| | Al-muntakhab fi tafsir al-Qur'an al-Karim rendition of Surah Saba, Sheba(Saba`)
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| 34:1 | | Praise be to Allah to Whom our bosoms surge forth and answer thanks for His exclusive individuality in possessing all the animate and the inanimate existing in the heavens and on earth past, present and those to come and extolled are His glorious attributes Hereafter as He is AL-Hakim (the Source of wisdom and wise mysterious dispensations) and AL-Khabir (the Omniscient) |
| 34:2 | | He has omniscience of all that makes entry and penetrates into the earth, be it animate or inanimate, and of all that arises from it and of what erupts from within and of the water streaming out of it. And He has Omniscience of all that comes down from the realm of heaven and from the vault of its floor and of all that ascends of deeds and of the souls of those who have done the deeds. He is also 'Alimun (Omniscient) of the spiritual and the animate and of all that is inanimate and He is AL-Rahim (the Merciful) and AL-Ghafur (the forgiving. |
| 34:3 | | Never, say the infidels: "shall the Final Hour (of Resurrection and Judgement) fulfill itself and come our way." Say to them O Muhammad: "But indeed it shall come about; rest assured by Allah, my Creator, that it shall come upon you with the revolution of time. He is Omniscient of the invisible and the unknown and AL-'Alim whom nothing escapes His vigilance neither in the heavens nor on earth be it in the weight or in the size of an atom or lesser or larger in degree; all being recorded in a documentary book that furnishes evidence of facts and of events" |
| 34:4 | | So that He justly requites those who conformed to His system of faith and worship and imprinted their deeds with wisdom and piety. He shall extend to them forgiveness and a gracefully blessed provision |
| 34:5 | | And He justly penalizes those who purposed to deny His revelations and challenge His divine and authoritative signs. They must expect the torment laid upon the damned |
| 34:6 | | Whereas those gifted with divine and spiritual knowledge do know and assert that the discourse inspired to you from Allah is indeed the truth guiding into all truth and it guides to the path that leads directly to Him, AL-Aziz (the Almighty), and AL-Hamid (to Whom are extolled the glorious attributes. |
| 34:7 | | And insolently and mockingly, the infidels say: "Shall we tell you of a man who proclaims that after your bodies have been reduced to fragments and have disintegrated, you will be brought back to life and be created anew!" |
| 34:8 | | "Is he relating to Allah falsehood and pathological lies or is he a demoniac!" The fact is that those who deny Resurrection and Judgement are torturing themselves with their thoughts, being lost in the maze of error |
| 34:9 | | Do they not see what is before them and what is behind them of the heavens and the earth and contemplate their existence, maintenance and conservation. If We willed We could eclipse them in one swallow by a yawning earthly chasm We create beneath them or cause a piece of heaven to fall upon them in the form of discs of cumuli; either incident is by itself a great inducement for lifting to Allah the inward sight by the votary devoted to religious observances and to repentance with a breast filled with reverential awe |
| 34:10 | | We bestowed on Dawud of Our bounty all grace which was made to abound in him. "O you mountains", We said, "play the echo to his praises, and so will you O birds" and We softened for him the iron for making defensive armour |
| 34:11 | | We directed him, thus: "Make coats of arms", We said, "and use your skill and talent in the construction of the chain- work and in the overlapping of the plates to be fastened upon the ground-work". And We said to him and his family: "Do good and imprint your deeds and thoughts with wisdom and piety, I am Bassirun of all that you do" |
| 34:12 | | And to Solayman We made subservient the wind covering the distance, normally taking one month, in one morning stride forward and turning in one evening stride backward. We made a source of copper flow freely for him and of the Jinn those serving him by Allah's will, and he -of the Jinn- who defected or did not fulfill Allah's command came within the measure of Allah's wrath and We subjected him to the blazes |
| 34:13 | | They -the Jinn- were assigned to work for him and do as they were told and produce, build and construct for him what he willed of sanctuaries and places of worship in the form of curved structures of firm material; some bearing weight and others merely ornamental. Also to make for him images and statue and all kinds of pots and vessels of rounded form, broad and deep serving various purposes, some being large enough to be reservoirs and others as fixed huge copper vessels. And We said: "Work righteousness O you the sons of Dawud and let your deeds reflect gratitude and gratefulness to Me". But it is only a few of My servants who do this and impel themselves to the feeling of gratitude and gratefulness |
| 34:14 | | And when We decreed Solayman's death, nothing drew the Jinn's attention to his death but a little earthly creature gnawing the base of his staff on which he leaned that he fell. There and then did the Jinn realize that had they known the hidden and the unknown and realized the unseen they would not have remained in the slavish disposition scourged with humility and torture |
| 34:15 | | There was a great sign indicative of Allah's mercy and bounty which were extended to the people of Saba in their home-land and Allah's grace was made to abound in them. They enjoyed fertile and productive land covered with carpets of greenery and orchards right and left; they were told: "Eat of what Allah has provisioned you of sustenance and enjoy it, it is all replete with choice of all delight and be thankful to Him. Productive of incalculable good was the land and Gracious and Ghafurun, the Ilah, the Creator" |
