7. Al-A'raaf

And mention when it was said to them ‘Dwell in this city the Holy House of Jerusalem and eat therein wherever you will and say ‘our concern is for an Exoneration’ and enter the gate that is the gate of the city prostrating a prostration that is actually a bow. We shall forgive read naghfir or the passive tughfar you your transgressions; We shall give more to those who are virtuous through obedience in terms of reward.

But the evildoers among them substituted a saying other than that which had been said to them they said instead ‘A grain inside a hair’ and entered the gate dragging themselves on their rears. So We sent down upon them terror a chastisement from the heaven for their evildoing.

And question them O Muhammad (s) in rebuke about the city that was by the sea bordering the Red Sea bahr al-qulzum and this was Eilat about what befell its inhabitants how they would transgress violate the Sabbath by fishing which they had been commanded not to do on that day; how idh is an adverbial qualifier of ya‘dūn ‘they would transgress’ their fish would come to them on the day of their Sabbath floating at the surface visible at the surface of the water; but on the day they did not observe the Sabbath when they would not consecrate the Sabbath over the other days they would not come to them as a trial from God. Thus were We trying them for their wickedness. And when they went to fish the city split into three one third joined the fishing party another prohibited them while a third abstained from both fishing and prohibiting.

And when wa-idh is a supplement to the preceding idh ‘how’ a community among them who neither fished nor prohibited it said to those who prohibited it ‘Why do you preach admonition to a folk whom God is about to destroy or chastise with a severe chastisement?’ They said our admonishing them is ‘As an exculpation by which we excuse ourselves before your Lord lest we are reproached for failing to prohibit them in any way; and so that they might be wary of fishing’.

And when they forgot when they overlooked that whereof they had been reminded that for which they had been admonished and did not desist We delivered those who forbade evil and seized those who did wrong through transgression with a grievous terrible chastisement for their wickedness.

And when they disdained to desist from that which was prohibited to them We said to them ‘Be apes despised!’ abased and they became so this is an explication of what preceded with regard to the details of their ‘grievous chastisement’. Ibn ‘Abbās said ‘I do not know what befell the group that abstained’. ‘Ikrima said ‘That group was not destroyed because they had been averse to what the others did and had said ‘Why do you preach admonition …’ Al-Hākim reported in a hadīth that he ‘Ikrima referred this opinion to Ibn ‘Abbās who was delighted by it.

And We divided them We separated them into communities sects in the earth. Some of them are righteous and some of them people who are otherwise disbelievers and wicked individuals. And We tried them with good things with graces and evil things with misfortunes so that they might revert from their wickedness.

And there succeeded after them a generation who inherited the Scripture the Torah from their forefathers choosing the transient things of this inferior life that is the ephemeral aspects of this lowly thing that the world is in the way of what is lawful and what is unlawful and saying ‘It will be forgiven us’ what we have done; and yet if similar transient things were to come to them they would take them wa-in ya’tihim ‘aradun mithluhu ya’khudhūhu this sentence is a circumstantial qualifier in other words they hope for forgiveness whilst committing the same offence again and persisting in it and in the Torah there is no such promise about forgiveness for persistence in sin. Has not the covenant of the Scripture mīthāqu l-kitābi the annexation functions in place of fī ‘in’ sc. ‘the covenant in the Scripture’ been taken a-lam yu’khadh ‘has it not been taken’ is an interrogative meant as an affirmative from them that they should not say about God anything but the truth? And they have studied wa-darasū is a supplement to yu’khadh ‘has it not been taken?’ they have read what is in it so why do they impute lies to it the Scripture by ascribing to it the idea of forgiveness for persistence in sin? And the Abode of the Hereafter is better for those who are wary of what is unlawful. Do they not understand? ya‘qilūn may also be read as ta‘qilūn ‘do you not understand?’ that it is better and so prefer it to the abode of this world?

And those who adhere read yumassikūn or yumsikūn to the Scripture from among them and have established prayer the likes of ‘Abd Allāh b. Salām and his companions verily We shall not let the wages of reformers go to waste innā lā nudī‘u ajra l-muslihīn the sentence is the predicate of alladhīna ‘those who’; also there is here the replacing of the third person pronominalisation alladhīna ‘those who’ with an overt noun al-muslihīna ‘reformers’ in other words their wages.