| | Al-muntakhab fi tafsir al-Qur'an al-Karim rendition of Surah The Wind-curved Sandhills, The Dunes, The Sandhills(al-Ahqaf)
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| 46:1 | | H. (Ha), M. (Meem) the Surah opens with these introductory letters from the Arabic Alphabet to draw attention to the miracle of the Quran which though written in the people's tongue , Cannot be emulated |
| 46:2 | | (With reference to the Quran): It is a Book emphatically revealed by Allah in complete glory, featuring Him as the guide, and who could be a better guide than Allah AL-Aziz (Almighty) and AL-Hakim (the Wise) |
| 46:3 | | Who declares in His own words, thus: "We have not created the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them but in accordance with reason and truth and for a determinate period of time. " Yet those who deny Allah turn a deaf car to the advice inducing them to alter their evil course when warned of its danger but they disregard the warning and burry it in oblivion |
| 46:4 | | Say to them O Muhammad: "Do you see those you people invoke besides Allah; if you consider them deities or creatures of diligence and capacity, then show me what in the world you live on did they form out of nothingness and brought into being and caused it to exist". Or do they claim participation in the process of the creation of the heavens, or do they assert that: part of it is their own! Say to them: " Bring me a Book revealed before this Book-the Quran- wherein a deity has ordained idolism and brought it to book ! or bring me traces of knowledge and facts featured in a book if you truly speak like a book!" |
| 46:5 | | And who can err and stray from the path of righteousness more than he who invokes besides Allah a creature, spiritual, animate or inanimate who shall never respond to him till the Day of Judgement, nor are such creatures aware of their invocation |
| 46:6 | | and when mankind are thronged before Allah for judgment, they shall see those whom they invoked here are at enmity with them Hereafter, they shall contemptuously refuse to acknowledge their supplication |
| 46:7 | | Yet when Our evident and plain revelations are related to them and Our signs are clearly indicated and pointed out, then those who deny Allah label the truth presented to them as falsehood and say: "This is only sorcery assumed by him - the Messenger-" |
| 46:8 | | Or do they say: "He -Muhammad- has forged it " Say to them: " if I have forged it; what good does it do me, and if I did as you unjustly claim, then who on earth can defend me from Allah and vindicate my cause ? " Allah knows best your minds which strive laboriously for some evil end; but enough is Allah to be a witness of my actions and of your actions and He is AL-Gafur and AL-Rahim (the Forgiving and the Merciful)." |
| 46:9 | | Say to them: "I am not a novelty of Apostleship hither to unknown to you nor do I know what is to be or will be, nor what is in store for me or for you . I only submit to what is inspired to me by Allah and do what I am commanded to do, and I am only a spectacle and a warning." |
| 46:10 | | Say to them " What if this Book -the Quran- is a Divine disclosure of knowledge by Allah to man, and you refuse to acknowledge it when all the preceding Books, foretold things to come crowned by the Quran as has been acknowledged by one or more of Bani-Israel (Children of Israel) who attested that it conforms, like the Book of Mussa (Moses), with truth and agrees with reality?" Yet you deny it and you turn your heads in contempt and you object to it with inordinate self-esteem. But never will Allah impress piety on the hearts of the perverse who are wrongful of actions |
| 46:11 | | And those who deny Allah speak of those who sincerely believed in Him, and say: "If it -the Quran- were good and has a quality in a sufficient degree, we would have been the first to take it as a matter of choice;" and so, since they respond to the Quran with careless disinterested spirit and disfavour, they will label it: "fables of old." |
| 46:12 | | And before the Quran, Allah sent down the Book of Mussa steering people by His guidance and His mercy to the path of safety and righteousness, There came down the book-the Quran-, in the Arabic tongue, asserting the truth of the Book of Mussa and warning the perverse who are wrongful of actions, thus serving as blissful tidings to those whose deeds are printed with wisdom and piety |
| 46:13 | | those who have spiritual perception of Allah and their tongues always vent this feeling, viz: " Allah is He to Whom we commend ourselves in the act of worship and in reverential awe, in judgment and in our way of life and in all that we do or say, " and under no circumstances will they alter the attitude of their minds and their habitual mode of settled behaviour; these shall have no ground for alarm nor will fear or dread fall upon them nor will they have a cause of grief Hereafter |
| 46:14 | | These are the inmates of Paradise wherein they will have passed through nature to Eternity in requital of their meritorious actions and their wise and pious deeds |
| 46:15 | | We commended to man his parents, to commit them to his kind care and display to them a friendly and a kind disposition. With travail did his mother bear him and with travail did she bring him forth, and between bearing him, weaning and rearing him she spends thirty months of bodily and mental toil. Then when he has grown to maturity and attained the age of forty he invokes Allah, thus: " O Allah, my Creator " he prays, " create in me a clean heart and actuate me with the feeling of gratitude and gratefulness to You for the efficacious grace you conferred on me and on my parents: that I do deeds imprinted with wisdom and piety, that You create in my progeny clean hearts impressed with religious and spiritual virtues, Now I do repent of the wrong doings I might have done, and I join those who commit their causes to You. " |
| 46:16 | | These are they whose best deeds will Allah count to them for righteousness, and ignore their wrong doings and quit them all His debt, and destine them to make abode in the beatitude of heaven: a Divine assurance of future blessing they have been promised |
| 46:17 | | But he who contemptuously says to his parents: " Fie on you " " How disgusting what both of you tell me!" "do you afford me ground of expectation of Resurrection when all generations who had departed life long ago never came out of their graves ? " They both-the parents-exercise pity and appeal to Allah for help and they rebuke him -the son- for his disposition and for want of Faith, and they utter denunciation against him and say to him: " You had better commit yourself to Allah Whose promise is true. " But he says to them: " This is nothing but fables of old." |
