6. Al-An'aam

Say ‘Come I will recite that which your Lord has made a sacred duty for you that allā consisting of an-lā an being explicative you associate nothing with Him that you be dutiful to parents and that you do not slay your children by burying them alive because of poverty destitution that you may fear — We will provide for you and them — and that you do not draw near any acts of lewdness grave sins such as fornication whether it be manifest or concealed that is acts committed overtly or in secret and that you do not slay the life which God has made sacred except rightfully as in the case of retaliation or as the prescribed punishment for apostasy and the stoning of an adulterer. This which is mentioned is what He has charged you with that perhaps you will understand reflect.

And that you do not approach the property of the orphan save with that approach which is fairer namely the one wherein lie his best interests until he is of age when he is sexually mature. And give full measure and full weight in justice fairly desisting from any fraud. We do not charge any soul beyond its capacity what it can bear in such matters so that if one makes a mistake in a measure or weight and God knows that his intention had been well-meaning then he suffers no blame as is stated in one hadīth. And if you speak to pass a judgement or otherwise then be just by being truthful even if he the person receiving the statement or the one being accused in it should be a kinsman. And fulfil God’s covenant. This is what He has charged you with that perhaps you will remember read tadhakkarūn or tadhkurūn you will be admonished.

And that read anna with lām of li-anna ‘because’ being implied or inna as beginning a new sentence this that I have charged you with is My straight path mustaqīman ‘straight’ is a circumstantial qualifier so follow it; and do not follow other ways paths opposed to it lest it separate you tafarraqa one of the two letters tā’ of the original tatafarraqa has been omitted make you incline away from His way His religion. This is what He has ordained for you that perhaps you will be God-fearing’.

Then thumma is for describing events in a sequence We gave Moses the Scripture the Torah complete in grace for him who does good by observing it and a detailing an explanation of all things needed for religion and as a guidance and a mercy that perhaps they that is the Children of Israel might believe in the encounter with their Lord through the Resurrection.

And this Qur’ān is a blessed Book which We have revealed; so follow it O people of Mecca by implementing what is in it and be wary of disbelief that perhaps you might find mercy.

Or lest you should say ‘If the Scripture had been revealed to us we would have surely been more rightly guided than they are’ because of the excellence of our minds. Now indeed a clear proof a clear statement has come to you from your Lord and a guidance and a mercy for him who follows it; and who that is none does greater evil than he who denies God’s signs and turns away from them? We shall surely requite those who turn away from Our signs with dreadful the most severe chastisement for their aversion.

Are they waiting — the deniers are indeed waiting — for nothing less than that the angels should come to them read ta’tīyahum or ya’tīyahum to seize their souls or that your Lord that is His command meaning His chastisement should come or that one of your Lord’s signs should come? that is those portents of His that indicate the arrival of the Hour? On the day that one of your Lord’s signs comes — and this is the rising of the sun from the west as reported in the hadīth of the two Sahīhs of Bukhārī and Muslim — it shall not benefit a soul to believe if it had not believed theretofore lam takun āmanat min qabl is an adjectival qualification of nafs ‘a soul’ or a soul which had not until then earned in its belief some good some act of obedience that is to say its repentance shall be of no benefit to it as stated in the hadīth corpus. Say ‘Wait for one of these things We too are waiting’ for it.

Those who have sundered their religion by being at variance over it accepting some aspects of it and rejecting others and have become differing parties sects with regard to such matters a variant reading for farraqū ‘they have sundered’ has fāraqū meaning that they have abandoned the religion to which they were enjoined and they are the Jews and the Christians you have no concern with them at all in other words do not be concerned with them. Their case will go to God — He will take charge of it — then He will inform them in the Hereafter of what they used to do and requite them for it this was abrogated by the ‘sword’ verse Q. 95.

Whoever brings a good deed that is the affirmation of ‘there is no god but God’ shall receive tenfold the like of it that is the reward for ten good deeds and whoever brings an evil deed shall only be requited the like of it that is its appropriate requital; and they shall not be wronged nothing shall be diminished from their just requital.