7. Al-A'raaf

And of those whom We created there is a community who guide by the truth, and act justly therewith: this is the community of Muhammad (s), as stated in a hadīth.

And those who deny Our signs — the Qur’ān — from among the people of Mecca, We will draw them on by degrees, We will lead them on gradually, whence they do not know.

And I will respite them — assuredly My scheme is strong, powerful, and cannot be withstood.

Have they not considered, and so realised that, that there is no madness in their comrade, Muhammad (s)? He is but a clear warner, one whose warning is evident.

And have they not reflected upon the dominion, the kingdom (malakūt is mulk) of the heaven and of the earth, and, upon, what things God has created (min shay’in is an explication of the preceding mā, ‘what’), so that they are able to infer the power of their Creator and His Oneness, and, upon, that, [upon] the fact that, it may be that their term is already near, so that they might hasten to believe, lest they die as disbelievers and move towards the Fire? In what fact then after this, that is, the Qur’ān, will they believe?

Whomever God sends astray, he has no guide. And He leaves them (read in the imperfect indicative wa-yadharuhum or wa-nadharuhum, ‘and We leave them’, as the beginning of a new sentence; or [the same verbs] in the imperfect jussive [apocopated form] wa-yadharhum, or wa-nadharhum, as a supplement to what comes after fā’ [of fa-lā hādiya lahu, ‘so he has no guide’]) in their insolence to wander on blindly, hesitating, out of perplexity.

They, that is the people of Mecca, will question you about the Hour, the Resurrection, when it shall come to pass. Say, to them: ‘The knowledge of, when, it, shall be, is only with my Lord. He alone shall reveal it, manifest it, at its proper time (li-waqtihā: the lām here functions as fī, ‘at’). It weighs heavily, tremendously, in the heavens and the earth, upon their inhabitants, because of its awesomeness. It will not come on you save all of a sudden’. They will question you, as if you were preoccupied with, obsessed with inquiring about, it, such that you have come to acquire knowledge of it. Say: ‘Knowledge of it is only with God (innamā ‘ilmuhā ‘inda’Llāhi is for emphasis), but most people do not know’, that knowledge of it lies with God, exalted be He.

Say: ‘I have no power to bring benefit, to attract it to, myself, or hurt, to repel it, except as God wills. Had I knowledge of the Unseen — that which is hidden from me, I would have acquired much good, and adversity, in the way of impoverishment and otherwise, would not touch me, since I would take precautions against such [adversity] by avoiding what is harmful. I am but a warner, to disbelievers, of the Fire, and a bearer of good tidings, of Paradise, to a people who believe’.

But when He gave them a sound one, [a sound] child, they ascribed to Him associates (shurakā’a: a variant reading has shirkan, meaning sharīkan, ‘an associate’) in that which He had given them, by naming it ‘Abd al-Hārith, ‘servant of al-Hārith’, when it is not right to be a ‘servant’ (‘abd) of any one but ‘God’ [sc. ‘Abd Allāh], but this [namesake ‘Abd] is not an association [of another with God] in terms of servitude, for Adam was immune [from a sin such as associating others in worship with God]. Samura [b. Jundub] reported that the Prophet (s) said, ‘On one occasion when Eve gave birth — all the children she bore had failed to survive — Satan visited her and said [to her], “Name it [the child] ‘Abd al-Hārith, and it will live.” She named it so and it lived. This [affair] was the result of Satan’s inspiration and his doings’: reported by al-Hākim, who deemed it [the report] ‘sound’ (sahīh), and [also reported] by al-Tirmidhī, who considered it ‘fair-uncommon’ (hasan gharīb); but exalted is God above what they, the people of Mecca, associate, in the way of idols (this sentence is consequent, a supplement to [the one beginning with] khalaqakum, ‘He created you’, so that what comes between the two is a parenthetical statement).