5. Al-Maaida

And you see those in whose hearts is sickness weakness of faith the like of ‘Abd Allāh b. Ubayy the hypocrite; vying with one another for them to affiliate with them saying as an excuse for this ‘We fear lest we suffer a turn of fortune’ which time will bring round against us such as drought or defeat and that if Muhammad’s affair should come to nothing they will cease to supply us with provisions. God exalted be He says But it may be that God will bring victory by assisting His Prophet and making His religion prevail; or some commandment from Him that will reveal the secrets of the hypocrites disgracing them; and then they will end up for what they kept secret within themselves in the way of doubt and affiliating with disbelievers remorseful.

And they say read wa-yaqūlu or just yaqūlu to indicate a new independent sentence; or wa-yaqūla as a supplement to what follows those who believe to one another in amazement when their secrets are revealed ‘Are these the ones who swore by God their most earnest oaths making the utmost effort thereby to swear that they were surely with you? in religion. God exalted be He says Their good works have failed are invalid; and they have become they have ended up as the losers’ in this world through ignominy and in the Hereafter through their punishment.

O you who believe whoever of you apostatises read either yartadid with separation of the two dāl letters or yartadd with assimilation of one of the dāl letters with the other turns back from his religion to disbelief — this is a notification of what God knew would happen for some of them apostatised upon the death of the Prophet s — God will assuredly bring in their place a people whom He loves and who love Him the Prophet s said ‘They are people like him’ and he pointed to Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī as reported by al-Hākim al-Naysābūrī in his Sahīh; humble sympathetic towards believers stern severe towards disbelievers struggling in the way of God and fearing not the reproach of any reproacher therein in the way that the hypocrites fear the reproach of the disbelievers. That description mentioned is God’s bounty; He gives it to whom He will; and God is Embracing of abundant bounty Knowing of those who deserve it.

When ‘Abd Allāh Ibn Salām said ‘O Messenger of God our people have shunned us’ the following was revealed Your patron is God only and His Messenger and the believers who establish prayer and pay the alms bowing down humble or performing voluntary prayers.

Whoever affiliates to God and His Messenger and the believers He will help them and assist them; for verily the party of God they are the victors because of His assistance to them He has made this hizb Allāh ‘the party of God’ to fall in the place of an implied fa-innahum ‘for verily they’ as an explication since they belong to His party that is they His followers.

O you who believe do not take as patrons those who take your religion in mockery as something to be mocked and as a game from among min is explicative those who were given the Scripture before you and from among the disbelievers read al-kuffāri or al-kuffāra the idolaters — and fear God by refraining from affiliating with them if you are believers if you are truthful in your faith.

And those who when you make the call to prayer take it that is the prayer in mockery and as a game mocking it and laughing at it among themselves; that mocking attitude is because they are a people who do not understand.

The following was revealed when the Jews said to the Prophet s ‘Whom among the messengers do you believe in?’ and he replied in God and in that which has been revealed to us Q. 2136 and when he mentioned Jesus they said ‘We know of no religion worse than yours!’ Say ‘O People of the Scripture do you spite do you repudiate us for any other cause than that we believe in God and what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to the prophets before and that most of you are wicked?’ wa-anna aktharakum fāsiqūn is a supplement to an āmannā ‘that we believe’ that is to say ‘What you repudiate in fact is our faith and your opposition to it in refusing to accept it — a refusal which is described as ‘wickedness’ this wickedness itself being the necessary consequence of such a refusal — but in fact this faith of ours is not something to be repudiated’.

Say ‘Shall I tell you shall I inform you of what is worse than the followers of that about which you are spiteful by way of reward requital from God? They are those whom God has cursed whom He has removed from His mercy and with whom He is wroth and some of whom He has turned into apes and swine by transformation and those who worship the false deity Satan by obeying him the particle minhum ‘some of whom’ takes into account the potentially plural import of the particle min ‘those whom’ and in what precedes minhum ‘some of whom’ the singular form of min is taken into account; a variant reading has ‘abuda al-tāghūt as the genitive of an annexation ‘abud being a variant plural of ‘abd; the accusative ending of ‘abuda is because the clause is a supplement to al-qirada ‘apes’ and these were the Jews. They are worse situated makānan is for specification for their abode shall be the Fire and further astray from the even way’ from the path of truth al-sawā’ originally means al-wasat ‘middle’; the use of sharrun ‘worse’ and adallu ‘further astray’ is intended to counter their saying ‘We know of no religion worse sharrun than yours’.