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 8, Verse 29
O you who have attained to faith! If you remain conscious of God, He will endow you with a standard by which to discern the true from the false, and will efface your bad deeds, and will forgive you your sins: for God is limitless in His great bounty.
Chapter 8, Verse 53
This, because God would never change the blessings with which He has graced a people unless they change their inner selves: and [know] that God is all-hearing, all-seeing.
Chapter 8, Verse 73
With all this, [remember that] those who are bent on denying the truth are allies of one another; and unless you act likewise [among yourselves], oppression will reign on earth, and great corruption.
Chapter 9, Verse 51
Say: “Never can anything befall us save what God has decreed! He is our Lord Supreme; and in God let the believers place their trust!
Chapter 9, Verses 109-110
Who, then, is better: he who has founded his building on God-consciousness and [a desire for] His goodly acceptance – or he who has founded his building on the edge of a water-worn, crumbling river-bank, so that it [is bound to] tumble down with him into the fire of hell?
For, God does not grace with His guidance people who [deliberately] do wrong: the building which they have built will never cease to be a source of deep disquiet in their hearts until their hearts crumble to pieces. And God is all knowing, wise.
Chapter 9, Verses 128-129
Indeed, there has come unto you [O mankind!] an Apostle from among yourselves: heavily weighs upon him [the thought] that you might suffer [in the life to come]; full of concern for you [is he, and] full of compassion and mercy towards the believers.
But if those [who are bent on denying the truth] turn away, say: “God is enough for me! There is no deity save Him. In Him have I placed my trust, for He is the Sustainer, in awesome almightiness enthroned”.
Chapter 10, Verses 5-6
He it is who has made the sun a [source of] radiant light and the moon a light [reflected], and has determined for it phases so that you might know how to compute the years and to measure [time]. None of this has God created without [an inner] truth.
Clearly does He spell out these messages unto people of innate knowledge: for, verily, in the alternating of night and day, and in all that God has created in the heavens and on earth there are messages indeed for people who are conscious of Him!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
