Surah 41. Fussilat

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Verses [Section]: 1-8[1], 9-18 [2], 19-25 [3], 26-32 [4], 33-44 [5], 45-54 [6]

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Quran Text of Verse 45-54وَ لَقَدْAnd certainlyاٰتَیْنَاWe gaveمُوْسَیMusaالْكِتٰبَthe Bookفَاخْتُلِفَbut disputes aroseفِیْهِ ؕthereinوَ لَوْ لَاAnd had it not beenكَلِمَةٌ(for) a wordسَبَقَتْthat precededمِنْfromرَّبِّكَyour Lordلَقُضِیَsurely would have been settledبَیْنَهُمْ ؕbetween themوَ اِنَّهُمْBut indeed theyلَفِیْsurely (are) inشَكٍّdoubtمِّنْهُabout itمُرِیْبٍ disquieting مَنْWhoeverعَمِلَdoesصَالِحًاrighteous deedsفَلِنَفْسِهٖthen it is for his soulوَ مَنْand whoeverاَسَآءَdoes evilفَعَلَیْهَا ؕthen it is against itوَ مَاAnd notرَبُّكَ(is) your Lordبِظَلَّامٍunjustلِّلْعَبِیْدِ to His slaves 41. Fussilat Page 482اِلَیْهِTo Himیُرَدُّis referredعِلْمُ(the) knowledgeالسَّاعَةِ ؕ(of) the Hourوَ مَاAnd notتَخْرُجُcomes outمِنْanyثَمَرٰتٍfruitsمِّنْfromاَكْمَامِهَاtheir coveringsوَ مَاand notتَحْمِلُbearsمِنْanyاُنْثٰیfemaleوَ لَاand notتَضَعُgives birthاِلَّاexceptبِعِلْمِهٖ ؕwith His knowledgeوَ یَوْمَAnd (the) DayیُنَادِیْهِمْHe will call themاَیْنَWhere (are)شُرَكَآءِیْ ۙMy partnersقَالُوْۤاThey will sayاٰذَنّٰكَ ۙWe announce (to) Youمَاnotمِنَّاamong usمِنْanyشَهِیْدٍۚwitness وَ ضَلَّAnd lostعَنْهُمْfrom themمَّاwhatكَانُوْاthey wereیَدْعُوْنَinvokingمِنْbeforeقَبْلُbeforeوَ ظَنُّوْاand they (will) be certainمَا(that) notلَهُمْfor themمِّنْanyمَّحِیْصٍ place of escape لَا(Does) notیَسْـَٔمُget tiredالْاِنْسَانُmanمِنْofدُعَآءِprayingالْخَیْرِ ؗ(for) the goodوَ اِنْbut ifمَّسَّهُtouches himالشَّرُّthe evilفَیَـُٔوْسٌthen he gives up hopeقَنُوْطٌ (and) despairs وَ لَىِٕنْAnd verily, ifاَذَقْنٰهُWe let him tasteرَحْمَةًmercyمِّنَّاfrom Usمِنْۢafterبَعْدِafterضَرَّآءَan adversityمَسَّتْهُ(has) touched himلَیَقُوْلَنَّhe will surely sayهٰذَاThis (is)لِیْ ۙ(due) to meوَ مَاۤand notاَظُنُّI thinkالسَّاعَةَthe Hourقَآىِٕمَةً ۙ(will be) establishedوَّ لَىِٕنْand ifرُّجِعْتُI am returnedاِلٰیtoرَبِّیْۤmy Lordاِنَّindeedلِیْfor meعِنْدَهٗwith Himلَلْحُسْنٰی ۚ(will be) the bestفَلَنُنَبِّئَنَّBut We will surely informالَّذِیْنَthose whoكَفَرُوْاdisbelievedبِمَاabout whatعَمِلُوْا ؗthey didوَ لَنُذِیْقَنَّهُمْand We will surely make them tasteمِّنْofعَذَابٍa punishmentغَلِیْظٍ severe وَ اِذَاۤAnd whenاَنْعَمْنَاWe bestow favorعَلَیuponالْاِنْسَانِmanاَعْرَضَhe turns awayوَ نَاٰand distances himselfبِجَانِبِهٖ ۚand distances himselfوَ اِذَاbut whenمَسَّهُtouches himالشَّرُّthe evilفَذُوْthen (he is) fullدُعَآءٍ(of) supplicationعَرِیْضٍ lengthy قُلْSayاَرَءَیْتُمْYou seeاِنْifكَانَit isمِنْfromعِنْدِfromاللّٰهِAllahثُمَّthenكَفَرْتُمْyou disbelieveبِهٖin itمَنْwhoاَضَلُّ(is) more astrayمِمَّنْthan (one) whoهُوَheفِیْ(is) inشِقَاقٍۭoppositionبَعِیْدٍ far سَنُرِیْهِمْSoon We will show themاٰیٰتِنَاOur Signsفِیinالْاٰفَاقِthe horizonsوَ فِیْۤand inاَنْفُسِهِمْthemselvesحَتّٰیuntilیَتَبَیَّنَbecomes clearلَهُمْto themاَنَّهُthat itالْحَقُّ ؕ(is) the truthاَوَ لَمْIs (it) notیَكْفِsufficientبِرَبِّكَconcerning your Lordاَنَّهٗthat Heعَلٰی(is) overكُلِّallشَیْءٍthingsشَهِیْدٌ a Witness اَلَاۤUnquestionablyاِنَّهُمْtheyفِیْ(are) inمِرْیَةٍdoubtمِّنْaboutلِّقَآءِ(the) meetingرَبِّهِمْ ؕ(with) their LordاَلَاۤUnquestionablyاِنَّهٗindeed Heبِكُلِّ(is) of allشَیْءٍthingsمُّحِیْطٌ۠encompassing

