1. This is a brief introduction to the Surah which only stresses the point that the Quran is not Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) word, as the disbelievers assert, but it is Allah’s Word, which He Himself has sent down. Along with this, two of Allah's attributes have been mentioned to warn the listeners of two realities so that they do not underestimate this Word but understand its full importance: (1) That Allah Who has sent it down, is All-Mighty; that is, He is so powerful that no power can prevent His will and decisions from being enforced and none can dare resist Him in any way. (2) That He is All-wise; that is, the guidance He is giving in this Book, is wholly based on wisdom, and only an ignorant and foolish person can turn away from it. (For further explanation, see (E.N. 1 of Surah As-Sajdah).

2. That is, it contains nothing but the truth, and there is no element of falsehood in it.

3. This is a very important verse which states the real objective of the message of Islam. Therefore, one should not pass over it superficially, but should try to understand its meaning and intention. It has two basic points: (1) That the demand is to worship Allah. (2) That the demand is of such worship as may be performed by making religion exclusively Allah’s. Ibadat is derived from abd, and this word is used as an antonym of freeman for the slave and bondsman in Arabic. Accordingly, ibadat contains two meanings: (1) Worship and devotion. (2) Humble and willing obedience, as is borne out by the well known and authoritative Arabic Lexicon, Lisan al- Arab. Thus, according to the authentic lexical explanation, the demand is not only of Allah’s worship but also of willing and sincere obedience to His commands and laws.

The Arabic word deen contains several meanings:

(1) Domination and sovereignty, rule and political power and authority to enforce one’s decisions on others.

(2) Obedience, compliance with commands and servitude.

(3) The practice and the way that a man follows.

In view of these three meanings, deen in this verse means: The way of life and attitude which a man adopts after acknowledging the supremacy and accepting the obedience of another; and to worship Allah making one’s religion exclusively His. This means that one should refrain from combining another’s worship with the worship of Allah, but should worship Allah alone, should follow His guidance alone, and should comply with His commands and injunctions only.

4. This is an actual fact and reality, which has been presented as an argument for the above demand. It means: You should worship Allah, making deen exclusively His, for it is only Allah’s right that He should be obeyed and worshiped sincerely and exclusively. In other words, there is no one else who may deserve to be worshiped so that he also should be served and worshiped besides Allah and his commands and laws also obeyed. If a person serves someone else, apart from Allah, sincerely and exclusively, he does it wrong. Likewise, if he combines the worship of someone else with his worship of Allah, this also is against the truth. The best commentary of this verse is the Hadith which Ibn Marduyah has related from Yazid ar-Raqashi. He says: A person asked the Prophet (peace be upon him): We give away our wealth so that we become well-known. Shall we get a reward for this? The Prophet (peace be upon him) replied: No. He asked: What, if one has the intention both of Allah’s reward and of reputation in the world? The Holy Prophet replied: Allah does not accept any deed unless it is performed exclusively for His sake. After this he recited this same verse.

5. The disbelievers of Makkah said and the polytheists the world over generally say the same: We do not worship other beings regarding them as our creators: the Creator is only Allah, and He alone is the real Deity; but He is too high for us to have access to Him. Therefore, we make these saintly beings a means to convey our prayers and our petitions to Allah.

6. One should understand it well that unity and concord is possible only through Tauhid: there can be no unity through shirk. The polytheists the world over have never agreed as to which beings are the definite means of access to Allah. Some people have taken some particular gods and goddesses as the means, but even among them there is no agreement on all the gods and goddesses; some others have taken the moon, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, etc. as the means, and they also are not agreed as to which of them holds what rank and which is the real means of approach to Allah. Some others have taken the dead saints as the means, but they also differ widely about them: one believes in one saint and another in another. The reason is that the belief about these different beings is neither based on any knowledge, nor has Allah ever sent down a list telling that such and such persons are His special favorites; therefore, they only should be made the means to have access to Him. This is a creed which has spread among the people only on account of superstitions and whims and blind imitation of the elders. Hence the differences.

7. Here, Allah has used two words for these people, kazib (liar) and kaffar (denier). They have been called kazib because they have falsely invented this creed by themselves, and then they spread falsehood among others. As for kaffar. it has two meanings: (1) A stubborn disbeliever, i.e. the people who insist on their false creed even after the doctrine of Tauhid has come before them. (2) Ungrateful for blessings, i.e. they arc receiving all kinds of blessings from Allah, but are thanking those other beings about whom they have assumed that these blessings are reaching them through their agency and influence.

