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 16, Verses 18-22
For, should you try to count God’s blessings, you could never compute them!
Behold, God is much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace; and God knows all that you keep secret as well as all that you bring into the open.
Now those beings that some people invoke beside God cannot create anything, since they themselves are but created: they are dead, not living, and they do not [even] know when they will be raised from the dead!
Your God is the One God: but because of their false pride, the hearts of those who do not believe in the life to come refuse to admit this [truth].
Chapter 16, Verses 30-32
But [when] those who are conscious of God are asked, “What is it that your Sustainer has bestowed from on high?” – they answer, “Goodness supreme!”
Good fortune awaits, in this world, all who persevere in doing good [ 1 ]; but their ultimate state will be far better still: for how excellent indeed will be the state of the God conscious [in the life to come]! Gardens of perpetual bliss will they enter – [gardens] through which running waters flow – having therein all that they might desire.
Thus will God reward those who are conscious of Him – those whom the angels gather in death when they are in a state of inner purity, greeting them thus: “Peace be upon you! Enter paradise by virtue of what you were doing [in life]!”
Chapter 16, Verse 36
And indeed, within your community have We raised up an apostle [entrusted with this message]: “Worship God, and shun the powers of evil!”
And among those [past generations] were people whom God graced with His guidance, just as there was among them [many a one] who inevitably fell prey to grievous error: go, then, about the earth and behold what happened in the end to those who gave the lie to the truth!
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Translator’s Notes
[ 1 ] This “good fortune” does not necessarily signify, in this context, material benefits but refers, rather, to the spiritual satisfaction and the feeling of inner security resulting from genuine God-consciousness.
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