2. Al-Baqara

Abiding therein that is in the curse and the Fire the latter indicated by the following words the chastisement shall not be lightened for them not even for a blink of an eye no respite shall be given them in which to have time to repent or to excuse themselves.

When they asked him Muhammad (s) to describe his Lord the following was revealed Your God the One deserving of your worship is One God without any equal in either essence or attribute; there is no god except Him He is the Compassionate the Merciful.

They then asked for a sign to prove this and the following was revealed Surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the marvels contained in them and the alternation of the night and day passing and returning increasing and diminishing and the ships that run in the sea and do not become cracked and sink with what profits men of trade and merchandise and the water the rain God sends down from the heaven with which He revives the earth with vegetation after it is dead after it has dried out and He scatters abroad in it all manner of crawling thing by dividing them and spreading them throughout on account of the vegetation for they thrive on the fertile pastures it produces; and the disposition of the winds changing it from south to north from cold to warm and the clouds compelled subjugated by God’s command moving to wherever God wishes between heaven and the earth without being attached to either of the two — surely there are signs indicating His Oneness exalted be He for a people who comprehend a people who contemplate.

Yet there be people who take to themselves compeers idols besides God that is other than God loving them by magnifying them and being subservient to them as God is loved that is as their love of Him; but those who believe love God more ardently than those who love their compeers because the former never reject God whereas the latter when faced with hardship soon abandon those compeers for God; If he if you O Muhammad (s) were to see those who did evil by taking to themselves compeers when idh here denotes idhā they see read either as active yarawna ‘they see’ or passive yurawna ‘they are made to see’ the chastisement you would see a grave sight that this is because the might the power and the vanquishing altogether a circumstantial qualifier belongs to God and that God is terrible in chastisement according to one reading the person listening to the verse governs the verb yarā ‘he sees’ and constitutes the subject of the clause; according to another reading it is the ‘evildoers’ who constitute the subject of the clause and govern the verb yarā; and so it yarā has the sense of ya‘lam ‘he knows’; the particle an ‘that’ and what comes after it have taken the place of the objects in both cases; the response to the initial conditional law ‘if’ has been omitted. The general meaning of the verse then is ‘If they were aware in this world of the severity of God’s chastisement and of the fact that power is God’s alone the moment they come to see it with their own eyes on the Day of Resurrection they would not take to themselves compeers’.

When idh here substitutes for the previous idh those who were followed that is the leaders disown their followers that is to say when they have denied misleading them the latter and they have seen the chastisement and the cords the bonds of affection and kinship that were between them on earth are cut away before them from them taqatta‘at ‘cut away’ is a supplement to tabarra’a ‘disown’.

And those who followed say ‘O if only we might return again to the world and disown them the ones who had been followed as they have disowned us!’ on this day the particle law ‘if only’ is an optative and its response is natabarra’a ‘we disown’. So just as He showed them the severity of His chastisement and their disowning of one another so too God shall show them their evil works as anguish hasarāt is a circumstantial qualifier regrets for them! Never shall they exit from the Fire once they have entered it.

The following was revealed when some said that it was unlawful to take a camel that has been let loose sawā’ib O people eat of what is in the earth lawful halālan is a circumstantial qualifier and wholesome tayyiban is an adjective for emphasis that is to say what is delicious; and follow not the steps the ways of Satan meaning what he embellishes of temptations; he is a manifest foe to you whose enmity is clear;

he only commands you to evil sin and indecency what is abhorred by the Law and that you should speak against God what you do not know such as forbidding what He has not forbidden and otherwise.

And when it is said to them the disbelievers ‘Follow what God has revealed’ pertaining to affirmation of God’s Oneness and the good things that He has made lawful they say ‘No; but we follow what we found our fathers doing’ in the way of idol-worship deeming unlawful the camel let loose and practising the slitting of the camel’s ear sc. bahīra. God says What? the hamza of a-wa-law is for repudiation do they follow them Even if their fathers do not understand anything concerning religion and they were not guided? to the truth.