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Translation of Verse 45-54

(41:45) And in the past We gave Moses the Book and yet it became an object of dispute.⁵⁶ If your Lord's decree had not gone forth before, a decisive judgement would have been made among them, once and for all.⁵⁷ Surely they are in a disquieting doubt about it.⁵⁸

(41:46) Whoever does good, does so to his own benefit; and whoever does evil, will suffer its evil consequence. Your Lord does no wrong to His servants.⁵⁹

(41:47) The knowledge of the Hour⁶¹ rests solely with Him.⁶⁰ Not a fruit comes forth from its sheath, nor does any female conceive nor give birth to a child but it is in His knowledge.⁶² On that Day He will call out to them: “Where are those associates of Mine?” They will answer: “We have declared to You that none of us can bear witness to that.”⁶³

(41:48) Then all those deities whom they once used to call upon shall vanish⁶⁴ and they will come to know for sure that there is no escape for them.

(41:49) Man wearies not of praying for good,⁶⁵ but when evil visits him, he despairs and gives up all hope.

(41:50) And if We bestow Our Mercy upon him after hardship, he will surely say: “This is what I truly deserve,⁶⁶ and I do not believe that the Hour (of Resurrection) will ever come to pass; and if I am returned to my Lord, there too I shall enjoy the best.” Surely We shall fully apprise the unbelievers of what they have done, and We shall certainly make them taste a severe chastisement.

(41:51) When We bestow Our favour upon man, he turns away and waxes proud;⁶⁷ but when a misfortune touches him, he is full of supplication.⁶⁸

(41:52) Tell them, (O Prophet): “Did you ever consider: if this Qur'an is indeed from Allah and you still deny it, who can be in greater error than he who goes far in fiercely opposing it?”⁶⁹

(41:53) Soon shall We show them Our Signs on the horizons and in their own beings until it becomes clear to them that it is the Truth.⁷⁰ Is it not enough that your Lord is a witness over everything?⁷¹

(41:54) Lo, they are in doubt concerning their meeting with their Lord.⁷² Surely He fully encompasses everything.⁷³

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Commentary

56. In other words, while some believed in the Scripture revealed to the Prophet Moses (peace be on him), others turned to it in hostility.