8. That is, it is just impossible that Allah should have begotten a son. The only possibility is that Allah should choose someone for Himself; and whomever He chooses will inevitably be from among the creatures, for everything in the world, apart from Allah, is His creation. Now, evidently, however exalted and chosen a creature might be, it cannot have the position of the offspring. For between the Creator and the created there exists a great disparity of nature and essence and character, and parenthood necessarily demands that there should be the unity of nature and essence between a father and his offspring. Besides, one should also bear in mind the point that the words: “If Allah had intended to take a son, He could have chosen from what He created” themselves give the meaning that Allah has never intended so. Here the object is to impress that not to speak of taking a son, Allah has never even intended so.

9. The following are the arguments by which the doctrine of parenthood has been refuted:

First, that Allah is free from every defect and fault and weakness. Obviously, children are needed by the one who is defective and weak. The one who is mortal and stands in need of them, so that his progeny should continue to live after him in the world. Likewise, he who adopts a son does so either because he feels the need of having an heir, being childless himself, or he adopts a son being overpowered by love of somebody. Attributing such human weaknesses to Allah and forming religious creeds on their basis is nothing but ignorance and shortsightedness.

The second argument is that Allah in His essence and Being is unique. He is not a member of a species, whereas, evidently, offspring must necessarily belong to a species. Furthermore, there can be no concept of offspring without marriage, and marriage can take place only between homogeneous individuals. Therefore, the one who proposes offspring for the Unique and Matchless Being like Allah, is ignorant and foolish.

The third argument is that Allah is Omnipotent, i.e. whatever is there in the world is subdued to Him and is held in His powerful grasp. No one in this Universe has any resemblance with Him in any way or degree on account of which it may be imagined that he has a relation with Allah.

10. For explanation, see (Surah Ibrahim, Ayat 19); (Surah An-Nahl, Ayat 3); (Surah Al-Ankabut, Ayat 44), and the E.Ns thereof.

11. That is, He is All-Mighty: if He wills to punish you, no power can resist Him. But it is His kindness that He does not seize you forthwith in spite of your arrogant and insolent behavior, but He goes on giving you respite after respite. Here, Allah’s making no haste in seizing people in punishment and His giving them respite has been called forgiveness.

12. This does not mean that first He created the human beings from Adam and then created his wife, Eve. But here, instead of the chronological order, there is the order of presentation, examples of which are found in every language. For instance, we say, “Whatever you did today is known to me, and whatever you did yesterday is also in my knowledge.” This cannot mean that what happened yesterday has happened after today.

13. That is, the camel, cow, sheep and goat, whose four males and four females together make eight heads of cattle.

14. The three dark veils are: the belly, the womb and the caul or membrane enclosing the fetus.

15. “Your Lord”: your Master, Ruler and Providence.

16. That is, all powers and authority rest with Him and it is He Who is ruling over the whole Universe.

17. In other words, the reasoning is this: When Allah alone is your Lord and His is the sovereignty, then inevitably your Deity also is He. How can another be your deity when he has neither any share in providence nor any role in sovereignty? After all, how can it be reasonable for you to take others as your deities when Allah alone is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, when Allah alone has subjected the sun and the moon for you, when He alone brings the day after the night and the night after the day, and when He alone is your own Creator and Lord as well as of all animals and cattle?

18. These words need deep consideration. It has not been said: “How are you turning away?” but “How are you turned away?” That is, there is someone else who is misleading you, and being thus deceived you do not understand such a simple and reasonable thing. The other thing which by itself becomes evident from the style is: The word “you” is not addressed to the agents but to those who were turning away under their influence. There is a subtle point in this which can be understood easily after a little thought. Those who were working to turn away others (from the right way) were present in the same society and were doing whatever they could openly and publicly. Therefore, there was no need to mention them by name. It was also useless to address them, for they were trying to turn away the people from the service of Allah, the One, and entrapping them for the service of others, and keeping them entrapped for selfish motives. Obviously, such people could not be made to see reason by argument, for it lay in their own interest not to understand and see reason, and even after understanding they could hardly be inclined to sacrifice their interests. However, the condition of the common people who were being deceived and cheated was certainly pitiable. They had no interest involved in the business; therefore, they could be convinced by reasoning and argument, and after a little understanding they could also see what advantages were being gained by those who were showing them the way to other deities, after turning them away from Allah. That is why the address has been directed to the common people, who were being misguided rather than those few who were misguiding them.

