his disputation with his community is mentioned. Then after his observing the moon, when he says “This is my Lord”, he also says: “If my Lord does not guide me, I shall surely be of those who go astray.” This only means that he considered Allah only as his real Lord, and for guidance one should turn to him only, otherwise nothing but misguidance would result. This remark reflects the monotheistic trend of prophet Ibrahim’s mind. Therefore, subsequently his calling the sun as his Lord is to reverse the opponent’s argument against him (the opponent). During the debate what a man states as a presumption is not necessarily his own statement or proposition, and here the context is proof enough that prophet Ibrahim had uttered these words to silence his opponents, in the same way in which he, on another occasion had attributed the act of breaking the idols to the larger idol while he himself had broken them.

(E) The summary of the arguments put forth by prophet Ibrahim against star-worshipping is that whether they are stars or planets, moon or sun, people are deceived by their brightness and consider them to be gods and goddesses and start worshipping them. But if people would consider their setting along with their rising, they would clearly see that none of them is a deity and that all of them are bound in a fixed and appointed system. They can neither rise before their scheduled time nor they can set before their allotted hour. And what kind of god is that who is bound bya law? This physical helplessness of theirs is a proof of the fact that a Being higher than them is ruling over them, by whose law they are bound and cannot shake themselves off it. Therefore, the only Being that is worthy of worship is that Higher Being who is a Creator of all these and who rules supreme over them, and not these heavenly bodies that are totally without any power or authority.

(F) The rejection of the planets and stars as deities by prophet Ibrahim is supported by the present day Science also, as science has in a very detailed manner placed before us the facts as to how these heavenly bodies are bound by the various solar systems, and that the planets whose brightness has misled men to treat them as deities are dependent on the sun for their light, and that the sun is nothing else but a place where constant fire is burning and every now and then explosions take place. Can a being in whose belly explosions occur so often be a god? Similarly the surface of the moon has also been trampled by man’s feet. Can the being who can be trampled by the feet of man be a god?

131. This is the proclamation of the Unity of God, in which there is a total repudiation of polytheism and an argument for oneness of Allah, who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

He alone is worthy of worship. Therefore, I have repudiated all the false gods and turned to Him and have made Him my objective. On account of their being so richly meaningful, these words have been prescribed for being recited at the beginning of every prayer (salat).

132. It shows that this event of disputation and debate took place after prophet Ibrahim was blessed with the honourable office of prophethood.

133. When people heard prophet Ibrahim talking against their deities, they frightened him with some impending calamity and with the threat of his being unlucky. In reply to this, prophet Ibrahim said that he was not afraid of their invented gods; to cause harm is within the powers of Allah only; he will be harmed only if Allah wills, otherwise there is nothing in these false gods.

134. For godhood expansive knowledge is required, and this attribute belongs to Allah only. Then what sense is there in making other being as god, instead of Allah? Are these idols aware of the condition of the people that they may benefit or harm any man?

135. That is: The books which Allah revealed to His prophets do not at all mention anything about Allah’s making any person or thing as His partner. Similarly no argument or proof can be proffered in support of polytheism. Then without any authority or any argument, how have you given the rank of gods to others?

136. That is: ponder upon the point whether the danger of punishment is lurking for those who believe in God or for those who attribute others as Allah’s partners without any proof or reason.

137. Here by ‘zulm’ or wrongdoing is meant polytheism, as is mentioned in a hadith: when this verse was revealed the companions of the prophet felt very uneasy and said: “Who is amongst us that has not tarnished himself with wrongdoing?” Thereupon the prophet said that the meaning of this verse was not so,”You have not thought over what Luqman had said, he had said: polytheism is the greatest wrongdoing.”– (Bukhari-Kitab Istitabatil Murtaddeen).

This verse explains that before Allah only that faith is acceptable which is free from polytheism of belief and action. There is a great warning in this for those Muslims who have contaminated their faith with polytheism. (Shirk.)