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 49, verses 14 – 18
The Bedouin say, “We have attained to faith.” Say [unto them, O Muhammad]: “You have not [yet] attained to faith; you should [rather] say, ‘We have [outwardly] surrendered’ - for [true] faith has not yet entered your hearts. [ 1 ] But if you [truly] pay heed unto God and His Apostle, He will not let the least of your deeds [ 2 ] go to waste: for, behold, god is much forgiving, a dispenser of grace.”
[Know that true] believers are only those who have attained to faith in God and His Apostle and have left all doubt behind, and who strive hard in God’s cause with their possessions and their lives: it is they, they who are true to their word!
Say: “Do you, perchance, [want to] inform God of [the nature of] your faith [ 3 ] – although God knows all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth? Indeed, God has full knowledge of everything!”
Many people think that they have bestowed a favor upon thee [ O Prophet] by having surrendered [to thee]. Say thou: “Deem not your surrender a favor unto me: nay, but it is God who bestows a favor upon you by showing you the way to faith – if you are true to your word!”
Verily, God knows the hidden reality of the heavens and he earth; and God sees all that you do.

Translator’s Notes
[ 1 ] Inasmuch as this is evidently an allusion to the intense tribalism of the bedouin and their “pride of descent”, the above verse connects with the preceding condemnation of all tribal preferences and prejudices, and with the call for their abandonment as a prerequisite of true faith. Primarily, this relates to the Bedouin contemporaries of the Prophet, but its import is general and timeless.
[ 2 ] I.e., “your own deeds, in distinction from the supposed ‘glorious deeds’ of your ancestors, which count for nothing in His sight”.
[ 3 ] Like, the preceding passage, this, too, is addressed in the first instance to certain contemporaries of the Prophet, but its meaning extends to all people, at all times, who think that their mere profession of faith and outward adherence to its formalities makes them “believers”.

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