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”.’

Mention when the disciples said ‘O Jesus son of Mary is your Lord able that is would He a variant reading has hal tastatī‘a rabbaka ‘Are you able to ask of Him?’ to send down on us a Table from the heaven?’ He Jesus said to them ‘Fear God when you request signs if you are believers’.

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.