19. That is, your disbelief cannot cause any decrease or deficiency in His Kingdom. He will be God if you believe in Him, and He will still be God if you deny Him. He is ruling over His Kingdom by His own power. Your believing or denying Him does not affect His Sovereignty in any way. According to Hadith (Muslim), Allah says: O My servants, if all of you, the former and the latter, the men and the jinns, become like the heart of a most sinful person among you, it will cause no deficiency whatever in My Kingdom.

20. That is, He does not approve, not for any interest of His own but for the interest and benefit of the servants themselves that they should disbelieve, for disbelief is harmful for them. Here, one should bear in mind the fact that Allah’s will is one thing and His approval and pleasure another. Nothing in the world can happen against Allah’s will, but many things can happen against His approval, and are happening day and night. For example, the dominance of the tyrants and the wicked in the world, the existence of thieves and robbers, the presence of murderers and adulterers, are possible only because Allah has made room for the occurrence of these evils and the existence of these criminals in the scheme of things ordained by Him. Then He provides opportunities also of committing evil just as He provides opportunities to the good of doing good. Had He made no room for these evils and had provided no opportunities of committing wrongs to the evildoers, no evil would have ever occurred in the world. All this is based on Allah’s will. But the occurrence of an act under divine will does not mean that Allah’s approval also goes with it. This may be explained by an example. If a person tries to obtain his living only by lawful means, Allah provides him his living through those means. This is His will. But providing for the thief or the robber or the corrupt person under the will does not mean that Allah also likes stealing and robbery and taking of bribes. Allah says the same thing here, as if to say: If you want to disbelieve, you may do so. We will not stop you from this nor make you believe forcibly. But We do not approve that you should deny your Creator and Provider, being His servants, for it is harmful for yourselves. Our Godhead is not harmed and affected by it in any way.

21. The word shukr (gratitude) has been used here as against kufr (disbelief) instead of Iman (belief). This by itself shows that kufr is, in fact, ingratitude and disloyalty, and faith is the necessary requirement of gratitude. The person who has any feeling of the favors of Allah Almighty, cannot adopt any other way than that of belief and faith. Therefore, gratitude and faith are correlatives. Wherever there is gratitude there will be faith also. On the contrary, wherever there is disbelief, there will be no question of gratitude at all, for gratitude along with disbelief is meaningless.

22. It means this: Each one of you is himself responsible for his deeds. If a person adopts disbelief in order to please others, or to avoid their displeasure, those others will never bear the burden of his disbelief, but will leave him to bear his own burden. Therefore, anyone who comes to know that disbelief is wrong and belief is right, should give up the wrong attitude and adopt the right attitude, and avoid making himself liable for Allah’s punishment by associating himself with his family or brotherhood or nation.

23. “The man”: the disbeliever who adopted the way of ingratitude.

24. That is, at that time he does not remember those other deities whom he used to invoke in good times; but he despairs of them all and turns only to Allah, Lord of the worlds. This is a clear proof of the fact that in the depths of his heart he has the feeling that all other deities are helpless, and the realization that Allah alone is the possessor of all powers and authority lies buried and hidden deep in his mind.

25. That is, he again forgets the bad times when abandoning all other deities he was invoking only Allah, the One.

26. That is, he again starts serving others: he obeys them, prays to them and makes offerings before them.

27. That is, he is not content with his own self having gone astray, but also leads others astray, telling them that the affliction which had befallen him, had been averted by the help of such and such a pious man or saint, or god and goddess. Thus, many other people also put their faith in these deities besides Allah, and are further misled as the ignorant and foolish people describe their experiences before them.

28. It should be noted that two kinds of the men are being contrasted here. First, those who turn to Allah when a calamity befalls them, but worship others than Allah normally. Second, those who have made it their permanent way of life to obey Allah and worship and serve Him, and their worshiping Him in solitude during the night is a proof of their sincerity. The first kind of the men have been called ignorant by Allah, even if they might have devoured whole libraries. And the second kind of the men have been called the learned, even if they might be illiterate. For the real supremely important thing is the knowledge of the truth and man’s action according to it, and on this depends his true success. Allah asks: How can these two be equal? How can they possibly follow the same way together in the world, and meet with the same end in the Hereafter?