قُلُوبِ

8:13; 59:3.

Commentary:

The words, because they associate partners with Allah, signify that he who associates gods with Allah can never be truly brave, for he lacks complete devotion to anyone. It is only complete devotion that can inspire a person to make sacrifices. As a believer is completely devoted to the One God, therefore, he is ever ready to make every kind of sacrifice in His cause.

Moreover, it is through lack of perseverance that idolaters go from one god to another, and perseverance is an essential concomitant of bravery. Where there is no perseverance, there is no bravery. Again, idolaters are rebels in setting up gods with Allah and a rebel’s heart is never at rest; and a heart that is not at ease cannot be brave. Yet again, polytheism springs from superstitious fear and one possessed of that sort of fear can never be truly brave.

It should, however, be remembered that it is only relative bravery that is meant here; otherwise, even among idolaters and polytheists, there are men who possess bravery and courage, but their courage and bravery is inferior to that of true believers who put faith in One God and believe in His great powers and in the life after death.

9:93; 16:109; 47:17.

Commentary:

The verse makes it clear that the hearts of only those people are "sealed" who reject divine knowledge that comes to them through a Divine Reformer. The "sealing" of the hearts of disbelievers is the inevitable consequence of their own refusal to accept divine knowledge.

3:185; 5:33.

Commentary:

The word القری (the towns) again refers here to ancient towns fallen into ruin. The Quran reverts to their mention in order to emphasize the seriousness of a Prophet’s rejection and to introduce the narration of yet another by-gone people, the rejecters of Moses.

By using the words, some of whose news, the verse makes it clear that the Quran has not given the entire history of by-gone peoples but only the relevant parts of it. Nevertheless, no book of history contains more reliable information about the peoples of ‘Ad and Thamud than does the Quran, and students of history have admitted that what the Quran tells us is the only authentic and reliable knowledge that we possess about these ancient peoples, and all other stories current about them may be only so many myths. As regards Lot, later Jewish writers have admitted that he was a Prophet of God, as the Quran represents him to be, though the Bible does not seem to accord him this rank.

The verse hints that as the Holy Prophet represents in his person all the Prophets that have gone before him, therefore his rejecters will be visited with all the various forms of punishment that befell the rejecters of former Prophets.

The opponents of God’s Prophets are in the habit of rejecting their claims on the basis of mere hearsay and make-believe. The result of such a hasty rejection is that the hearts of the rejecters become sealed and they become deprived of the power to understand the arguments and signs which God shows to establish the truth of His Messengers. The verse thus throws light on how the hearts or minds of disbelievers are sealed. They are sealed only when disbelievers refuse to make use of their God-given power of reasoning and understanding.

Important Words:

فوق (upper part) is derived from فاق. They say فاقھم i.e. he was or became above them. So فوق means, the location or place that is above or over a person or a thing. They say فوقه رأسه i.e. his upper part is his head (Lane).

Commentary:

This verse shows that the angels are, as it were, intermediaries between God and men. It is through them that God’sassistance comes to men.

The verse also hints that there are some angels whose function is to strengthen the hearts of good men and make them firm, while there are others who are deputed to cast terror into the hearts of wicked men. So God bade the former class of angels to strengthen the hearts of the believers and told them that He would cast terror into the hearts of the disbelievers through the other class of angels.

God instructed the believers to strike the disbelievers at "the upper parts of their necks" because the upper part of the neck, i.e. that which is just below the head, is considered to be the best point for dealing an effective blow with the sword. This order related to such of the enemy as deserved to be killed and without killing whom the Muslims could not defend themselves. The striking on the “finger-tips” was meant to incapacitate the enemy and make them unfit for fighting. This order thus related to those of the enemy who, so far as possible, were to be spared with the infliction of minimum injury. Both these orders were faithfully carried out, for although the Muslims were very weak at Badr, they were able to kill seventy of the disbelievers, mostly leaders, and take as many prisoners, while the enemy could kill only fourteen of them.

30:48; 40:24.

Commentary:

This verse makes it quite clear that it is not God Who arbitrarily seals up the hearts of disbelievers but it is the disbelievers themselves who, by their stubborn and unjustified refusal to listen to the word of God, become deprived of their power to see and accept the truth. They themselves are the architects of their evil destiny and not God Who only proclaims the things already brought about by their own persistent transgression. The act of sealing up the hearts of disbelievers is attributed to God because He is the Final Judge Who pronounces the verdict.

