Surah Luqman 31:31-34 - Quran Translation Commentary

(31:31) Have you not seen how the ships run upon the sea by the grace of Allah – that He may show you of His signs? Surely, in that are signs for every constantly persevering, greatly thankful (person).

(31:32) And when the canopy-like waves cover them, they call upon Allah, making religion purely for Him. But when He has delivered them to the land, then of them is one who is steadfast (in belief).³⁹ And none denies Our signs but every ungrateful traitor.

(31:33) O people! Fear your Lord, and dread a day when a father will not avail his son aught, nor will a son avail his father aught. Surely, Allah’s promise is true. Therefore, let not delude you the life of the world, nor delude you concerning Allah the Deluder.⁴⁰

(31:34) Surely, with Allah alone is the knowledge of the Hour. He sends down the rain, and knows what is in the wombs.⁴¹ And no soul knows what it shall earn tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it shall die.⁴² Verily, Allah is the All-knowing, the All-aware.

Commentary

39. There are several possible meanings: First, among those who are delivered, there are a few who remain steadfast – on the path of Islam, while the rest return to their disbelief. Second, the term “muqtasid” stands for him who remains wavering between belief and unbelief despite deliverance. A third meaning advanced by Ibn Kathir is that when a man is delivered by Allah from a dangerous circumstance, he ought to be, thereonward, wholly devoted to Allah, abandoning all worldly concerns. But, instead, he remains just a moderate Muslim. A fourth opinion is that of Mujahid who said, as in Ibn Kathir, that the allusion by “muqtasid” is to the unbeliever. That is, he remains disbelieving despite the deliverance. To be sure, there is a line missing after muqtasid. If that is brought in, one could paraphrase the verse in the following manner: “And when the waves cover them – like canopies – they call upon Allah, declaring religion purely for Him. But when He has delivered them to the land, then of them is one who is steadfast (in belief), while the rest turn back to denying. And none denies Our signs but every ungrateful traitor” (Au.).

40. Generally speaking, gharur is anything that deludes and leads to errors. (It can be men, false ideas, delusions, etc.: Au.) But, here it alludes to Shaytan, as said by Sa`id b. Jubayr, Dahhak, and Qatadah (Ibn Jarir). Sa`id b. Jubayr explained it as meaning, ‘he leads on in sins assuring (the unsure) forgiveness from Allah’ (Zamakhshari).

41. That is, whether the child in the womb is male or female, fair or dark, etc. It is reported that a man from the deserts went up to the Prophet and asked, “My wife is pregnant, so tell me what will she deliver? And, our area is dry. So, tell us when will it rain? And, I have known when I was it that I took birth. Tell me when will I die?” In response, Allah revealed this verse (Ibn Jarir). As time moves forward, ignorance seems to increase, and reasoning power seems to decline, even when the issue is material. Common people have restricted the meaning of the words, “and He knows what is in the wombs” to the sex of the fetus. With this restricted meaning, they are led to confusion when they hear that with the development in the medical sciences, it has become possible to conduct tests that can determine the sex of the fetus. Their ignorance consists in not knowing that the Qur’anic statement is in its general and comprehensive sense, and involves all that there is to know of a person from birth to death and even thereafter. It means to say that no one knows whether the future baby will be male, female, fair, dark, tall, short, of good conduct or ill, defective by birth or whole, pessimistic or optimistic, a believer or non-believer, and everything else about him. No one shares with Allah this comprehensive knowledge concerning what is in the womb. Even if the allusion is restricted to the sex of the fetus, then, why is it that determination with the help of modern equipments is considered as challenging Allah’s knowledge, when a hadith tells us that after a few weeks, an angel asks what has to be done with the fetus, and is told by Allah to make it a male or female. Once that is determined for the fetus, there should be no problem discovering what is there in the womb. Further, mankind has not awaited modern methods to determine sex of the fetus. Medical men have always been able to conduct urine and other tests to determine the sex of the fetus after some time had elapsed. Modern medicine has only advanced the time when sex can be determined: to – at least in theory – that is, a week or ten days after conception. But, can anyone determine the sex earlier than that? No. How can anyone determine the sex without the sex gonad development in the zygote? And sex gonads begin to develop only after one week of the zygote slipping into the womb. Before that, no one knows what’s happening within the fertilized egg, which is no more than the size of a dot or smaller. Far from knowing anything about what the fertilized egg holds, no one knows until a week after fertilization anything about the existence of the fertilized egg itself. Now, this is of course in theory. In practice no one knows a woman is pregnant for quite a few weeks after conception. It is only when the normal menstrual cycle does not begin - which could happen only after a few weeks - that the concerned woman suspects she could be pregnant, and undergoes tests to determine what's going on in the womb. Thus, despite the “possibility” of determination of sex within about 10 days of pregnancy, in practice, it takes a couple of weeks to determine whether a woman is pregnant at all, and then, if she is, undergo further tests to determine the sex. In the meanwhile, it is Allah alone who “knows what is in the wombs” (Au.).

