5. Al-Maaida

The following was revealed when they began to ask the Prophet s too many questions O you who believe do not ask about things which if disclosed to you if revealed would trouble you because of the hardship that would ensue from them; yet if you ask about them while the Qur’ān is being revealed during the time of the Prophet s they will be disclosed to you meaning that if you ask about certain things during his lifetime the Qur’ān will reveal them but once these things are disclosed it will grieve you. So do not ask about them; indeed God has pardoned those things you asked about so do not ask again; for God is Forgiving Forbearing.

Verily a people before you asked about them that is they asked their prophets about such things and they received the response in the form of revealed explications of the rules concerning them; and then they disbelieved in them by neglecting to implement them.

God has not ordained He has not stipulated in His Law anything such as a Bahīra a Sā’iba a Wasīla or a Hām in the way that people did at the time of paganism. Al-Bukhārī reported in a hadīth from Sa‘īd b. al-Musayyab who said ‘The bahīra is that camel whose milk is consecrated to idols and whom no human may milk; the sā’iba is the one they would leave to roam freely for their gods and was forbidden to bear any load; the wasīla is the young she-camel that would give birth to a young female as its first offspring followed by another female bearing one after the other without a male in between she would then be left to roam freely for their idols; the hām is the mature male camel which after completing a certain number of copulations with a female would then be consigned to their idols and be exempt from bearing any load and they would call it hāmī; but the disbelievers invent lies against God in this matter by attributing the sanctioning of such practices to Him; and most of them do not understand that this is mendacity for in this they have merely followed the example of their forefathers.

And when it is said to them ‘Come to what God has revealed and to the Messenger’ that is to His ruling concerning the permitting of what you have forbidden they say ‘What we have found our fathers following suffices us’ in the way of religion and laws. God exalted be He says What does that suffice them even if their fathers knew nothing and were not guided? to any truth the interrogative is meant as a disavowal.

O you who believe you are responsible for your own souls in other words preserve them and do what is in their best interest; he who is astray cannot hurt you if you are rightly guided it is said that this means ‘None of those misguided ones from among the People of the Scripture can hurt you’; it is also said to mean others on the basis of the following hadīth of Abū Tha‘laba al-Khushanī ‘I asked the Messenger of God s about it this verse and he said “Enjoin one other to decency and forbid one another indecency and then if you see niggardliness being obeyed whims being followed this present world being preferred and every intelligent person proud of his own opinions then you are still responsible for looking after your own soul”’ as reported by al-Hākim and others. Unto God you shall return all together and He will inform you of what you used to do and requite you for it.

O you who believe let testimony between you when death that is one of its causes draws near to one of you at the time of a bequest be that of two men of justice among you ithnāni dhawā ‘adlin minkum ‘two men of justice among you’ is the predicate expressed with the sense of an imperative in other words ‘let two men bear witness … etc.’; the genitive annexation of shahāda ‘testimony’ and bayn ‘between’ is meant to allow for a range of alternatives; hīn ‘at the time of’ is a substitute for idhā ‘when’ or an adverbial qualifier of time for the verb hadara ‘draws near’; or of two others from another folk that is from other than your own religious community if you are travelling in the land and the affliction of death befalls you. Then you shall empanel them you shall detain them tahbisūnahumā ‘you shall empanel them’ is an adjectival qualification of ākharān ‘two others’ after the mid-afternoon prayer and if you are in doubt if you are uncertain about it their testimony they shall swear by God both of them saying ‘We will not sell it our testimony in swearing by God for any price for any compensation that we might take in exchange for it from this world neither by swearing by Him falsely nor by testifying falsely for the sake of that price; even if he the person before whom it is being sworn or the one for whose sake testimony is being given be a near kinsman a close relative of ours nor will we hide testimony to God which He has commanded us to give for then if we were to hide it we would surely be among the sinful’.

But if it be discovered if it be ascertained after they have sworn their oaths that both of them have merited the suspicion of sin that is that they have done something to incur it in the way of a breach of faith or perjury in the testimony; for example if what they are accused of is found with them and then they claim that they had bought it from the deceased or that he had bequeathed it to them then two others shall take their place so that the oaths are to be taken from them being the nearest al-awlayān is a substitution for ākharān ‘two others’; a variant reading has al-awwalīn plural of awwal as an adjectival qualification of or a substitution for alladhīna ‘of those’ in kinship to the deceased of those most concerned with the bequest namely the inheritors and they shall swear by God to the breach of faith of the two witnesses and they shall both say ‘Verily our testimony our oath is truer is more faithful than their testimony their oath and we have not transgressed we have not overstepped the bounds of truth in our oaths for then we would assuredly be among the evildoers’ meaning let the one about to die call two men as witnesses to his bequest or let him instruct in his bequest that the two be from among his co-religionists or from among others if he cannot find any from among the former because he is travelling or for some similar reason. If the inheritors have doubts about the two men and claim a breach of faith on the part of the two for having taken something or given it to some other person — alleging that the deceased bequeathed it to him — then let the two men swear in full in the way mentioned above. If then some indication surfaces that the two men have been lying and these two then claim some motivation for this action of theirs the nearest of the inheritors in kinship to the deceased shall swear to the perjury of the two men and to the truth of what they the inheritors suspected. This stipulation holds for the two trustees but is abrogated in the case of the two witnesses. Likewise the testimony of non co-religionists is abrogated.

That ruling mentioned where the oath devolves to the inheritors makes it likelier brings closer the eventuality that they the witnesses or the trustees will bear the testimony in its true form the form in which they have been charged to bear it without distortion or breach of faith or it is likelier that they will be afraid that after their oaths other oaths may be taken from the inheritors the plaintiffs who would swear to the two men’s breach of faith or perjury in which case they would be disgraced and would incur penalties and so because of this they will not lie. Fear God by refraining from betrayal and perjury and listen to what you have been commanded listening in acceptance. God does not guide the wicked people those rebelling against obedience to Him; He does not guide the wicked to the way of goodness.

Mention the day when God shall gather the messengers which is the Day of Resurrection and He will say to them as a rebuke for their peoples ‘What answer were you given?’ when you summoned them to proclaim God’s Oneness; they shall say ‘We have no knowledge of this; You only You are the Knower of things unseen’ those things which are hidden from God’s servants and that which they the messengers have forgotten all knowledge of on account of the great terror of the Day of Resurrection and their fright; but when they have calmed down they proceed to bear witness against their communities.

Mention when God said ‘O Jesus son of Mary remember My favour to you and to your mother be thankful for it; when I strengthened you with the Holy Spirit Gabriel to speak to people tukallimu’l-nāsa is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the suffixed pronoun kāf in ayyadtu-ka in the cradle that is as a child and in maturity — this implies that he will descend before the Hour since he was raised up to God before middle age as has already been mentioned in sūrat Āl ‘Imrān Q. 355 and when I taught you the Scripture and wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel; and how you create out of clay the likeness ka-hay’at the kāf here functions like a noun and is a direct object the image of a bird by My permission and you breathe into it and it becomes a bird by My permission by My will and you heal the blind and the leper by My permission and you raise the dead from their graves back to life by My permission; and how I restrained the Children of Israel from you when they intended to kill you when you brought them clear proofs miracles and the disbelievers among them said “This what you have done is nothing but manifest sorcery” a variant reading for sihrun ‘sorcery’ has sāhirun ‘sorcerer’ in other words he Jesus is nothing but a manifest sorcerer.