and Allah is Forgiving, Forbearing.
102 A people before you indeed asked such questions, then became disbelievers therein.
103 Allah has not ordained a bahirah or a sa’ibah or a wasilah or a hami, but those who disbelieve fabricate a lie against Allah. And most of them understand not.
104 And when it is said to them, Come to that which Allah has revealed and to the Messenger, they say: Sufficient for us is that wherein we found our fathers. What! even though their fathers knew nothing and had no guidance!
105 O you who believe, take care of your souls — he who errs cannot harm you when you are on the right way. To Allah you will all return, so He will inform you of what you did.
106 O you who believe, call to witness between you, when death draws nigh to one of you, at the time of making the will, two just persons from among you, or two others from among others than you, if you are travelling in the land and the calamity of death befalls you. You should detain them after the prayer. Then if you doubt (them), they shall both swear by Allah (saying): We will not take for it a price, though there be a relative nor will we hide the testimony of Allah, for then certainly we shall be sinners.
107 If it be discovered that they are guilty of a sin, two others shall stand up in their place from among those against whom the first two have been guilty of a sin; so they shall swear by Allah: Certainly our testimony is truer than the testimony of those two, and we have not exceeded the limit, for then surely we should be unjust.
108 Thus it is more probable that they will give true testimony or fear that other oaths will be taken after their oaths. And keep your duty to Allah and hearken. And Allah guides not the transgressing people.
SECTION 15: Christian Love of this Life
109 On the day when Allah will gather together the messengers and say: What was the response you received? They will say: We have no knowledge. Surely Thou art the great Knower of the unseen.
110 When Allah will say: O Jesus, son of Mary, remember My favour to thee and to thy mother, when I strengthened thee with the Holy Spirit; thou spokest to people in the cradle and in old age, and when I taught thee the Book and the Wisdom and the Torah and the Gospel, and when thou didst determine out of clay a thing like the form of a bird by My permission, then thou didst breathe into it and it became a bird by My permission; and thou didst heal the blind and the leprous by My permission; and when thou didst raise the dead by My permission; and when I withheld the Children of Israel from thee when thou camest to them with clear arguments — but those of them who disbelieved said: This is nothing but clear enchantment.
111 And when I revealed to the disciples, saying, Believe in Me and My messenger, they said: We believe and bear witness that we submit.
112 When the disciples said: O Jesus, son of Mary, is thy Lord able to send down food to us from heaven? He said: Keep your duty to Allah if you are believers.
113 They said: We desire to eat of it, and that our hearts should be at rest, and that we may know that thou hast indeed spoken truth to us, and that we may be witnesses thereof.
114 Jesus, son of Mary, said: O Allah, our Lord, send down to us food from heaven which should be to us an ever-recurring happiness to the first of us and the last of us, and a sign from Thee, and give us sustenance and Thou art the Best of the sustainers.
115 Allah said: Surely I will send it down to you, but whoever disbelieves afterwards from among you, I will chastise him with a chastisement with which I will not chastise anyone among the nations.
SECTION 16: False Doctrines introduced after Jesus’ Death
116 And when Allah will say: O Jesus, son of Mary, didst thou say to men, Take me and my mother for two gods besides Allah? He will say: Glory be to Thee! it was not for me to say what I had no right to (say). If I had said it, Thou wouldst indeed have known it. Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in Thy mind. Surely Thou art the great Knower of the unseen.
117 I said to them naught save as Thou didst command me: Serve Allah, my Lord and your Lord; and I was a witness of them so long as I was among them, but when Thou didst cause me to die Thou wast the Watcher over them. And Thou art Witness of all things.
118 If Thou chastise them, surely they are Thy servants; and if Thou protect them, surely Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.
119 Allah will say: This is a day when their truth will profit the truthful ones. For them are Gardens wherein flow rivers abiding therein forever. Allah is well pleased with them and they are well pleased with Allah. That is the mighty achievement.
120 Allah’s is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and whatever is in them; and He is Possessor of power over all things.
Chapter 6
Al-An‘am: The Cattle
(Revealed at Makkah: 20 sections; 165 verses)
The name of this chapter is taken from the mention of cattle in connection with certain superstitions and idolatrous practices of the Arabs, the abolition of which was needed to establish the doctrine of Divine Unity in all its purity. The object of Islam was not simply to preach Unity, but to make it the basis of a Muslim’s practical life, and so to uproot all idolatrous practices.
The last chapter deals towards its close with the Christian doctrine of the deification of Jesus, and hence this chapter is introduced to deal at length with the doctrine of Divine Unity and its ultimate triumph, not only over idolatry, but over all kinds of polytheism. The Prophet had preached this noble doctrine for twelve whole years, without apparently causing any great change in the national idol-worship of the people. To an outward observer, therefore, the cause of the Prophet seemed an utter failure, yet so marvellous was his faith in the ultimate triumph of Divine Unity that no obstacle, no apparent failure, had shaken it in the least, and the words with which this chapter opens were uttered with unshakable confidence in the ultimate triumph of his cause, as if he had never received the least check in his onward course, and as though the goal was not only within sight, but close at hand.
Opening with a forcible declaration of the ultimate triumph of Divine Unity, and referring to the greatness of His mercy in the second section, the doctrine of Unity being always combined with the doctrine of the unique mercy of the Diving Being, it refers in the third to the polytheists’ own evidence against their polytheism. The rejection of this great truth and its consequences are then stated in the fourth and fifth sections, mentioning incidentally the reward of believers in the sixth section. In the two succeeding sections the Divine judgment is declared to be imminent. The ninth, while calling attention to the necessity of submission to the Divine Being — the pith of Abraham’s religion — mentions the arguments by which Abraham, that great Patriarch who may be said to be the father of monotheism, convinced his countrymen of the futility of the worship of any object other than Allah. The tenth section mentions the names of seventeen other prophets who preached the Unity of the Divine Being, and the Holy Prophet is enjoined to follow in their footsteps. The eleventh section draws attention to the truth of the Divine revelation of the Qur’an, which was now the bearer of that noble message of Divine Unity to mankind, and the next speaks of the ultimate triumph of that message. The thirteenth section states that this triumph would be brought about by a gradual progress, and the fourteenth refers to the polytheists’ opposition. The plans adopted by the chief opponents are then hinted at in the fifteenth, and their failure prophesied in the sixteenth section, which deals with some
