28
January, 2005
From the translation by Muhammad
Asad (Leopold Weiss)
About the translator:
Muhammad Asad, Leopold Weiss,
was born of Jewish parents in Livow, Austria (later
Poland) in 1900, and at the age of 22 made his first
visit to the Middle East. He later became an outstanding
foreign correspondent for the Franfurter Zeitung,
and after his conversion to Islam travelled and
worked throughout the Muslim world, from North Africa
to as far east as Afghanistan, India and Pakistan.
After years of devoted study he became one of the
leading Muslim scholars of our age. His translation
of the Holy Qur'an is one of the most lucid and
well-referenced works in this category, dedicated
to “li-qawmin yatafakkaroon” (For people
who think”).
Chapter 25, Verses 32-33
Now they who are bent on denying the truth are wont
to ask, “Why has not the Qur’an been
bestowed on him from on high in one single revelation?
[It has been revealed] in this manner so that We
might strengthen thy heart thereby – for We
have so arranged its component parts that they form
one consistent whole – and [that] they [who
deny the truth] might never taunt thee with any
deceptive half-truth without Our conveying to thee
the [full] truth and [providing thee] with the best
explanation.
Chapter 25, Verse 43
Hast thou ever considered [the kind of man] who
makes his own desires his deity? Couldst thou, then,
[O Prophet,] be held responsible for him?
Chapter 25, Verses 47-49
And He it is who makes the night a garment for you,
and [your] sleep a rest, and causes every [new]
day to be a resurrection. And He it is who sends
forth the winds as a glad tiding of His coming grace;
and [thus, too,] We cause pure water to descend
from the skies, so that We may bring dead land to
life thereby, and give to drink thereof to many
[beings] of Our creation, beasts as well as humans.
Chapter 25, Verse 53 And He it is who has given
freedom of movement to the two great bodies of water
– the one sweet and thirst-allaying, the other
salty and bitter – and yet has wrought between
them a barrier and a forbidding ban. [ 1 ]
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Translator’s Notes
[ 1 ] I.e., it has caused them – as if by
an invisible barrier – to remain distinct
in kind despite their continuous meeting and mingling
in the oceans: an indirect reminder of God’s
planning creativeness inherent in the cyclic transformation
of water – its evaporation from the salty
seas, followed by a formation of clouds, their condensation
into rain and snow which feed springs and rivers,
and its return to the seas. Some Muslim mystics
see in this stress on the two kinds of water an
allegory of the gulf – and, at the same time,
interaction – between man’s spiritual
perceptions, on the one hand, and his worldly needs
and passions, on the other.
