2. Al-Baqara

O people of Mecca worship profess the oneness of your Lord Who created you made you when you were nothing and created those that were before you; so that you may be fearful of His punishment by worshipping Him la‘alla ‘so that’ is essentially an optative but when spoken by God it denotes an affirmative

He Who assigned to you created for you the earth for a couch like a carpet that is laid out neither extremely hard nor extremely soft so as to make it impossible to stand firm upon it; and heaven for an edifice like a roof; and sent down from the heaven water wherewith He brought forth all types of fruits for your provision; so set not up compeers to God that is partners in worship while you know that He is the Creator that you create not and that only One that creates can be God.

And if you do not do what was mentioned because you are incapable and you will not a parenthetical statement that is never will you be able to because of its inimitability then fear through belief in God and belief that this is not the words of a human the Fire whose fuel is men disbelievers and stones like their very idols indicating that its heat is extreme since it burns with the stones mentioned unlike the fires of this world that burn with wood and similar materials; prepared and made ready for disbelievers so that they are punished in it this phrase u‘iddat li’l-kāfirīna ‘prepared for disbelievers’ is either a new sentence or a sustained circumstantial qualifier.

And give good tidings to inform those who believe who have faith in God and perform righteous deeds such as the obligatory and supererogatory rituals that theirs shall be Gardens of trees and habitations underneath which that is underneath these trees and palaces rivers run tajrī min tahtihā’l-anhāru that is there are waters in it al-nahr is the place in which water flows and is so called because the water carves yanhar its way through it; the reference to it as ‘running’ is figurative; whensoever they are provided with fruits therefrom that is whenever they are given to eat from these gardens they shall say ‘This is what that is the like of what we were provided with before’ that is before this in Paradise since its fruits are similar and this is evidenced by the following statement they shall be given it the provision in perfect semblance that is resembling one another in colour but different in taste; and there for them shall be spouses of houris and others purified from menstruation and impurities; therein they shall abide dwelling therein forever neither perishing nor departing therefrom. And when the Jews said ‘Why does God strike a similitude about flies where He says And if a fly should rob them of anything Q. 2273 and about a spider where He says As the likeness of the spider Q. 2941 what does God want with these vile creatures? God then revealed the following

God is not ashamed to strike to make a similitude mathal is the first direct object; mā either represents an indefinite noun described by what comes after it and constitutes a second direct object meaning ‘whatever that similitude may be’; or it the mā is extra to emphasise the vileness involved so that what follows constitutes the second direct object; even of a gnat ba‘ūda is the singular of ba‘ūd that is small flies; or anything above it that is larger than it so that this explanation is not affected by the size of the creature with regard to the judgement God is making; as for the believers they know it the similitude is the truth established and given in this instance from their Lord; but as for disbelievers they say ‘What did God desire by this for a similitude?’ mathalan is a specification meaning ‘by this similitude’; mā is an interrogative of rejection and is the subject; dhā means alladhī whose relative clause contains its predicate in other words ‘what use is there in it?’. God then responds to them saying Thereby that is by this similitude He leads many astray from the truth on account of their disbelieving in it and thereby He guides many believers on account of their belief in it; and thereby He leads none astray except the wicked those that reject obedience to Him.

Those such as He has described break the covenant of God the contract He made with them in the revealed Books to belief in Muhammad (s) after its solemn binding after it has been confirmed with them and such as cut what God has commanded should be joined of belief in the Prophet of kinship and other matters an in the phrase an yūsala ‘that it be joined’ substitutes for the pronoun suffixed in bihi of the preceding words mā amara Llāhu bihi ‘that which God has commanded’; and such as do corruption in the land by way of their transgressing and impeding faith they the ones thus described shall be the losers since they shall end up in the Fire made everlasting for them.

How do you people of Mecca disbelieve in God when you were dead semen inside loins and He gave you life in the womb and in this world by breathing Spirit into you the interrogative here is either intended to provoke amazement at their persistent unbelief despite the evidence established or intended as a rebuke; then He shall make you dead after your terms of life are completed then He shall give you life at the Resurrection then to Him you shall be returned! after resurrection whereupon He shall requite you according to your deeds; and He states as proof of the Resurrection when they denied it

He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth that is the earth and all that is in it so that you may benefit from and learn lessons from it; then after creating the earth He turned to that is He made His object heaven and levelled them fa-sawwāhunna the pronoun -hunna refers to ‘heaven’ since it heaven is implicit in the import of the sentence attributed to it the pronoun that is to say He made them thus as He says in another verse fa-qadāhunna so He determined them Q. 4112 seven heavens and He has knowledge of all things in their totality and in their individual detail so do you not then think that the One who has the power to create this to begin with which is much greater than what you are also has the power to bring you back after death?

And mention O Muhammad (s) when your Lord said to the angels ‘I am appointing on earth a vicegerent’ who shall act as My deputy by implementing My rulings therein — and this vicegerent was Adam; They said ‘What will You appoint therein one who will do corruption therein through disobedience and shed blood spilling it through killing just as the progeny of the jinn did for they used to inhabit it but when they became corrupted God sent down the angels against them and they were driven away to islands and into the mountains; while we glorify continuously You with praise that is “We say Glory and Praise be to You” and sanctify You?’ that is ‘We exalt You as transcendent above what does not befit You?; the lām of laka ‘You’ is extra and the sentence wa-nuqaddisu laka ‘We sanctify You’ is a circumstantial qualifier the import being ‘thus we are more entitled to be Your vicegerents’; He exalted be He said ‘Assuredly I know what you know not’ of the benefits of making Adam a vicegerent and of the fact that among his progeny will be the obedient and the transgressor and justice will prevail between them. They said ‘God will never create anything more noble in His eyes than us nor more knowledgeable since we have been created before it and have seen what it has not seen. God then created Adam from the surface of the earth adīm al-ard adīm literally means ‘skin’ taking a handful of all its colours and mixing it with different waters then made him upright and breathed into him the Spirit and he thus became a living being with senses after having been inanimate.