| This Surah (Revealed) Meccan, except for verses 52, 53 and 54, which are Medinese; it consists of 75
verses, revealed after [sūrat] Sabaâ.(Az-Zumar)
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| بِسْم ِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ | | Ayah First 1 الأية الأولي |
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Tafseer
The revelation of the Book, the Qurâān (tanzīluâl-kitābi, the subject) is from
God (minaâLlāhi, its predicate) the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise, in His handiwork.
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Tafseer
Indeed We have revealed to you, O Muhammad (s), the Book with the truth
(biâl-haqqi is semantically connected to anzalnā, âWe have revealedâ); so worship God, devoting your
religion purely to Him, [pure] of any idolatry, in other words, affirming His Oneness.
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Tafseer
Surely to God belongs pure religion, none other than Him being deserving of it.
And those who take besides Him, the idols [as], patrons: and they are the disbelievers of Mecca â they say:
âWe only worship them so that they may bring us near to Godâ (zulfā, a verbal noun, with the sense of
taqrīban, âfor the sake of nearnessâ). God will indeed judge between them, and the Muslims, concerning that
about which they differ, of religion, and so admit the believers into Paradise, and the disbelievers into
the Fire. Truly God does not guide one who is a liar, attributing a child to Him, a disbeliever, worshipping
other than God.
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Tafseer
Had God wanted to take a son â as they allege [that He has], âThe Compassionate
One has taken [to Himself] a sonâ [Q. 19:88], He could have chosen from what He has created
whatever He willed, and taken it as a child, instead of the angels whom they claim to be Godâs daughters, or
[their claim] that âEzra is the son of Godâ, or that âJesus is the son of Godâ [cf. Q. 9:30]. Glory be to Him, in
exaltation of Him as being above that He should take a child. He is God, the One, the All-Compelling, over all
His creatures.
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Tafseer
537 He created the heavens and the earth with the truth (biâl-haqqi is semantically
connected to khalaqa, âHe createdâ). He turns the night into day, so that it grows, and turns the day into
night, so that it grows, and He has disposed the sun and the moon, each running, in its course, for an appointed
term, until the Day of Resurrection. Verily it is He Who is the Mighty, Whose way [always] prevails,
Requiter of His enemies, the [ever] Forgiving, of His friends.
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Tafseer
He created you from a single soul, namely, Adam, then made from it its mate,
Eve; and He sent down for you of the cattle, [of] camels, cows, small cattle, sheep and goats, eight
kinds, of each kind a male and a female â as He makes clear in sūrat al-Anâām [Q. 6:143f.]. He creates you in
your mothersâ wombs, creation after creation, that is to say, as a sperm-drop, then a blood clot,
then a foetus, in a threefold darkness, that is, the darkness of the belly, that of the womb and that of the
placenta. That is God, your Lord. To Him belongs [all] sovereignty. There is no god except Him. Why then are
you being turned away?, from worshipping Him to worshipping [things] other than Him?
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Tafseer
If you are ungrateful, indeed God is Independent of you, though He does not
approve of ingratitude for His servants, even if He should will it [to manifest itself] in some of them. And if
you give thanks, to God and thus become believers, He will approve of it (read yardah, or yardahu, either
lengthening the vowel or not), that is, [of such] thankfulness, for you. And no burdened soul shall bear the
burden of another [soul], in other words, it will not bear [the responsibility for] it. Then to your Lord
will be your return, whereat He will inform you of what you used to do. Indeed He is Knower of what is in the
breasts, of what is in the hearts [of men].
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Tafseer
And when distress befalls a person, that is, the disbeliever, he supplicates his
Lord, he implores, turning, returning, to Him penitently. Then, when He bestows on him a grace from Himself,
he forgets, he neglects, Him Whom he had supplicated, implored, before, namely, God (in other words mā
functions as min, âwhomâ) and sets up equals, associates, with God, that he may lead [others] astray (read
li-yadilla or li-yudilla) from His way â [from] the religion of Islam. Say: âRevel in your ingratitude for a
while â for the remainder of your term [of life]. You shall indeed be among the inhabitants of the Fireâ.
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Tafseer
Or is he who (read, softened, a-man) devotes himself [in worship], observing
duties of obedience, in the watches of the night, [during] its hours, prostrating and standing, in prayer,
apprehensive of the [eventuality of the] Hereafter, in other words, fearing its chastisement, and hoping for the
mercy, the Paradise, of his Lord â ?, like one who is disobedient through disbelief or otherwise? (a variant
reading has am-man, pronouncing the hamza, so that am has the sense of bal, âratherâ). Say: âAre
those who know equal with those who do not know?â, in other words, they are not equal, just as the person
of knowledge is not equal to the ignorant one. Only people of pith, possessors of intellect, remember, [only
they] are admonished.
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Tafseer
Say: âO servants of Mine who believe! Fear your Lord, that is to say, [fear] His
chastisement, by being obedient to Him. For those who are virtuous in this world, through obedience,
there will be good, and that is Paradise, and Godâs earth is vast, so emigrate throughout it, away from the
[company of] disbelievers and the sight of indecencies. Truly the steadfast, in [their] obedience [of God] and
in [enduring] whatever [hardship] they may be tested with, will be paid their reward in full without
any reckoningâ, without any measure or any scales [to work it out].
