6. Al-An'aam

He is the Vanquisher Superior over His servants. And He sends guardians over you angels to record your deeds until when death approaches one of you Our messengers the angels charged with the seizing of the spirits take him tawaffathu; a variant reading has tawaffāhu and they neglect not they do not fall short of what they have been commanded.

Say O Muhammad (s) to the people of Mecca ‘Who delivers you from the darkness of the land and the sea from their terrors during your journeys? When you call upon Him openly and secretly saying “Verily if la-in the lām is for oaths You God deliver us anjaytanā is also read anjānā ‘if He delivers us’ from this darkness and hardship we shall truly be among the thankful”’ the believers.

Say to them ‘God delivers you read yunjīkum or yunajjīkum from that and from every distress from every other anxiety. Yet you associate others with Him’.

Say ‘He has the power to send forth upon you a chastisement from above you from the heaven such as stones cf. Q. 832 or a Cry cf. Q. 1167 or from beneath your feet such as the causing of the earth to cave in cf. Q. 2940 or to confound you to confuse you in parties sects with differing whims and to make you taste the violence of one another’ through fighting. When this verse was revealed the Prophet s said ‘This chastisement etc. is easier and lighter’; but when the last statement was revealed he said ‘I seek refuge with Your Countenance!’ as reported by al-Bukhārī. Muslim reports the following hadīth ‘I requested from my Lord not to make my community violent towards each other but He denied me this request’. In another hadīth when it was revealed he is reported to have said ‘As for this it will surely come to pass even though its proper meaning has not yet come’. See how We dispense how We clarify for them the signs the proofs of Our power that perhaps they might understand that they might realise that what they follow is falsehood.

Your people have denied it the Qur’ān. Yet it is the truth. Say to them ‘I am not a guardian over you to requite you. I am only a warner and your affair is left to God — this was revealed before the command to fight the idolaters.

Every tiding every announcement has a conclusion a fixed time in which it will take place and be concluded including the tiding concerning your punishment. And you will come to know’ — this is a threat for them.

When you see those who engage in discourse about Our signs the Qur’ān in mockery turn away from them and do not sit with them until they discourse on some other topic. And if immā the letter nūn of the conditional particle in has been assimilated with the extra mā Satan should make you forget read yunsiyannaka or yunassiyannaka and you sit with them then do not sit after the reminder that is after you remember with the evildoing folk the overt noun al-qawm al-zālimīn ‘the evildoing folk’ replaces the third person pronominalisation.

The Muslims then said ‘If we get up and leave every time they delve into the matter of the Qur’ān we would never be able to sit in the Mosque or perform circumambulations. Therefore the following was revealed Those who fear God are not accountable for them for those who discourse in mockery in anything min shay’in min is extra if they should sit with them; but it is the reminder that they are accountable for; a reminder given to make them remember and to admonish them so that perhaps they will be wary of discoursing thus.

And forsake leave alone those who take their religion with which they have been charged as a game and a diversion making a mockery of it and whom the life of this world has deluded and so do not interfere with them — this was revealed before the command to fight them. Remind admonish people thereby by the Qur’ān lest a soul perish lest it be given up for destruction for what it has earned what it has done; it has no protector no helper besides God other than Him and no intercessor to ward off the chastisement from it; and though it offer every compensation though it pay every ransom it shall not be accepted from it that which it offers as ransom. Those are the ones who perish by what they have earned; for them shall be a draught of boiling water and a painful chastisement because they disbelieved that is for their unbelief.