57. This statement carries the following two meanings: (i) That should God not have ordained that mankind be granted due respite to reflect over and respond to His message, the opponents of the truth would have instantly been obliterated. (ii) That had God not ordained that all the differences among mankind would be settled ultimately on the Day of Judgement, the truth would have been incontrovertibly unraveled in the world, and it would have been made absolutely clear who is in the right and who is in error.

58. This short statement identifies the malaise that afflicted the Makkan unbelievers. They doubted the veracity of the Qur'ān and the Prophet (peace be on him). Indeed, they vociferously rejected both the Qur’an and the Prophet (peace be on him). However, their rejection was not rooted in conviction; rather, in the heart of their hearts they suffered from uncertainty and anxiety. Swayed by selfish motives and idiosyncratic prejudice, they felt compelled to reject and stoutly oppose the Qur'ān and the Prophet (peace be on him). On the other hand, they realized in the depths of their hearts that the Qur'an was a consummate piece of discourse, the like of which had never been heard from any litterateur or poet. Nor could any person utter anything like the Qur'ān. Nor could devils and demons approach people, urging them to embrace godliness, righteousness and moral purity. Likewise, when they gave the lie to Muhammad (peace be on him), claiming that he was saying and doing everything for self-exaltation, their consciences upbraided them. For they were inwardly aware of their own guilt and wondered how they could attribute such vile motives to someone who had never tried to acquire wealth, power or fame, someone who in fact was free of every taint of self-indulgence. On the contrary, he had always worked for the cause of goodness and virtue and did nothing unbecoming to serve any of his personal interests.

59. That is, their Lord can never commit the injustice of causing a person's good deeds to go to waste; nor can He let the evil-doers escape retribution for their misdeeds.

60. The reference here is to the appointed Hour when the wicked will be punished for their misdeeds and the wrongs to which good people were subjected will be redressed.

61. God alone knows when the appointed Hour will be. This represents the Qur’anic rejoinder to the Makkan unbelievers' query as to when God's punishment, with which the Prophet (peace be on him) threatened them, will come to pass. God responds to their query without clearly stating that query in so many words.

62. This directive is meant to urge the audience to take note of two things: (i) That not only knowledge of matters relating to the Last Day but of all matters relating to the realm beyond the ken of perception is the exclusive preserve of God alone. (ii) That God is aware of even the minutest details of everything. It is inconceivable that any of man's deeds will escape His knowledge. Therefore, no person should act whimsically in God's dominion. It is in this sense that this observation is thematically linked with the verses that follow.

Pondering on what immediately follows makes it quite clear that the point being driven home is that people should not waste their time and energy on trying to ascertain the exact time when the Day of Judgement will come. What should rather concern them is what punishment will be meted out to people for their iniquity when the Day arrives. In this respect, what the Prophet (peace be on him) once said is very significant.

This occurs in a tradition which has been narrated through myriad channels in the Sīrah, Sunan and Musnad works so that it has reached the point of tāwātur (massive transmission), thereby signifying absolute authenticity. According to the tradition, the Prophet (peace be on him) was travelling when someone called out to him from a distance, saying: "O Muhammad! When will the Last Day be?' He replied: 'It is imminent. What preparations have you made for it?! (Bukharī, Kitāb al-Manāqib, Bab Manāqib 'Umar b. al-Kattāb; and Muslim, Kitāb al-Birr wa al-Şilah wa al-Ādāb, Bāb al-Mar' ma'a man Ahabb; Nasā'ī, al-Sunan al-Kubrā, Kitāb al- "Ilm, Bāb idhā Su'ila al-'Ālim 'anmā Yakrahuhu; Aḥmad ibn Hanbal, Musnad, narrated by Anas b. Mālik.)

63. The unbelievers will realize on the Day of Judgement that they were in gross error. On that Day, no one will entertain any notion that God has any partner whatsoever. It is clear from the verse's wording that at each stage on the Day of Judgement, the unbelievers will be asked whether they were in the right or in error. Inevitably, at every stage they will admit that they were misguided and that the Prophet's message alone was true, and that they constantly disregarded it, persisting in error and ignorance.