26:201.

Commentary:

The pronoun "this" in the expression نسلکه (do We cause this to enter) refers to the practice of disbelievers of ridiculing Prophets mentioned in the previous verse. The verse under comment thus signifies that this evil habit of disbelievers springs from their own indulgence in sin and is not imported from outside. It states a general truth, viz. when a man does wrong, his natural aversion for sin is lessened and he gradually develops a liking for it which eventually takes deep root in his heart. It thus follows that the retribution of sin is not the result of some arbitrary action on the part of God but is the natural and inevitable consequence of the sinner’s own action.

Commentary:

The pronoun 'it' in the expression "thus have We caused it to enter" referring to the evil practice of the disbelievers of rejecting truth the verse purports to say that this bad habit of disbelievers has its roots in their own hearts and is born of their indulgence in sin and vice and does not come from outside. The verse, in fact, states a general truth that when a man indulges in sin his consciousness of it becomes blunted and in course of time he even comes to develop a liking for it. It is in this way that sin corrodes and vitiates "the hearts of the sinful."

Or the pronoun 'it' may refer to the Quran. In this sense the verse would mean that the truth of the Quran is made to enter into the hearts of disbelievers by means of the convincing proofs and arguments given in support of it. They become conscious of its truth but still they reject it.

9:26.

33:10; 74:32.

Commentary:

Twice, in this Surah has the statement been made that "God sent down tranquillity upon the believers" (see v. 27) and twice the declaration that "to Allah belong the hosts of the heavens and the earth." These expressions show that though, due to a misunderstanding about the terms of the Treaty of Hudaibiyyah, the believers were temporarily perturbed, they never lost peace of mind so far as fighting in the cause of Allah was concerned, and were fully convinced that divine hosts were with them. That is why when a false news reached Hudaibiyyah that ‘Uthman, the Prophet’s envoy to the Meccans, had been killed, and the Prophet invited Muslims to take a solemn oath at his hand that they would avenge the death of ‘Uthman and would fight under his banner to the bitter end, all of them took the oath without evincing the least hesitation.

2:88; 5:47.

5:83.

Commentary:

The verse may mean that the followers of Jesus invented monasticism in order to seek Allah’s pleasure but Allah had not prescribed it for them; or they invented monasticism which God had not prescribed for them—He had only prescribed for them the seeking of His pleasure.

In v. 26, it was stated that God had sent down المیزان (Balance) in order that people may act with equity and justice, i.e. by avoiding extremes they should adopt the golden mean or the middle course in all their affairs and actions because that was the best and the safest course. In the present verse the example of a people—the Christians—has been cited to show that the adoption of an extreme course by them, with howsoever good intentions, led them away from the goal they had sought to attain. They invented the institution of monkery in order, as they thought, to seek the pleasure of God, and in conformity with, according to them, Jesus’s own teaching and practice. The adage that the road to Heaven is paved with good intentions was never better illustrated than in the case of Christians for whom monkery proved a source of many evils. They started with monasticism and ended with giving themselves up to the worship of Mammon. By implication the Muslims were told that because a great Prophet had been raised for them, by following whom they would be given great worldly power and wealth, they should not go to the other extreme and give themselves up to the pursuit of material gains and physical pleasures. While monasticism has been decried and deplored as repugnant to human nature, the Holy Prophet also is reported to have said: لارھبانیة فی الاسلام i.e. there is no monasticism in Islam (Ibn Athir). Islam is not a religion for dreamers and visionaries who live in a world of their own conception, entirely divorced from the hard realities of life, but it is a practical system which gives effective and full guidance in mundane as well as spiritual affairs. It has not left any aspect of crowded human life for which it has not laid down practical guidance. There is no place in Islam for such an impracticable teaching as "take no thought for the morrow" (Matt. 6:34). It emphatically enjoins a Muslim "to look to what he sends forth for the morrow" (59:19). According to Islam a true Muslim is one who discharges fully and completely the obligations he owes to his fellow beings (حقوق العباد) as he discharges those he owes to his Creator (حقوق اللّٰه).