وَ بِالْاَسْحَارِ And in the hours before dawn هُمْ they یَسْتَغْفِرُوْنَ would ask forgiveness وَ فِیْۤ And in اَمْوَالِهِمْ their wealth حَقٌّ (was the) right لِّلسَّآىِٕلِ (of) those who asked وَ الْمَحْرُوْمِ and the deprived وَ فِی And in الْاَرْضِ the earth اٰیٰتٌ (are) signs لِّلْمُوْقِنِیْنَۙ for those who are certain وَ فِیْۤ And in اَنْفُسِكُمْ ؕ yourselves اَفَلَا Then will not تُبْصِرُوْنَ you see وَ فِی And in السَّمَآءِ the heaven رِزْقُكُمْ (is) your provision وَ مَا and what تُوْعَدُوْنَ you are promised فَوَرَبِّ Then by (the) Lord السَّمَآءِ (of) the heaven وَ الْاَرْضِ and the earth اِنَّهٗ indeed it لَحَقٌّ (is) surely (the) truth مِّثْلَ (just) as مَاۤ [what] اَنَّكُمْ you تَنْطِقُوْنَ۠ speak
(51:18) and would ask for forgiveness at dawn,16
(51:19) and in their wealth there was a rightful share for him who would ask and for the destitute.17
(51:20) There are many Signs on earth for those of sure faith,18
(51:21) and also in your own selves.19 Do you not see?
(51:22) And in heaven is your provision and also what you are being promised. 20
(51:23) So, by the Lord of the heaven and the earth, this is certainly true, as true as the fact of your speaking.
16. That is they did not belong to those who spent their nights in immoral and indecent acts and even then never thought of seeking Allah’s forgiveness. On the contrary, they spent a major part of the nights in the worship of Allah and then in the early hours of dawn sought His forgiveness, saying that they did not do full justice to the worship that was due from them. The words humyastaghfirun also contain an allusion to this that it befitted and suited them alone that they should exert their utmost in the service of their Lord and then, at the same time, should implore Him humbly for the forgiveness of their errors and shortcomings instead of exulting at and waging proud of their good acts. This could not be the way of those shameless, wicked people who committed sin and behaved arrogantly as well.
17. In other words, on the one hand, they recognized the right of their Lord and duly discharged it; on the other hand, they did not think that whatever Allah had given them, whether little or much, was wholly their own and their children’s right, but they had the sense that in their possessions there was the right and share of every such person who was indigent and needy. They did not render help to the people as a charity so as to earn their gratitude for the favor done, but they regarded it as the people’s right and discharged it as their own duty. Then their this service to mankind was not only confined to those who came to them for seeking help as beggars but anyone about whom they came to know that he had been left destitute, they would become anxious to render him necessary help of their own accord. There was no orphan who might have been left helpless, no widow who might have had no breadwinner, no disabled person who might be unable to earn a living, no one who might have lost his job, or whose taming might not be sufficing his needs, nobody who might have been hit by a calamity and might be unable to compensate for the loss by himself. In short, there was no needy one whose condition they might have known and yet might have withheld their help when they could have rendered him necessary help and support.
The following are the three qualities on the basis of which Allah regards them as the righteous doers of good, and says that these very qualities have made them worthy of Paradise: (1) That they believed in the Hereafter and refrained from every act and conduct which Allah and His Messenger had stated to be disastrous for the life-after-death. (2) That they executed their utmost to do full justice to the service of Allah and still sought Allah’s forgiveness instead of exulting at their acts of piety. (3) That they served Allah’s servants not as a favor to them but as their own duty and their right due from them.
Here, one should also know and understand another thing; The right of the needy ones that has been mentioned here in the wealth of the believers does not imply the zakat, which has been imposed as religious duty on them. But this is the right that a well-to-do believer himself feels there is in his possessions of the needy even after he has paid off the zakat, and he discharges it willingly even if it has not been made obligatory by the Shariah. lbn Abbas, Mujahid, Zaid bin Aslam and other scholars have understood this very meaning of this verse. In fact, the real spirit of this divine command is that a pious and virtuous person is never involved in the misunderstanding that he has become relieved of his duty of discharging the right of Allah and His servants that there was in his possessions after he has paid the zakat, and now he is not bound to help every needy and destitute person whom he comes across. Contrary to this, every servant of Allah, who is really pious and righteous, remains ever ready to do whatever good he can do willingly, does not let slip any opportunity when he could do some good to the people in the world. He is not of the way of thinking that he has done whatever good he had been enjoined to do and now no more good is required to be done by him. The one who has recognized the true value of goodness, does not perform it as a burden but tries to earn more and more of it, greedily as a bargain to his own advantage, in his own interest.