| 34:16 | | But they declined to show appreciation of the condition of things and be sensible of Allah's grace, and furthermore they failed to impel themselves to the feeling of gratitude and gratefulness. By consequence, We sent against them torrential rain causing destruction of their dam, built to confine the water and to regulate its flow, and We replaced their fertile land and their orchards with gardens of bitter fruit, shrubs of small tamarisk trees and a few of the Lotus trees and other trees carrying berry- like drupe |
| 34:17 | | Such was the thrashing We gave those who welcomed wrongs, but then do We punish but the ungrateful who deviates from sense and declines the divine standard |
| 34:18 | | Yet We did not tear them apart but We kept the villages which stood conspicuous between their towns and the towns We blessed.* And We made these villages - serve as stations or stopping-places on their journeys and their commercial travels, And We determined the distances and the units of time to a scale inducing the feeling of comfort and safety and We said to them: You may travel by night or by day, you will be safe and secure |
| 34:19 | | But lacking patience and endurance, they, to their detriment, prayed: "O Allah, our Creator, would You make our stations distant and far apart and not close together and our commercial travels remote in time" and they wronged themselves. In response to this request We made them the talk of the town existing then and of those towns existing thereafter. We tore them apart, while those who remained lived dispersed among the Bedouins in the desert and among other people else-where. This was an act making the patient who is thankful lift to Allah his inward sight |
| 34:20 | | And sure enough was AL-Shaytan (Satan) in the right when he thought he would be able to lead them by the nose to their loss in the maze of error. They followed his footsteps except those few who revered Allah and were faithful to Him |
| 34:21 | | In fact AL-Shaytan had no authority over them but We occasioned his attempt to tempt them to identify justly those who affirm with certainty and satisfaction the fundamental truth of the Hereafter and those who are in doubt thereof. And Allah your Creator is indeed Hafizun. (He Keeps a vigilant eye upon the whole and upon all in all) |
| 34:22 | | Say to them O Muhammad: "you may invoke those whom or which you presume gods besides Allah and you shall realize that they do not possess even as little as an atom in the realm of the heavens and the earth nor do they have an atom of power either, not to mention a share therein. And Allah is Absolute and Independent, He needs none of them to afford Him help" |
| 34:23 | | Nor shall intercession take effect with Him in Day of Judgement except from those permitted. And when the overwhelming effect of terror is eased off and the hearts calm down, the infidels shall ask: What was it that Allah said! They shall be told: "The Truth." And He is AL-'Aliyo (the Unique whose attributes belong to the highest regions of thought and reality, the Unique Who is eminently entitled to the designation "the Supreme") and AL-Kabir (the Omniscient |
| 34:24 | | Ask them O Muhammad: Who provides you with livelihood from the heavens - rain, heat, light- and from the earth (plants, animals, springs, oil, minerals and treasures)! And say to them: "It is Allah" and say to them: "Obviously some of us are treading the path of truth and righteousness and the others treading the path leading to the loss in the maze of error" |
| 34:25 | | And say to them: "You shall never have to answer for our wrongs and our misgivings nor shall we have to answer for your deeds." |
| 34:26 | | And say to them: "Allah shall bring us all to assemble before Him together in Day of Judgement and then He decides our case with equity and justice; He is AL-Fattah (the One Who resolves matters and brings them to a decision) and He is AL-'Alim (the Omniscient) |
| 34:27 | | And say to them: Would you show me those deities whom or which you incorporate with Him and share, as you presume, His divine nature! How repulsive to the imagination and how unpleasant to contemplate! But He is Allah, AL-Aziz and AL-Hakim |
| 34:28 | | We have not sent you, -O Muhammad- to the people at large but to serve as a spectacle and a warning but most people do fail to realize this fact |
| 34:29 | | For this reason they doubt Judgement and they ask: "when will that promise of Judgement be fulfilled if indeed you declare the truth" |
| 34:30 | | Say to them "You have a predetermined point in the abysm of time which you cannot alter nor bring into effect one hour earlier nor one hour later" |
| 34:31 | | Pitifully, the infidels declare: "We will not acknowledge this Quran nor the preceding Scriptures". If you Muhammad could envisage the wrongful of actions when they stand before Allah for Judgement expressing reproaches against each other, You will hear those who were viewed with contempt saying to those whose pride consistently got the better of their prudence: "Had it not been for you we would have conformed to Allah's system of daily and worship" |
| 34:32 | | Then the extravagant in their accounts of themselves say to those viewed with contempt: "Did we stand in your way and hinder you from accepting the spirit of truth which reached you to guide you into all truth?" "The fact is" they will add, "that you were people who grew daily more and more wicked" |
| 34:33 | | And there shall the passively-minded say to those who exercised inordinate self-esteem: "but you took cunning for a sinister and crooked wisdom and you made its breastplate work day and night and you kept pressing hard upon us for adopting polytheism and you urged us to deny Allah as the only Ilah and to incorporate with Him other deities". Deep in their hearts they will feel their guilt with pining regrets and vain repentances when they see the inescapable punishment. We will fetter and confine the infidels with chains around their necks. Would they be requited but with what is commensurate with their deeds?" |
