3. Aal-i-Imraan

Our Lord, whomever You admit into the Fire, to abide therein, You will have abased, You will have humiliated, and the evildoers, the disbelievers therein, shall have no helpers, to protect them from God’s chastisement, exalted be He (the overt noun [‘the evildoers’] has replaced the pronominalisation [‘whomever’] in order to inform that the [punishment of] abasement is specifically theirs; the min of [min ansār, ‘helpers’] is extra).

Our Lord, we have heard a caller calling, summoning people, to belief (li’l-īmān means ilā l-īmān) and this is Muhammad (s), or [summoning them] to the Qur’ān, saying, that, “Believe in your Lord!” And we believed, in Him. So, our Lord, forgive us our sins and absolve us of, conceal, our evil deeds, and so do not make them manifest by punishing us for them, and take us [in death], receive our spirits together, with the pious, the prophets and the righteous.

Our Lord, grant us what You have promised us through, the tongues of, Your messengers, in the way of mercy and favour: they are asking Him that they be made among those that deserve such a promise, for, God’s promise is fufilled regardless, but they are not certain that they are among those who deserve it. The repetition of the phrase, our Lord, is out of extreme humility; and abase us not on the Day of Resurrection. You will not fail the tryst’, the promise of Resurrection and Requital.

And their Lord answers them, their supplication, by saying that, ‘I do not let the labour of any labourer among you go to waste, be you male or female — the one of you is as the other (this statement is a reaffirmation of the previous one): that is, they are both equal when it comes to recompensing them for their deeds and for not neglecting them. When Umm Salama asked, ‘O Messenger of God, why is there no mention of women when it comes to the Emigration (hijra)?’, the following was revealed: and those who emigrated, from Mecca to Medina, and were expelled from their habitations, those who suffered hurt in My way, for My religion, and fought, the disbelievers, and were slain (read qutilū or quttilū) — them I shall surely absolve of their evil deeds, concealing these with forgiveness, and I shall admit them to Gardens underneath which river flow’. A reward (thawāban is a verbal noun reaffirming the import of la-ukaffiranna) from God! (there is a shift of person here). And God — with Him is the fairest reward, [the fairest] requital.

When the Muslims began to say, ‘Look at the enemies of God, how comfortable they are, while we are struggling!’, the following was revealed: Let it not delude you, that the disbelievers go to and fro in the land, engaging in commerce and acquiring profit:

That is [but], a little enjoyment, which they enjoy for a short while in this world and then perishes; then their abode is Hell — an evil cradling, [an evil] resting place it is!

But those who fear their Lord — for them shall be Gardens underneath which rivers flow, abiding, that is, it is decreed for them to abide, therein; a hospitality (nuzul is what is prepared for a guest; it is in the accusative [nuzulan] because it is a circumstantial qualifier referring to jannāt, ‘gardens’, and its operator is the import of the adverbial phrase) from God Himself. That which is with God, in the way of reward, is better for the pious, than the enjoyment of this world.

Verily, there are some among the People of the Scripture who believe in God, like ‘Abd Allāh b. Salām and his companions and the Negus, and what has been revealed to you, that is, the Qur’ān, and what has been revealed to them, that is, the Torah and the Gospel, humble before God (khāshi‘īn is a circumstantial qualification of the person of [the verb] yu’min, ‘who believe’, and takes into account the [potentially plural] sense of man, ‘who’), not purchasing with the verses of God, which they have before them in the Torah and the Gospel pertaining to the descriptions of the Prophet (s), a small price, of this world, by concealing them for fear of losing their supremacy, as others, like the Jews, have done. Those — their wage, the reward for their deeds, is with their Lord, [a reward] which they will be given twice over, as [stated] in the sūrat al-Qasas [Q. 28:54]. God is swift at reckoning, reckoning with the whole of creation in about half a day of the days of this world.

O you who believe, be patient, in [performing] acts of obedience, in the face of afflictions and in refraining from acts of disobedience, and vie in patience, with the disbelievers, lest they be more patient than you; be steadfast, persist in the struggle; fear God, in all of your circumstances, so that you will prosper, [so that] you will win [admittance to] Paradise and be delivered from the Fire.