64. Ina state of sheer desperation the unbelievers will look around, hoping to receive help from those whom they had worshipped during their lives. They will look here and there for someone to rescue them, or at least to lighten their punishment. However, they will find neither helper nor supporter anywhere.

65. ‘Good’ here means prosperity, abundance of sustenance, good health and the well-being of the family. As for the word al-insan (man) used here it does not refer to the entirety of mankind. For if that were the case, it would also include Prophets and pious people who do not suffer from the weakness mentioned in this verse. Rather, the verse mentions those who fervently invoke God when they are engulfed in a crisis but who, no sooner than they receive any portion of good fortune, throw all their scruples aboard and pounce on self-indulgence. Since the majority of human beings are vulnerable to this weakness, it is projected as a common failure pertaining to mankind.

66. Such a person tends to boast that he has earned all his good fortune as a result of his own talent and competence. He, thus, considers himself quite worthy of the well-being that he enjoys.

67. The unbelievers turn away from God, neither obeying nor worshipping Him. Essentially, they consider it beneath their dignity to surrender themselves to God.

68. We have come across several Qur’anic verses which make this point. In order to gain a better understanding of the issue under consideration, it is pertinent to refer to the following: Yunus 10: 12 and _ Hud 11: 9-11, Towards Understanding the Qur'an, vol. IV, pp. 16, 84-5; Bani Isra’il 17: 83, vol. V, p. 69, al-Rum 30: 33-6, vol. VIIL, pp. 103-4, and see al-Zumar 39: 8-9 and 49 above.

69. This does not mean that one should believe, on grounds of contingency, that if this Qur’an indeed turns out to be God’s Revelation then they will be spared chastisement. What it really means is that they were thoughtlessly rejecting the truth, sealing their ears against it and were, in a fit of adamancy, bent on opposing it. All this was nothing short of foolishness. After all, they had no means of knowing that the Qur’an was not from God; there was no definite basis for them to contend that it had not been revealed by God. Quite obviously, their refusal to believe in the Qur’an was based on conjecture rather than on definite knowledge, and every conjecture can be true or false.

Let us now proceed to consider both possibilities: that the conjecture might be true or false. Let us assume for a moment that their conjecture turns out to be true. In this case, at most, all those who believe and those who don’t will come to the same end. This because all will be reduced to dust and that will be the end of things. However, if on the contrary, it turns out that the Qur’an was from God and whatever it says about Afterlife does come about, how horrendous will the end of those who gave the lie to Afterlife be? It is their own interest which requires them to abjure obstinacy and adamancy and give serious and open-minded thought to the truth of the Qur’anic claim. If, after serious reflection, they decide not to believe, they may do so. There is, however, no justification for them going to the extreme opposition which they did. There was no reason why they should go so far as to lie, defraud, beguile, oppress and torment people so as to arrest Islam’s spread.

70. This. verse admits two meanings and both have been given by highly regarded Qur’anic commentators: (i) That the unbelievers will themselves soon see that the Qur’an’s message has come to prevail in and around Arabia and they themselves will pledge loyalty and commitment to it. It is then that it will dawn upon them that what is being propounded, something whose acceptance they had resisted, is indeed fully true. (Tabari, Tafsir, comments on Surah Ha Mim al-Sajdah 41: 53.) Some people have objected to this on the grounds that the mere fact of an ideology’s prevalence does not necessarily prove its truth. For, as we know, false ideologies too have achieved dominance and their followers succeeded in conquering territory after territory.

This objection, however, is superficial, one that is made without fully understanding the whole matter. The astounding Islamic expansion in the time of the Prophet (peace be on him) and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs was not simply a token of Islam’s truth by dint of the believers’ success to conquer vast stretches of land. These conquests were rather tokens of truth in the sense that they were unlike other conquests in history which made a person, or a nation, the master of the lives and properties of others, thereby filling God’s earth with tyranny and oppression. As distinguished from other examples of conquest, the Islamic conquests brought in their trail a tremendous religious, moral, intellectual, cultural, political, civilizational and economic revolution.