| 34:34 | | We never sent a Messenger, a spectacle and a warning, to a nation but stood those with the riches similitude exact of your people O Muhammad and said to him "We do deny your mission and we do not acknowledge the message you proclaim" |
| 34:35 | | And they added: "we are more affluent in wealth and in progeny than those who accepted your message with consenting mind; our affluence confers immunity and therefore we will not be subjected to punishment" |
| 34:36 | | Say to them "It is Allah, my Creator Who gives livelihood generously and confers support gratuitously to whom He will and He also gives with restraint and by measure to whom He will but most people fail to realize this fact." |
| 34:37 | | (You people had better realize that) neither your wealth nor your progeny are the conditions vouchsafing for your nearness to Allah nor do they sanction your misdeeds or your infidelity. To the contrary, what bring closer to Allah are conforming one's will to His will and imprinting one's deeds with wisdom and piety. Such persons shall be requited with double the reward commensurate with their deeds and shall live safe and secure in stately abodes |
| 34:38 | | And those who strive to oppose Our authoritative signs and invalidate Our divine revelations shall be consigned to the torment laid upon the damned |
| 34:39 | | Say to them O Muhammad: "Indeed, it is Allah, my Creator, Who gives livelihood generously and confers support gratuitously to whom He will of His servants and restrains it if He will. And whatever you spend in His cause and in benevolence, He replenishes it, for He is the most capable of meeting peoples' needs and the best Purveyor of all requisites of His creatures" |
| 34:40 | | And on the Day He throngs them all for Judgement He shall question the angels, thus: "Are these they who revered you and adored you with appropriate acts and rites!" |
| 34:41 | | "Glory be to You O Allah", they shall say, "and extolled are Your glorious attributes. You are our tutelary Guardian, but it was the Jinn they worshipped and regarded as truthful and had faith in their rights and their powers" |
| 34:42 | | There and then shall all he told: "This is the day on which none of you has power over the others nor can any of you avail or do harm to the others". We will say to the wrongful of actions: "Now taste the torment of the Fire which you had consistently denied" |
| 34:43 | | Yet when Our clear and lucid revelations are recited to them they proclaim: "This man -Muhammad- is no more than someone who intends to stand in your way to make you deviate from the path your fathers had followed and to deny those deities they adored with appropriate acts and rites and they add" This Quran is nothing but a pack of lies and a devised pious fraud" And the infidels said when the truth when was presented to them: "This is nothing but the work of magic and sorcery made manifest in him" |
| 34:44 | | But We never sent or revealed to these people* divine Books to apply their minds to acquire learning and by consequence be able to evaluate the Quran. Nor did We send to them before you O Muhammad as Messenger a spectacle and a warning |
| 34:45 | | Similarly acted those who preceded them, they denied Our divine message and they rejected the truth, notwithstanding Allah's grace abounding in them. Affluence inflated them with pride whereas these people have not attained one tenth of what those of old attained: affluence in knowledge, wealth, power and the art of construction. Puffed up, they accused Our Messengers of falsehoods and how evil was the end for which they were destined |
| 34:46 | | Say to them: "I advise you to think and think but this one single fact, you stand before Allah in pairs to reason with one another and singly to reason with your own conscience that your companion -the Messenger Muhammad- is not a demoniac but a spectacle and a warning who cautions you against the severe punishment you shall face if you do not deviate into sense" |
| 34:47 | | And say to them: "I never asked of you a price, my advice to you is entirely in your own interest while my reward rests in the hands of Allah Who is Shahidun (Who witnesses all things)" |
| 34:48 | | Say to them: "Indeed Allah, my Creator, projects the truth upon calumnies wherefore it overthrows falsehood. He is Allam (Omniscient) of all the unseen and unknown." |
| 34:49 | | Say to them: "The truth has finally arrived and now what can falsehood do hut vanish and what can it bring back but its own self-destruction!" |
| 34:50 | | Say to them: "If I should deviate from sense as to tread the wrong path leading into error, then I will have hurt my own soul. And if I should follow the path of righteousness leading into the truth, it is only because Providence is my guide. He inspires me with the spirit of truth guiding into all truth; He is Sami'un (His audition is unlimited) and Qaribun. His Omnipresence puts Him in the proximity of all His created beings |
| 34:51 | | And if you Muhammad could envisage the scene which shall excite their terror Hereafter, no escape can they make and they shall be seized in the proximity of Hell |
| 34:52 | | And now they say: "We believe", but how can they attain faith Hereafter which is so far away from Here below where they had the opportunity to attain it but they did not |
| 34:53 | | They denied it before and they assailed what is unknown or unseen and what is essentially spiritual with slander while they were far distant in the world of life below |
| 34:54 | | And now between right and wrong resides justice intervening between them and their wish of attaining faith now in order to escape the torment of the fire facing them but they cannot. This is exactly what had befallen their likes who were suspicious of the truth which they considered void for uncertainty |
