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 5, Verse 2
……… And never let your hatred of people who would bar you from the Inviolable House of Worship lead you into the sin of aggression: but rather help one another in furthering virtue and God-consciousness, and do not help one another in furthering evil and enmity; and remain conscious of God: for behold God is severe in retribution!
Chapter 5, Verse 3
Forbidden to you is carrion, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that over which any name other than God has been invoked, and the animal that has been strangled, or beaten to death, or killed by a fall, or gored to death, or savaged by a beast of prey, save that which you [yourselves] may have slaughtered while it was still alive; and [forbidden to you is] all that has been slaughtered on idolatrous altars.
And [you are forbidden to] to seek to learn through divination what the future may hold in store for you [ 1 ]: this is sinful conduct.
Today, those who are bent on denying the truth have lost all hope of [your ever forsaking] your religion: do not, then, hold them in awe, but stand in awe of Me!
Today have I perfected your religious law for you, and have bestowed upon you the full measure of My blessings, and willed that self-surrender unto Me shall be your religion [ 2 ].
As for him, however, who is driven [to what is forbidden] by dire necessity and not by an inclination to sinning – behold, God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.
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Translator’s Notes:
- This implies a prohibition of all manner of attempts at divining or foretelling the future.
- According to all available Traditions based on the testimony of the Prophet’s contemporaries, the above passage – which sets, as it were, a seal, on the message of the Qur’an – was revealed at Arafat in the afternoon of Friday, the 9 th of Dhu ‘l-Hijjah, 10 H., eighty-one or eighty-two days before the death of the Prophet. No legal injunction whatsoever was revealed after this verse: and this explains the reference to God’s having perfected the Faith and bestowed the full measure of His blessings upon all the believers. Man’s self-surrender expresses itself not only in belief in Him but also in obedience to His commands: and this is the reason why the announcement of the completion of the Qur’anic message is placed within the context of a verse containing the legal ordinances ever revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
