6. Al-An'aam

Say ‘Shall we call upon shall we worship instead of God that which neither profits us if we worship them nor hurts us if we neglect to worship them — these are the idols; and so be turned back and so return to idolatry after God has guided us to Islam? — Like one whom the devils have lured led astray in the earth bewildered confused not knowing where to go hayrān ‘bewildered’ is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the suffixed pronoun hā’ of istahwat-hu ‘whom they have lured’; he has companions a group who call him to guidance that is to say they are there in order to guide him to the right path saying to him “Come to us!”’ but he does not respond to them and he perishes the interrogative statement is meant as a disavowal; the comparative statement beginning with ka’lladhī ‘like one whom’ is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject of the verb nuraddu ‘be turned back’. Say ‘Truly God’s guidance which is Islam is the true guidance everything else being error and we have been commanded to submit to the Lord of the Worlds

and to that is to submit by establishing prayer and fearing Him exalted be He; He it is to Whom you shall be gathered’ you shall be brought together on the Day of Resurrection for reckoning.

He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in truth that is to say with the purpose of manifesting truth. And mention the day He says to a thing ‘Be’ and it is — this is the Day of Resurrection when He says to creatures ‘Rise up’ and they do. His words are the truth the truth that will doubtless come to pass; and His is the Kingdom the day when the trumpet the horn is blown the second blast by the angel Isrāfīl when there shall be no kingdom for any other than Him ‘Whose is the Kingdom today? God’s’ Q. 4016. He is the Knower of the Unseen and the visible what is hidden and what may be seen. He is the Wise in His creation the Aware of things inwardly hidden and outwardly manifest.

And mention when Abraham said to his father Āzar which was his cognomen his first name being Terah Tārikh ‘Do you take idols as gods to worship? an interrogative meant as a rebuke. I see you and your people by this act of taking them as gods in manifest error’ far from the truth.

And so just as We show him the misguidance of his father and his people We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth that he might infer thereby the truth of Our Oneness and that he might be of those knowing it with certainty the sentence beginning with wa-kadhālika ‘and so’ and what follows it is a parenthetical statement and a supplement to the one beginning with qāla ‘he said’.

And when he saw the moon rising appearing he said to them ‘This is my Lord.’ But when it set he said ‘Unless my Lord guides me unless He establishes me within true guidance I shall surely become one of the folk who are astray’ — an intimation to his people that they are astray but still this had no effect on them.

And when he saw the sun rising he said ‘This is my Lord; this is greater!’ than the star and the moon the masculine demonstrative pronoun hādhā ‘this’ is used for the feminine shams ‘sun’ because the predicate rabbī ‘my Lord’ is masculine. But when it set and the argument against them had become stronger and they still had not repented he said ‘O my people surely I am innocent of what you associate with God in the way of idols and accidental bodies which require an originator. They then asked him ‘What do you worship?’

He said Verily I have turned my face to I am seeking in worship Him Who originated created the heavens and the earth namely God; a hanīf inclining towards the upright religion and I am not of those that associate others’ with Him.

But his people disputed with him they argued with him about his religion and threatened him that the idols would strike him with evil if he abandoned them. He said ‘Do you dispute with me read a-tuhājjūnnī or a-tuhājūnī where one of the two letters nūn is omitted the nūn which grammarians refer to as nūn al-raf‘ ‘the nūn of modal independence’ and which the Qur’ānic reciters refer to as nūn al-wiqāya ‘the nūn of preservation’; do you argue with me concerning the Oneness of God when He exalted be He has guided me to it? I have no fear of what you associate with Him in the way of idols that they might strike me with some evil since they have no power to do anything unless my Lord wills something harmful to befall me and it does. My Lord encompasses all things through His knowledge; will you not remember this and believe?