Gems from the Holy Qur’an
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 years of devoted study 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” (people who think). Forwarded by Dr Ismat Kamal.
Chapter 83, Al-Mutaffifiin, Verses 1-6
Woe unto those who give short measure: those who, when they are to receive their due from [other] people, demand that it be given in full – but when they have to measure or weigh whatever they owe to others, give less than what is due! [ 1 ]
Do they not know that they are bound to be raised from the dead [and called to account] on an awesome Day – the Day when all men shall stand before the Sustainer of all the worlds?
Chapter 84, Al-Inshiqaaq, Verses 16-21
But nay! I call to witness the sunset’s [fleeting] afterglow, and the night, and what it [step by step] unfolds, and the moon, as it grows to its fullness: [ 2] [ even thus, O men,] are you bound to move onward from stage to stage. [ 3 ]
What, then, is amiss with them that they will not believe [ in a life to come]? [ 4 ] – and [that], when the Qur’an is read unto them, they do not fall down in prostration?
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Translator’s Notes
[ 1 ] This passage does not, of course refer only to commercial dealings but touches upon every aspect of social relations, both practical and moral, applying to every individual’s rights and obligations no less than to his physical possessions.
[ 2 ] Thus God “calls to witness” the fact that nothing in His creation is ever at a standstill, since everything moves unceasingly from one state of being into another, at every moment changing its aspect and its condition: a phenomenon aptly described by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus by the phrase panta rhei (“everything is in flux”).
[ 3 ] Or: “from one state to another ( ref. ZamaKhsharii): i.e., in an unceasing progression – conception, birth, growth, decline, death and, finally, resurrection.
[ 4 ] Since the inexorable movement of all that exists from stage to stage or from one condition to another corresponds to a fundamental law evident in all creation, it is unreasonable to assume that man alone should be an exception, and that his onward movement should cease at the moment of his bodily death, not to be followed by a change-over into another state of being.
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