42. Ibn `Umar reports the Prophet as having said,

مَفَاتِحُ الْغَيْبِ خَمْسٌ: إِنَّ اللَّهَ عِنْدَهُ عِلْمُ السَّاعَةِ وَيُنْزِلُ الْغَيْثَ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِي الأَرْحَامِ وَمَا تَدْرِي نَفْسٌ مَاذَا تَكْسِبُ غَدًا وَمَا تَدْرِي نَفْسٌ بِأَيِّ أَرْضٍ تَمُوتُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ

“Five are keys to the Unseen that no one has the knowledge of except Allah..” Then he recited this verse: “Surely, with Allah alone is the knowledge of the Hour. He sends down the rain and knows what is in the wombs. And no soul knows what it shall earn tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it will die” (Ibn Jarir). There is a similar report in the Sahihayn (Ibn Kathir). It says,

عَنْ رَجُلٍ مِنْ بَنِي عَامِرٍ أَنَّهُ اسْتَأْذَنَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَقَالَ أَأَلِجُ فَقَالَ النَّبِيُّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ لِخَادِمِهِ اخْرُجِي إِلَيْهِ فَإِنَّهُ لَا يُحْسِنُ الِاسْتِئْذَانَ فَقُولِي لَهُ فَلْيَقُلْ السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ أَدْخُلُ قَالَ فَسَمِعْتُهُ يَقُولُ ذَلِكَ فَقُلْتُ السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ أَدْخُلُ قَالَ فَأَذِنَ أَوْ قَالَ فَدَخَلْتُ فَقُلْتُ بِمَ أَتَيْتَنَا بِهِ قَالَ لَمْ آتِكُمْ إِلَّا بِخَيْرٍ أَتَيْتُكُمْ أَنْ تَعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ قَالَ شُعْبَةُ وَأَحْسِبُهُ قَالَ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ وَأَنْ تَدَعُوا اللَّاتَ وَالْعُزَّى وَأَنْ تُصَلُّوا بِاللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ خَمْسَ صَلَوَاتٍ وَأَنْ تَصُومُوا مِنْ السَّنَةِ شَهْرًا وَأَنْ تَحُجُّوا الْبَيْتَ وَأَنْ تَأْخُذُوا مِنْ مَالِ أَغْنِيَائِكُمْ فَتَرُدُّوهَا عَلَى فُقَرَائِكُمْ قَالَ فَقَالَ هَلْ بَقِيَ مِنْ الْعِلْمِ شَيْءٌ لَا تَعْلَمُهُ قَالَ قَدْ عَلِمَ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ خَيْرًا وَإِنَّ مِنْ الْعِلْمِ مَا لَا يَعْلَمُهُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عِنْدَهُ عِلْمُ السَّاعَةِ وَيُنَزِّلُ الْغَيْثَ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِي الْأَرْحَامِ وَمَا تَدْرِي نَفْسٌ مَاذَا تَكْسِبُ غَدًا وَمَا تَدْرِي نَفْسٌ بِأَيِّ أَرْضٍ تَمُوتُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَلِيمٌ خَبِيرٌ ‏ (أحمد)

A man of Banu ` Amir reports that he went to the Prophet’s door and said, “Do I enter?” He told his maid, “Go out, for he does not know the manners of entry. Tell him to say, ‘Al-Salamu Alaykum! Can I come in?’” He says, “I heard his words and said, ‘Al-Salamu Alaykum! Can I come in?’ He allowed me in and I asked him, ‘What have you brought us?’ He answered, ‘I have not brought to you but good. I have brought to you (the message) that you should worship Allah, the one God who has no partners; that you should abandon Lat and ‘Uzza; that you should pray five times during the day and night; that you should fast a month in a year; that you should perform pilgrimage of the House; and that you should take out zakah from your wealth and distribute it among your poor.’” At that the man asked him, “Is there any knowledge left that you do not know?” He replied, “Allah has taught me the good. But, of the knowledge that no one has except Allah, they are five: “Surely, with Allah alone is the knowledge of the Hour. He sends down the rain and knows what is in the wombs. And no soul knows what it shall earn tomorrow, and no soul knows in what land it will die.” The report is in Ahmad and comes through a reliable chain (Qurtubi, Ibn Kathir). With specific reference to where one will die, Ahmad has several reports. One of them comes through Abu `Uzzah. The Prophet said,