As the effects of this revolution radiated, the best potentials of human beings came into fruition and their evil potentials were quelled.

The world has been in the habit of expecting moral excellence and loftiness of conduct only from devoted ascetics and godly hermits, who renounce the world to constantly remember God. Hardly was it thought that excellence of the most sublime kind can be found in the lives of those who run the affairs of the world. The revolution we are talking about has enabled us to find moral excellence in the courts of those who administered justice, in the conduct of army commanders engaged in warfare and conquest, in the revenue administration of tax-collectors, and in the trade and commerce of businessmen. This revolution brought into existence a society in which ordinary human beings reached the heights of moral excellence that were way beyond those attained by the moral elites of other societies. This revolution liberated human beings from superstitions and myths and led them along the high road of knowledge, research and rational thinking and behavior. It treated those ills of life which other societies had not even thought of treating or which they had failed to treat. In this regard we may mention the class divisions within each society and the differences between the high and the low, let alone the vogue of untouchability, legal and social inequality, suppression of women, _ denial of basic human rights, extensive spread of crimes, addiction to drugs and alcohol, exaltation of rulers to the extent of rendering them beyond accountability, helplessness of the masses, wanton violation of covenants and treaties in international relations, savagery in warfare and myriad other evils.

Arabia, which was once notorious for its lawlessness, wickedness and moral degeneration, changed altogether thanks to Islam. Schism and wanton feuding were replaced by order; internecine bloodshed and lawlessness were replaced by peace and security; instead of wickedness and corruption there was piety and moral propriety; instead of oppression and tyranny there was justice; instead of impurity and defilement there was grace and refinement; instead of ignorance there was knowledge, and instead of vengeful fighting lasting for several generations there was brotherhood and love. Those people who could not even dream of anything higher than becoming the chieftains of their own tribes became leaders of the world. Those to whom the Prophet (peace be on him) had recited this verse for the first time observed these signs with their own eyes. From that time on God has constantly been showing ££ such signs.

Even in the present phase of decline Muslims have continued to display a grandeur in their conduct which is way above the moral standards acceptable to the embodiments of refinement and cultivation.

The brutal treatment to which ‘civilized’ nations have subjected the colonized peoples of Asia, Africa, America and even Europe has no parallel in any period of Muslim history. It is thanks to the Qur’an that we find such tender humanity among Muslims that after becoming dominant they never adopted the brutality that characterizes every period of non-Muslims’ history. It is for anyone to see how Muslims treated Christians in Spain when they were in power there and conversely how the Christians treated the Muslims during the period of their control of that land: how the Muslims’ magnanimous treatment of Christians utterly contrasts with the brutality of the Christians towards Muslims after they became the rulers of Spain. Let us consider another case, that of India. Muslim rule over the Subcontinent lasted for eight centuries. It is worth noting how the Muslims treated the Hindus of India during their hegemony and how they are now being treated by Hindus who presently dominate India. The same needs be said about the Muslims’ treatment of Jews and vice versa.

The second meaning of the verse is that God will show to people His signs in the phenomena of the universe, of the earth and the sky as well as in their own beings, signs that will make it evident that the teachings of the Qur’an embody the truth. (Tabari, Tafsir, comments on Surah Ha Mim al-Sajdah 41: 53.) Some people raise strong objection to this, saying that these signs were already there, so why have they been associated with the future? This objection is as shallow as the one with regard to the first meaning of the verse. Certainly the heavens and the earth have been there for people to see and so has been man’s own being. However, the signs so embedded in them are virtually countless, so that man has neither been able to encompass them in the past nor he will be able to encompass all of them in the future. However, in every age ever new signs of God have attracted man’s attention and this will continue till the Day of Resurrection.

71. God is well aware of every effort aimed to give the lie to and frustrate His Message. Does the fact that God is well aware of their deeds not suffice to strike awe among them, filling their hearts with fear?

72. What explains their behavior on the Last Day is that they do not believe that they have to stand before their Lord and render an account of their deeds.

73. That is, they cannot escape God’s grip. Let it also be noted that none of their deeds have remained unrecorded.