18. The signs imply those proofs which testify to the possibility and necessity of the Hereafter. The earth’s own body and its structure, its having been placed at a suitable distance from the sun at a particular angle, the arrangement of heat and light and of different seasons on it, the provision of air and water on it, and of countless different kinds of treasures in its belly, covering its surface with a fertile crest and causing to grow in it an endless variety of vegetables, generating countless races of the animals of the land and water and air, providing suitable food and proper conditions for the life of every species, creating and making available all those means and resources on it even before the creation of man, so as to meet and suit his ever increasing needs in every stage of history as well as accord with the development of his civilization and way of living, these and countless other signs can be seen in the earth and its surroundings by every discerning eye. The case of the one who has closed the doors of his heart to belief and faith is different. He will see in these every thing else but not any sign that may point to the reality. But an un-prejudiced person who has an open mind, will never form the idea after observing these signs that all this has come about as the result of an accidental explosion, that had occurred suddenly in the universe millions of years ago; he will rather be convinced that this wise and perfect work of art is the creation of an Omnipotent and Omniscient God. And that God Who has made this earth cannot be helpless to resurrect man after death, nor can He be so unwise as to leave a sensible and intelligent being like man after granting him powers and authority to roam at will in His earth. The fact that man has been granted powers and authority by itself demands that he should be accountable; otherwise it would be against wisdom and justice; and the Creator’s being allpowerful (Omnipotent) is by itself a proof that after the human species has fulfilled its function in the world, He can raise all its members back to life and gather them together from wherever they are lying dead in the earth for the purpose of accountability.
19. That is, you may not look outside yourself; look within your own self, and you will find countless signs testifying to the same truth. You will see how your creation was begun by combining a microscopic sperm with a microscopic egg in a corner of the mother’s body; how you were blessed with a body of unique structure and a self endowed with wonderful powers and abilities; how you were brought out from the dark world of your mother’s womb, as soon as your structure became complete, into this vast world, equipped with an automate machine within yourself, which goes on functioning by itself from the day you take birth till your maturity and old age, to assimilate food, produce blood and circulate it in the veins, discharge waste matter, prepare new parts in place of the wasted and worn out parts of the body, resisting the internal and the external hazards to the body and compensating for the losses, even for sending you to peaceful sleep after exhaustion, without any effort required to be made by you towards these basic needs of life. A wonderful brain has been placed under your skull in whose complicated layers lies filled an invaluable wealth of intellect, thought, imagination, consciousness, discrimination, will, memory, desire, feeling and emotions. Inclinations and trends, and other mental abilities. You have been provided with numerous means of knowledge which supply you with every kind of informational through the eye, nose, cars and skin. You have been given the tongue and the power of speech by which you can express your thoughts and feelings. And then your ego has been placed as a ruler over the entire kingdom of your body so that it may employ all the powers and abilities and form opinions and decide as in what ways you have to spend and employ your time and labor and efforts, what you have to reject and what you have to accept, what should be your objective in life and what you should shun and avoid.
Thus equipped when you were brought into the world, you saw what provisions had been made ready here for your nourishment, development and the progress and perfection of your self by virtue of which you reached a particular stage of life when you became able to use the powers and authority you had been endowed with.
For using these powers you were given means in the earth, provided with opportunities, and given ability to control and employ many of the things as you pleased. You had all the ways of disbelief and faith, sin and obedience, justice and injustice, good and evil, truth and falsehood, open before you; there were those who invited to each of these ways and there were the means to lead to each one of them. Whoever among you selected one particular way did so on his own responsibility, for he had the power to decide and choose endowed in himself. Depending on the choice made by each one and taking advantage of the opportunities thus afforded of employing his powers of will and intention someone became a good man and another a bad man; someone adopted the way of belief and faith and another the way of disbelief, polytheism or atheism; someone withheld himself from unlawful desires, and another did whatever he wanted in obedience to his self; someone became an oppressor and another the oppressed; someone carved out his duties and another usurped the rights of others; someone continued to do good till his last breath, another went on committing evil till his last moment of lift; someone exerted himself to raise the word of the truth, another went on oppressing the followers of the truth in order to cause falsehood to flourish.
Now can a person, unless he is absolutely blind and senseless, say that a being such as this has appeared on the earth just by an accident? That there is no wisdom and no plan working behind his creation? That the storms that he is raising on the earth are without a purpose and will end up without entailing any consequence? That there will be no reward for a good act and no punishment for an evil act? And that injustice will not be redressed and the unjust will not be brought to book? Such things may be said by a person who has lost his reason, or by the one who is resolved not to acknowledge at all the wisdom of a Wise Being working behind the creation of man. But an unprejudiced, sensible person cannot help but admit that the creation of man, the powers and abilities he has been given, and the position he has been granted here, is certainly a grand, wise plan, and the wisdom of the God Whose plan it is, inevitably demands that man should be questioned about his actions and deeds; and it cannot be right to entertain the doubt about the powers of God that He will not be able to recreate man whom He has brought up to this noble position of honor from a mere microscopic cell.
20. By the heaven here is meant the heavens, by provision, all that man is given for his survival and functioning in the world, and by that which you are promised, Resurrection, gathering together, accountability, meting out of rewards and punishments, and Hell and Heaven, which have been foretold and promised in all divine Books and now in the Quran. The verse means to say: The decisions, as to who should be given what and how much in the world, are taken in heavens, and also the decision as to when should any of you be recalled for the purpose of accountability and dispensation of the rewards and punishments.