| 46:18 | | Such persons among preceding generations of the Jinn and mankind were born to it; it was their destiny to suffer loss and such destiny has been fulfille |
| 46:19 | | There are grades for all; grades of appreciation and grades of depreciation; grades commensurate with the deeds, for Allah is vigilant; He pays the equivalent and no one will be wronged |
| 46:20 | | One day those who denied Allah shall be exposed to Hell fire and be told: " You abused the gifts Allah has endowed you in life: faculty, Power, quality, ability, talent - and countless other good things, and you exhausted them all in sensuous enjoyment which was your chief object of life, and you neglected to spare what will insure your future security Hereafter. Therefore, this Day you will be subjected to the affliction of humiliation in requital of turning your heads in contempt, your inordinate self-esteem and of your evil practice |
| 46:21 | | Relate O Muhammad to your people the narrative of Hud, a brother of 'Ad -the 'Adites-, a spectacle and a warning, He cautioned his people, who inhabited the valley of the sandy hills -Al Ahqaf-, against the danger of denying Allah, especially when other Messengers have preceded and others succeeded him and the peoples' fate served as a deterrent. He said to them: " I fear for you an immense punishment on a great Day. " |
| 46:22 | | His people -the 'Adites- said to him: " Have you come to us to induce us to forsake our gods; " " bring about what you have promised us if indeed you are declaring the truth. " |
| 46:23 | | He -Hud- said: "The acquaintance with this fact lies entirely-in the hands of Allah and in His power; I only relate to you the message entrusted to me by Allah, but I do see that you are so ignorant that you do not know your duties to Allah." |
| 46:24 | | And when they saw a cloud drift coming their way they expressed glad feeling because their valley had suffered drought and they said: " This is a cloud whose rain shall bring a rainbow of hope, joy and prosperity. But that was a joy in which they could not rejoice. This, " said Hud, " is what you have challenged to be hastened on; " " it is but a storm charged with a condign punishment bearing impetuously upon you, " |
| 46:25 | | reducing to useless form and ruins anything it touched by Allah's command that they were laid low in horrible destruction, and nothing could be seen but the remains of their wrecked and empty homes; thus do We require a people given to crime |
| 46:26 | | We had endowed them with power and ability, with diligence and capacities of action, with wealth and knowledge, with mental receiving Dower and talent, and with many qualities which total up to a much higher degree then those that are summed up in you' people. We conferred on them the power of hearing and seeing, faculties divine, and We conferred on them the seat of feeling, understanding and thought, and the seat of consciousness, intellect and volitions, but they' took a bad advantage of thesc divine qualities and misused them, Consequently neither their power of hearing nor that of seeing were of any advantage to them nor did they derive benefit of their intellect or of their volitions; They simply ignored Allah's revelations and signs, and by consequence they were beset on all sides by the same material and immaterial things they mocked at, owing to their inordinate self-esteem |
| 46:27 | | And before them in time, did We do away with towns all around you people. We displayed to them many signs and revealed many revelations all demonstrating divine power and authority and indicating some coming event, so that they stand repentant in lowliest plight and return their thoughts to Allah, but they did not |
| 46:28 | | Did those whom they worshipped in accession to Allah afford them aid or! assistance Never. Contrarily, they could not find them, and it serves them right; they befooled the minds and the judgment of the people so as to cause what is false to be accepted as true |
| 46:29 | | We resolved to direct some of the Jinn toward the place where you Muhammad were leading your followers in the act of worship, reciting the Quran. When they were within hearing; a command to be quiet was uttcred by some and they listened to the end of the recital. They hastened back to their people advising them to alter their course of actions when warned of its danger |
| 46:30 | | " Our people ", they said, "We have just heard a recital of Allah's revelations from a Book revealed in succession to the Book sent down to Mussa. It is in harmony with, and declaring the truth of, all Divine Books sent down before it; it is a spirit of truth guiding into all truth and to the path of safety and righteousness." |
| 46:31 | | "Our people", they added, "open your hearts' ears and respond favourably to the man entrusted by Allah to guide you into all truth, and believe in him and give credence to all that he says; then Allah will forgive your sins and save you from condign punishment." |
| 46:32 | | "And he," they said, "who turns a deaf ear to the man entrusted by Allah to guide people into all truth, must realize that he will not and simply cannot frustrate the laws and statutes of heaven's realm on earth nor can he be under the tutelage of any one besides Allah." Such persons are they who hold fast to false beliefs |
| 46:33 | | Can they not see with their minds' eyes that Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth and did not grow weary or worn out with fatigue, is able to resurrect the dead and restore them to life ?He is Qadirun (Omnipotent) to effect all things |
| 46:34 | | One day will those who denied Allah be exposed to Hell fire and be asked: "Is this not consistent with the truth? By Allah, our Creator ", they will say "indeed it is" Therefore, they are told, "now taste with all your senses the merciless but just retribution for denying Allah and for your insolent disregard of His warning." |
| 46:35 | | Therefore, in patience O Muhammad possess you your soul as did the resolute among the Messengers; and do not dwell on their punishment to be hastened on; for, on the day they face resolutely what they have been promised, they will realize that life here was a scene of ephemeral glory, imperceptibly minute as though it had lasted for no more than an hour of the time of daylight. This is a divinely inspired message entrusted to a Messenger; a message that warns of a condign punishment, and who shall suffer it but a people given to wickedness and crime |