إِنَّ اللَّهَ تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى إِذَا أَرَادَ قَبْضَ رُوحِ عَبْدٍ بِأَرْضٍ جَعَلَ لَهُ فِيهَا أَوْ قَالَ بِهَا – حاجة. (أحمد)

"When Allah wishes to take back the soul of one of his slaves in a particular land, He creates a need for him there” (Qurtubi). Another report of similar nature is in Ibn abi Hatim whose words are:

إذا أراد اللهُ قبضَ روحِ عبدٍ بأرض جعل له إليها حاجةً فلم ينتهِ حتى يقدُمَهَا

“When Allah wishes to take back the soul of one of his slaves in a particular land, He places his need there so that he will not give up but go there” (Ibn Kathir). The report is in Hakim who declared it as following the criterion of the Sheikhayn; and Dhahabi agreed to it. Zamakhshari adds: It is said that Mansur was overtaken by thoughts of death. He would wonder about how much was left for him, until he saw in his dream that an image raised its hand from the sea and showed the figure five with five fingers. He asked scholars to interpret it. Some said he would live for five more years, others that he would live for five months. But when Abu Hanifah was asked, he said that it meant it was one of those five things that nobody had any knowledge of. It is also narrated that the angel of death visited Sulayman b. Da’ud at his court. He began to stare hard at one of the men there. The man asked who he was. Sulayman told him it was the angel of death. The man said, “Perhaps he wants to seize me.” He asked Sulayman to command the winds to drop him in India, which was accomplished. The angel of death said to Sulayman, “I was wondering how come the man was sitting next to you here in this court, while I was asked to draw his soul in India!?” In the above list, points out Shafi`, it is mentioned that only Allah knows where will a man die, but not when. The reason is obvious. If we do not know where a man will die, we cannot say when he will die. As this writer tries to hasten into the next chapter, several incidents of this context come to mind: There used to be a famous Jewish heart surgeon in the USA who would boast of the success of his operations, “Bring me a man within five minutes of his death from heart attack, and I’ll revive him.” Once, as he was entering the operation theatre, he suffered a stroke, and fell dead at the door. His colleagues removed the patient from the stretcher, placed him there, and did everything but failed to revive him. In another case, another heart specialist rose up his chair to present his paper during a seminar on cardiac arrests. He suffered a stroke and died then and there. During communal riots in India, a bullet from the police went through the stomach of a Muslim into the stomach of another Muslim behind him. The first man survived but the one behind him died. In a busy street in India, a passing car's wheel came out loose. It rolled out at good speed, went through the crowd of pedestrians on the sidewalk, hit a cobbler bent over his work and killed him. In Saudi Arabia, a wheel that freed itself and ran loose out of a truck, somehow jumped several feet high and struck the wind screen of a tall bus coming from the opposite direction across the island. The tire broke through the glass and killed the driver. In Bangalore, an eagle was carrying a snake as it flew. Below the eagle, a scooter was speeding with two men on it. The snake slipped out of the bird’s talons and fell straight on the pillion rider of the speeding scooter. As it struck, it bit the man in the neck and killed him. In Thailand, a hotel worker was chopping the heads of snakes to make a gourd out of its flesh. The chopping over, the man began to pick up the chopped heads lying on the floor. One of the heads bit him and he died. In Kuwait a man fell off a building under construction (perhaps off a scaffolding). His colleagues rushed down but found no trace of him. He appeared sometime later to tell the amazing story of how he fell straight into a truck carrying sand. As the colleagues were congratulating him, he said he would rather celebrate his new life by buying everyone a cool drink. As he was crossing the road, a vehicle ran over him and killed him. In the United States, a man arriving late for his flight argued his best to get into the aircraft, but to no avail. Disappointed, he went back with a sullen face. At home he went to sleep. His mother received the news that the aircraft had crashed and no one had survived. She thanked God for his son’s lucky escape and went to his son to give him the news. He was dead in his bed. In the Arabic tradition there is a story that a visiting doctor told his patient that he would die within next twenty-four hours. The patient recovered, but the doctor died (Au.).