5. Al-Maaida

And when I revealed to the disciples, [when] I commanded them by the tongue of Jesus: “Believe in Me and in My Messenger”, Jesus; they said, “We believe, in both; bear witness that we have submitted”.’

They said, ‘We desire, to request this in order, to eat of it and that our hearts be reassured, through increased certainty, and that we may know, that we may acquire more awareness [of the fact], that you (annaka is softened to an) have spoken truthfully to us, in your claim to prophethood, and that we may be among the witnesses thereof’.

Jesus, son of Mary, said: ‘O God, our Lord, send down upon us a Table from the heaven, that it shall be, that is, the day of its sending down [shall be], a celebration for us, which we shall consecrate and honour, for the first (li-awwalinā is an inclusive substitution for lanā, ‘for us’, with the repetition of the [oblique] preposition [li-]) and the last of us, those who will come after us, and a sign from You, of Your power and my prophethood. And provide, it, for us; You are the Best of Providers’.

God said, granting his supplication: ‘Verily I shall send it down (read munziluhā or munazziluhā) to you; but whoever of you disbelieves afterward, after it has been sent down, I shall surely chastise him with a chastisement wherewith I chastise no other being from among all the worlds’: and so the angels descended with it from heaven, on it were seven loaves and seven large fish, and so they ate of it until they were full, as related by Ibn ‘Abbās. In one hadīth it is said that the Table sent down from heaven consisted of bread and meat, and they were commanded not to be treacherous and nor to store anything for the next day: but they were and they stored some of it, and were [consequently] transformed into apes and swine.

And, mention, when God says, that is, when God will say, to Jesus at the Resurrection in rebuke of his followers: ‘O Jesus, son of Mary, did you say to mankind, “Take me and my mother as gods, besides God”?’ He, Jesus, says, shuddering: ‘Glory be to You!, exalted be You above all that does not befit You, such as [having] a partner and so on. It is not mine, it is unjustified [for me], to say what I have no right to (bi-haqq, ‘right to’, is the predicate of laysa, ‘not’; lī, ‘mine’, is explicative). If I indeed had said it, You would have known it. You know what is, hidden by me, in my self, but I do not know what is within Your Self, that is, what You keep hidden of Your knowledge: You are the Knower of things unseen.

I only said to them that which You commanded me, to [say], and that is: “Worship God, my Lord and your Lord.” And I was a witness, a watcher, over them, preventing them from [saying] what they used to say, whilst I was amongst them; but when You took me [to You], [when] You raised me up to the heaven, You were Yourself the Watcher over them, the Observer of their deeds, and You Yourself are Witness over all things, Aware and knowing them, including what I said to them and what they said after me, and whatever else.

If you chastise them, that is, those among them who are fixed upon disbelief, verily they are Your servants, and You are their Master, disposing of them as You will: there can be no objection to [what] You [do]; and if You forgive them, that is, those of them who are believers, You, only You, are the Mighty, in His affair, the Wise’, in His actions.

God says, ‘This, namely, the Day of Resurrection, is the day those who were truthful, in the world, like Jesus, shall profit by their truthfulness, because this is the Day of Requital. Theirs will be Gardens underneath which rivers flow, wherein they shall abide forever. God is well-pleased with them, because of their obedience to Him, and they are well-pleased with Him, with His reward — that is the great triumph’. The sincerity of those who were liars in this world shall not avail them on that Day, just as [it shall not avail] the disbelievers when they believe upon seeing the chastisement.

To God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth, the storehouses of rain, vegetation, sustenance and everything else, and all that is in them (wa-mā fīhinna: the use of mā, ‘that’, indicates the predominance of all those non-rational creations); and He has power over all things, including the rewarding of the truthful and the punishing of the liar — He is specifically addressing rational beings, for there is none among them with power over all things.