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Tafseer
538 Say: âIndeed I have been commanded to worship God devoting [my] religion purely
to Him, [pure] of any idolatry,
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Tafseer
and I have been commanded to be the first of those who submitâ, from this
community.
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Tafseer
Say: âIndeed, should I disobey my Lord, I fear the chastisement of a tremendous
dayâ.
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Tafseer
Say: âGod [alone] I worship, devoting [my] religion purely to Him, [pure] of any
idolatry.
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Tafseer
So worship whatever you wish besides Himâ, other than Him â herein is a threat
for them as well as a declaration [of the fact] that they do not worship God, exalted be He. Say:
âIndeed the losers are those who [will] have lost their souls and their families on the Day of Resurrection, by
condemning their souls to abide [forever] in the Fire, and their failure to attaining [the bliss promised among]
the black-eyed virgins who would have been prepared for them in Paradise had they been believers. Truly
that is the manifest loss!â
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Tafseer
Above them they will have canopies, layers, of fire, and beneath them [they will
have [similar] canopies, of fire. That is what God frightens His servants with, that is, the believing ones,
that they may have fear of Him â this [sense of the verse] is suggested by [what follows]), âSo, O servants of
Mine, fear Me!ââ
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Tafseer
As for those who steer clear of the worship of false deities, graven images, and
turn penitently, apply themselves, to God, there are good tidings for them, of Paradise. So give [such]
good tidings to My servants,
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Tafseer
who listen to the words [of God] and follow the best [sense] of it, which is
that which contains [the means to] righteousness for them. Those, they are the ones whom God has guided; and
those, they are the people of pith, the possessors of intellect.
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Tafseer
Can he against whom the word of chastisement has been fulfilled â?, namely [the
words], I will surely fill Hell [with jinn and mankind together] [Q. 11:119]; Will you deliver, bring out,
one who is in the Fire? (this is the response to the conditional clause, in which the overt qualification [man
fīâl-nār, âone who is in the Fireâ] replaces the pronominalisation [a-fa-man, âhe â whomâ]; the hamza [in a-fa-anta,
âwill youâ] is for rejection, in other words [the sense is that] you will not be able to guide him and
therefore deliver him from the Fire).
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Tafseer
But as for those who fear their Lord, and therefore obey Him â for them there
will be lofty abodes with [other] lofty abodes built above them, with rivers flowing beneath them, that
is, beneath [both] the upper and the lower abodes â a promise of God (waâdaâLlāhi, in the accusative because
of an implied verb governing it). God does not fail the tryst, [He does not break] His promise. 539
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Tafseer
Have you not seen, realised, that God sends down water from the heaven, then
conducts it as springs, making it enter points of springs, in the ground? Then with it He brings forth
crops of diverse hues. Then they wither, they become dried-out, and you see them, for example, after having
been green, turning yellow. Then He turns them into chaff. Truly in that there is a reminder for
people of pith, possessors of intellect, by which they may be reminded, for it is an indication of Godâs
Oneness and His power.
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Tafseer
Is he whose breast God has opened to Islam, and becomes guided, so that he
follows a light from his Lord â?, like he whose heart He has sealed [with disbelief]? â this [understanding of
the ellipsis] is indicated by [what follows]. So woe â an expression indicating âchastisementâ â to those
whose hearts have been hardened against the remembrance of God, that is, [hardened] against the
acceptance of the Qurâān. Such are in manifest error.
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Tafseer
God has revealed the best of discourses, a Book (kitāban, substitutes for
ahsana, âthe bestâ) namely, a Qurâān, consimilar, in other words, some of its parts are similar to others in
terms of [their] arrangement and otherwise, in coupled phrases â [a Book] in which the Promise [of reward] is
coupled with the Threat [of punishment], together with other such [couplings] â whereat quiver, at the
mention of whose Threat shiver, the skins of those who fear their Lord; then their skins and their
hearts soften to, they are reassured by, the remembrance of God, that is, at the mention of His Promise. That, Book,
is Godâs guidance, by which He guides whomever He will, of His servants; and whomever God leads astray, for
him there is no guide.
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Tafseer
Is he who will be fending off, [is he] who will encounter, with his face the
awful chastisement on the Day of Resurrection â?, that is, the most severe [chastisement], when he is flung into
the Fire with his hands bound to his neck in fetters, [is he] like one who will be secure from it by
entering Paradise? And it will be said to the wrongdoers, namely, the disbelievers of Mecca: âTaste [now] what you
used to earnâ, that is, [taste] the requital for it.
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Tafseer
Those who were before them denied, their messengers with regard to the coming of
the chastisement; and so the chastisement came on them whence they were not aware, in a way that would
never have occurred to them.
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Tafseer
So God made them taste disgrace, abasement and humiliation, in the way of being
transformed [into swine] and being killed and otherwise, in the life of this world. And the chastisement
of the Hereafter will surely be greater, had they, that is, the deniers, known, [the nature of] the chastisement
thereof, they would not have denied.
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Tafseer
And verily We have struck, coined, for mankind in this Qurâān every [kind of]
similitude, that perhaps they may remember, [that perhaps] they may be admonished â
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Tafseer
an Arabic Qurâān (qurâānan âarabiyyan, a circumstantial qualifier for emphasis)
without any deviation, that is, 540 [without] any contradiction or variance, that perhaps they may guard themselves,
against disbelief.
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