Allah Is My Guide

From Translation of Qur’aanic Verses 20.123 & 20.124:

“… Now, whenever Guidance comes to you from Me, then all those who follow My Guidance shall not go astray or be miserable. And he who turns away from My Reminder shall lead a hard life.²⁸ …”

Study Note:

28. The life of a person who fails to abide by the divine instructions given in the Qur’aan would be straitened, miserable, ignominious, humiliating, or otherwise unsatisfactory. He/she is bound to have a distressing feeling of unfulfilment, guilt and failure at the end of it. And it is a sad reflection on Muslims – on an overwhelming majority of them at the least – that they have woefully taken no heed of this divine mantra, enunciated in these two Verses 123 and 124, for leading a good, satisfactory life in this world.

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The above is extracted from yet-to-be-published Qur’aanic Studies - Volume XXXII. It will be published, in due course, inshaAllah on the website INVITATION TO SALVATION, in continuation of Volumes I to XXXI already published and freely available thereon.

Mohammad Shafi
Author of ‘ISLAM & INTEREST‘

Qur’aanic Verse 2.174:

Transliteration:  

174. Inna allatheena yaktumoona ma anzala Allahu mina alkitabi wayashtaroona bihi thamanan qaleelan ola-ika ma ya/kuloona fee butoonihim illa alnnara wala yukallimuhumu Allahu yawma alqiyamati wala yuzakkeehim walahum AAathabun aleemun

Translation:  

174. Surely, those who conceal what Allah has sent down, from the Book and earn a trifle price therefor - they, stomach not but the Fire in their bellies! And Allah will not talk to them on the Day of Resurrection, nor will He purify them. And for them will there be a painful punishment.^{286 to 289}

Comments:  

286. The divine Books, parts of which got literally concealed by human beings, were those revealed earlier than the Qur’aan. The Qur’aan, on the other hand, cannot thus be concealed, as it is divinely guaranteed (verse 15.9) against such concealment. But human beings, under the influence of the Satan, have resorted to other subtle and ingenious means of concealment. Since a vast majority of Muslims around the world is now non-Arab, a part of the ‘clergy’ among them have gradually come to acquire a vested interest in creating a wrongful notion among other common Muslims. They (the commoners) are not taught the Qur’aanic Arabic as a language, but are taught only to recite the Qur’aan without understanding what they recite. An impression is created that it is very difficult for the commoners to acquire the capability to understand the divine Message in original Arabic. So, they have willy-nilly to go to the ‘clergy’ to know what Islam is.

287. It is in such circumstances that some of the common Muslims, in different parts of the world, have come to understand that invoking dead saints for redressal of their worldly problems, and visiting their graves for the purpose, is part of Islam! The ‘clergy’ that is responsible for misleading the Muslims thus, are guilty of concealing the fact that the Qur’aan condemns such activity as unpardonable sin of shirk.

288. Let alone some ordinary Mullahs thus misleading some uneducated Muslims, but even eminent scholars of Islam do unfortunately and unwittingly fall into the satanic trap of misleading educated Muslims, when the scholars resort to their own interpolations while translating the original Arabic text into other languages. The interpolations are justified on the ground of syntactic differences between Arabic and the language into which the Qur’aan is to be translated. The interpolations are also justified on the ground that these are based on explanatory notes, contained in the ahaadheeth or given by the earlier prominent commentators of the Qur’aan. But the interpolations, more often than not, help in changing the original divine meaning! However great in scholarship the commentator may be, it would be highly presumptuous - nay, blasphemous - on his part to assume that his interpolated word/words could explain or set right any ‘complicated’ part of the divine text! Such an assumption would indeed be blasphemous, particularly in the light of the oft-repeated Qur’aanic assertion that its muhkam verses are clear by themselves or are well-explained in its other verses. [Reference is invited in this context to Verse 2.99 and the corresponding Chapter Note 135 of these Studies.] And once a commentator takes a stand on the interpretation of a certain verse, and makes an interpolation in furtherance of his stand-point, it becomes very difficult for him to change that stand, even when he gets convinced later that his stand is wrong. The Satan sees his opportunity then, and gets busy in influencing the learned commentator to stick to his wrong stand, and thus unfortunately to conceal the true divine meaning of the relevant verse from his gullible readers.

289. It is therefore necessary for every Muslim to try and get at least a working knowledge of Qur’aanic Arabic. He/she may thereby be able to find out if anything is amiss in the translation. When I wrote to one of my own readers on this need of learning Qur’aanic Arabic, he said that it was a ‘tall, a very tall order’ to expect every Muslim to do that. I replied that he wouldn’t so dismiss the need, if he were convinced that his salvation from the Fire, in the Hereafter, very much depended on knowing the original divine Message of the Qur’aan in Arabic.

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The above is an extract from the just republished Qur’aanic Studies - Volume III on the regenerated website INVITATION TO SALVATION. Visitors may offer their honest comments in the space provided below.