رَءَا

Important Words:

طرفک (thy noble messenger) is infinitive noun from طرف (tarafa). They say طرف فلان i.e. such a one saw. طرف عینه means, his eyes moved in order to see. طرف means, the extremity or end of anything; eye, look, glance, blinking; a noble or generous man in respect of ancestry; government revenue; a messenger from Yemen. کریم الطرفین means, noble in respect of both father and mother. اطراف الارض means, the noble or exalted and the learned men of the earth. اطراف الناس means, the lower orders of the people. علی طرف means, beside, aside or apart (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The phrase قبل ان یرتد الیک طرفک may mean, (1) before thy messenger from Yemen returns to thee; (2) before the nobleman whom thou hast sent comes back to thee from Yemen; (3) in the twinkling of an eye, i.e. in a very short time; (4) before the government revenue is deposited in the treasury. In the last-mentioned meaning of طرف the expression would mean, "I would need no more money, the money already in the government treasury would be quite sufficient to meet the expenses of constructing a throne for the queen."

The expression "who had knowledge of the book" seems to refer to one who knew the intricacies of finance. He might be Solomon’s finance minister.

In this and the previous verse two offers to make the throne for Solomon have been mentioned, one by the ‘Ifrit who offered to prepare the throne before Solomon had raised his camp and started back, and the other by "the man who had knowledge." The latter made a still better offer of finishing the throne before Solomon’s messenger came back with the reply to his letter from the Queen. The context shows that Solomon accepted the second offer because he wanted to have the throne finished before the Queen came to pay her respects to him as he was to stay at that place till she had come and the whole ceremony was over. The verse also implies that all sorts of men were employed by Solomon—men of knowledge and experience, skilled and unskilled labourers, craftsmen and technicians.

Important Words:

جن (darkened) means, it covered up. They say جن اللیل الشیء or جن اللیل علی الشیء i.e. the night covered the thing up; or the night threw its covering of darkness over the thing. جن اللیل means, the night grew dark. See also 2:26 & 6:129.

Commentary:

See collective note under 6:80 below.

Commentary:

See collective note under 6:80 below.

Commentary:

See collective note under 6:80 below.

Commentary:

This verse shows that whereas the hypocrites and the weak of faith as mentioned in the preceding verses were greatly disheartened and dismayed by the very difficult situation in which Islam was placed at the time of the Battle of the Ditch, the faith of the sincere and true Muslims became stronger since they found that what the Holy Prophet had foretold, had come out true. The history of Islam bears ample testimony to the fact that the more difficult and critical the situation that confronted the Muslims, the greater their resolve and the will to fight, and greater their confidence and trust in God. They always rose equal to the occasion.

The reference in the words, "This is what Allah and His Messenger promised us," is to the prophecy about the defeat and discomfiture of the hosts of disbelief and the victory of Islam (38:12 & 54:46).

51:28-29.

Important Words:

لوط (Lot) may etymologically be taken to have been derived from لاط. They sayلاط الشیء i.e. he concealed the thing. لاط بهmeans, it (the thing) stuck or adhered to it. لوطه بالطیب (lawwata-hu) means, he smeared him or it with much perfume. The Prophet Lot, who was the contemporary of Prophet Abraham, was the ancestor of the Palestinian peoples, Moab and Ammon. As the son of Haran and the grandson of Terah, he was Abraham’s nephew. He joined Abraham in the land of Canaan and in the time of famine went with him to Egypt. He preached to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah but they refused to listen to him and ridiculed and persecuted him; and though Abraham, to whom Lot was a junior and subordinate Prophet prayed for these wicked people and interceded with God on their behalf, they were destroyed on account of their iniquities and transgression (Lane, Enc. Bri. & Jew. Enc.).

Commentary:

Abraham at first took the "messengers" to be ordinary way-farers, but when they refrained from eating of the roasted calf he had placed before them (see the preceding verse), he realized that they were on some special mission which he had failed to understand. He knew that as ordinary wayfarers they could not refuse his hospitality, for wayfarers in that arid land entirely depended on the hospitality of the inhabitants for their food.

The words, conceived a fear of them, do not mean that Abraham was afraid of the strangers but that, when they did not partake of the food, he feared that he might have done something against the etiquette of hospitality and thus had displeased them. He did not, however, express his fear, for such an expression would have implied that he perhaps took them to be mean and greedy. The guests, it appears, read Abraham’s perturbed state of mind from the uneasy expression of his face, so they at once removed his anxiety by telling him that they were in no way displeased and that the reason why they did not partake of food was that their dreadful mission had made them disinclined to eat.

This answer of the visitors also shows that they were not angels; for had they been angels, they would have said that being not human they could not partake of the food.

Commentary:

The pronoun "he" in the clause, when he saw his shirt, stands for the master of the house and not for the man who bore witness.

The words, Your device is indeed mighty, will thus be taken to have been spoken by Joseph’s master, and the pronoun "your" refers to "women" generally. In his endeavour to screen his wife as far as possible, he appears to accuse the whole of the fair sex of cunning and guile. But cunning is no characteristic of women; only those women who are oppressed and tyrannized over and whose rights are trampled upon generally develop a tendency to conspiring and adopting wily and cunning ways to avenge themselves on their oppressors. Moreover, the words of a man spoken casually cannot be regarded as an established truth and must be treated with reserve.

30:14.

Commentary:

It is indeed strange that disbelievers who in this life oppose Divine Messengers for the sake of their false gods will on the Day of Judgement, inveigh against those very false gods and request that they be severely punished because they led them to disbelief and ruin. In return the false gods will denounce their erstwhile followers with the quick and emphatic retort, "Surely, you are liars". This altercation between the false gods and their followers before God shows that friendships based on sin and the denial of truth never endure.

The words القوا الیھم القول mean, (a) they would say emphatically; (b) they would reply quickly. The words, it will not be made light for them, occurring in the preceding verse show that the excuses of disbelievers will not be accepted and they will be sternly told that if their false gods had tempted and inveigled them they should have resisted that temptation.

16:64; 27:25; 29:39.

Commentary:

The words, "so let not thy soul waste away sighing for them," give an insight into the noble soul of the Holy Prophet—how anxious and eager he was to lead his people out of their evil ways and save them from the wrath of God. Another verse of the Quran, viz. "Haply thou wilt grieve thyself to death for sorrow after them if they believe not in this discourse" (18:7). Also constitutes an eloquent commentary on the solicitude and concern of the Holy Prophet for the spiritual well-being of his people and on his deep grief for their opposition to truth. But such is human ingratitude that from the very people for whom he felt and grieved so much, he received nothing but abuse, invective and ridicule.

2:166.

Commentary:

The punishment referred to in this verse relates to the next life.