064
The Message of the Quran
Muhammad Asad
AT-TAGHABUN (LOSS AND GAIN)
THE SIXTY-FOURTH
SURAH
Total Verses: 18
PERIOD UNCERTAIN
Introduction
THE MAJORITY of the commentators regard this surah as
belonging to the
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE:
(1) ALL THAT IS in the heavens and all
that is on earth extols God's limitless glory: His is all dominion, and to Him
all praise is due; and He has the power to will anything.
(2) He it is who has created you: and
among you are such as deny this truth, and among you are such as believe [in
it]. 1 And God sees all that you do.
(3) He has created the heavens and the
earth in accordance with [an inner] truth, 2 and
has formed you - and formed you so well; 3 and
with Him is your journey's end.
(4) He knows all that is in the heavens
and on earth; and He knows all that you keep secret as well as all that you
bring into the open: for God has full knowledge of what is in the hearts [of
men].
(5) HAVE THE STORIES of those who, in
earlier times, refused to acknowledge the truth never yet come within your ken?
[They denied it -] and so they had to taste the evil outcome of their own
doings, 4 with [more] grievous suffering awaiting them [in the life
to come]:
(6) this, because time and again there
came unto them their apostles 5 with all evidence of the truth, but they [always] replied,
"Shall mere mortal men be our guides?" 6 And
so they. denied the truth and turned away. But God was not in need [of them]:
for God is self-sufficient, ever to be praised.
(7) They who are bent on denying the
truth claim that they will never be raised from the dead! 7 Say:
"Yea, by my Sustainer! Most surely will you be raised from the dead, and
then, most surely, will you be made to understand what you did [in life]! For,
easy is this for God!"
(8) Believe then, [O men,] in God and
His Apostle, and in the light [of revelation] which We have bestowed [on you]
from on high! And God is fully aware of all that you do.
(9) [Think of 8] the
time when He shall gather you all together unto the Day of the [Last] Gathering
- that Day of Loss and Gain! For, as for hhim who shall have believed in God and
done what is just and right, He will [on that Day] efface his bad deeds, and
will admit him into gardens through which running waters flow, therein to abide
beyond the count of time: that will be a triumph supreme!
(10) But as for those who are bent on
denying the truth and on giving the lie to Our messages - they are destined for
the fire, therein to abide: and how vile a journey’s end!
(11) NO CALAMITY can ever befall [man]
unless it be by God's leave: hence, whoever believes in God guides his [own]
heart [towards this truth]; 9 and God has full knowledge of everything.
(12) Pay heed, then, unto God, and pay
heed unto the Apostle; and if you turn away, [know that] Our Apostle's only
duty is a clear delivery of this message:
(13) God - there is no deity save Him!
10
In God then let the believers place their trust.
(14) O YOU who have attained to faith!
Behold, some of your spouses 11 and your children are enemies unto you: so beware of them!
12
But if you pardon [their faults] and forbear, and forgive-then, behold, God
will be much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.
(15) Your worldly goods and your
children are but a trial and a temptation, 13
whereas with God there is a tremendous reward.
(16) Remain, then, conscious of God as
best you can, and listen [to Him], and pay heed. And spend in charity for the
good of your own selves: for, such as from their own covetousness are saved –
it is they, they that shal attain to a happy state! 14
(17) If you offer up to God a goodly
loan, He will amply repay you for it, and will forgive you your sins: for God
is ever responsive to gratitude, forbearing,
(18) knowing all that is beyond the
reach of a created being's perception as well as all that can be witnessed by a
creature's senses or mind 15 - the Almighty, the Wise!
1 The above construction, pointing
to man's acceptance or denial of the truth of God's creative activity, is in
accord with Tabari's interpretation of this passage, as well as with that of
Az-Zajjaj (quoted by Razi). According to Zamakhshari, those who deny this truth
are mentioned first because they are more numerous and possess greater
influence than those who consciously believe in God. A further implication
appears to be this: Since all human beings are endowed with the instinctive
ability to perceive the existence of the Creator (cf. 7:172 and the
corresponding note 139), one man's denial of this truth and another's belief in
it is, in the last resort, an outcome of free choice.
2 See surah 10, note 11.
3 I.e., in accordance with the
exigencies of human life. See also note 9 on
4 This is an allusion to the
disasters and the suffering which, as history shows, inevitably befall a
community or nation bent on rejecting the basic ethical truths and, thus, all
standards of 5 I.e., apostles from their own midst, entrusted with divine
messages specifically meant for them. The expression "time and again"
is conditioned by the phrase kanat ta'atihim which implies repetition
and duration.
6 Lit., "guide us". This
negative response is characteristic of people who, in result of their own
estrangement from all moral standards, are instinctively, and deeply,
distrustful of all things human and cannot, therefore, accept the idea that a
divine message could manifest itself through mere human beings that have
nothing "supernatural" about them.
7 Their refusal to believe in
resurrection and a life to come implies a conviction that no one will be called
upon, after death, to answer for what he did in life.
8 This or a similar interpolation
is necessary in view of the mansub form of the subsequent noun, yawma
(lit., "day"), which I am rendering in this context as "the
time".
9 I.e., in the words of Razi,
"towards self-surrender to God's will. . , [and so] towards gratitude in
times of ease, and patience in times of misfortune". It is also possible -
as some of the commentators do - to understand the phrase in another sense, namely,
"if anyone believes in God, He [i.e., God] guides his heart".
However, the rendering adopted by me seems to be preferable inasmuch as it
stresses the idea that conscious belief in God impels a man’s reason to
control and direct his emotions and inclinations in accordance with all that
this belief implies.
10 The above construction of this
passage makes it clear, firstly, that a realization of God's existence, oneness
and almightiness is the innermost purport - and, thus, the beginning and the
end - of God's message to man; and, secondly, that His prophets can do no more
than deliver and expound this message, leaving it to man's reason and free
choice to accept or reject it.
11 I.e., "sometimes, your
spouses.. .", etc. Since, in the teachings of the Qur'an, all moral duties
are binding on women as well as on men, it is obvious that the term azwajikum
must not be rendered as "your wives", but is to be understood -
according to classical Arabic usage - as applying equally to both the male and
the female partners in a marriage.
12 Love of his or her family may
sometimes tempt a believer to act contrary to the demands of conscience and
faith; and, occasionally, one or another of the loved ones - whether wife or
husband or child - may consciously try to induce the person concerned to
abandon some of his or her moral commitments in order to satisfy some real or
imaginary "family interest", and thus becomes the other's spiritual
"enemy". It is to this latter eventuality that the next sentence
alludes.
13 For an explanation, see note 28
on 8:28, which is almost identical with the present passage.
14 Cf. last sentence of 59:9 and
the corresponding note 14.
15 See surah 6, note 65.