84. After mentioning, “some of them you ride,” there seems to be no need to add, “so that you may achieve upon them whatever need (is there) in your breasts.” Zamakhshari comes to our rescue by explaining that there can be different needs, (especially of the religious nature) such as riding upon them during Hijrah, or to perform Hajj, or participation in Jihad, or, in search of knowledge, etc.

We might also keep in mind that there are animals suitable for short-term rides such as donkeys, mules, or even cows and bullocks. They are for everyone to use. On the other hand there are animals that can only be used for long journeys such as horses and camels. The earlier part is alluding to the first kind, and the latter part to the latter kind (Au.).

85. Although at an earlier point (ref. 30: 9), a similar statement was explained by most early commentators as alluding to cultivation, at this point Ibn Jarir, Zamakhshari, Razi, Qurtubi, Alusi and Ibn Kathir explain “atharan” as traces in the land such as, to collect together their examples, the houses they carved in the mountains, the palaces and forts they built, or tall pyramids that they erected: none of which the Quraysh could boast of.

Nonetheless, it has also been said, (by Mujahid: Ibn Jarir) that the allusion is to their footsteps in the land that they left as they went about committing crimes.

86. Yusuf Ali again, “For any generation to take inordinate pride in its own single achievements in science or skill becomes ridiculous if we consider the broad stream of history. In the first place, men will find that a great deal of what they attribute to their own merits only became possible owing to the earlier work of their predecessors. Secondly, many of-their predecessors were more numerous and mightier in power than they, although the perspective of time may have reduced the apparent depth of their influence, and the monuments which they have left behind may have suffered from the destroying hand of Time. Thirdly, and most important of all, when they forgot Allah and His inexorable Law, nothing of their own handiwork profited them: they perished in the common ruin as all vanities must perish.”

87. Such as the philosophers, thinkers, leaders of a nation or its clergy, who exult in their knowledge and refuse to accept guidance from any other source except their own. But see to what chaos they have brought their followers in the modern world, particularly the West, where, according to women’s organizations, who have arrived at conclusions after extensive surveys, twenty five percent of their women are sexually abused during their childhood by their fathers, uncles, brothers and other males around them. Many of them are rendered so impaired mentally and psychologically as to make them incapable of any sexual enjoyment for the rest of their lives. These figures, we are told by the study, are only the tip of the iceberg. And sexual molestation, with the destruction of personalities, is only one of a dozen social ills that the individuals are subjected to living in Western societies. The prime reason for having arrived at no point of return but only promises of further chaos is the insistence of the Western thinkers that they must find solutions to their problems from within: and they exult in the knowledge that they have (Au.).

88. “Incurred loss” would have been perhaps a better translation, but which would yet remain inadequate (Au.).