| This Surah (Revealed) Medinese:
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| Ayah consisting of] 120 verses, revealed after [sūrat] al-Fath.(Al-Mâidah)
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| بِسْم ِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ | |
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Tafseer
113 O you who believe, fulfil your bonds, the covenants confirmed between you and
God and [between you and other] people. Lawful to you is the beast of the flocks, camels, cattle, and
sheep [and goats], to eat after slaughtering [them], except that which is now being recited to you, as forbidden
in [the verse below] Forbidden to you are carrionâ[Q. 5:3]; the exceptive clause here is a
discontinuous one, but may also be continuous; the forbidding concerns that which has succumbed to death and the
like; game not being lawful to you when you are on pilgrimage (hurum means muhrimūn; ghayra, ânotâ, is in
the accusative as [it introduces] a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject of the pronoun
lakum, âto youâ). Verily, God decrees whatever He desires, in the way of making [things] lawful or otherwise,
and there can be no objection thereto.
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Tafseer
O you who believe, do not profane Godâs sacraments (shaâāâir is the plural of
shaâīra), that is, the [ritual] ceremonies of the religion, by hunting [game] while you are on pilgrimage, nor
the sacred month, by fighting in it, nor the offering, that is, the boon offered in the [Meccan]
Sanctuary, by interfering with it, nor the garlands (qalāâid, is the plural of qilāda, and these, made from the trees
around the Sanctuary, were placed around it [the offering] to protect it), in other words, do not interfere
with these [offerings] or with those who place them; nor, violate the sanctity of, those repairing, those
heading, to the Sacred House, by fighting them [who are], seeking bounty, provision, from their Lord, through
commerce, and, His, beatitude, by resorting to Him, as they [the Meccans pagans] falsely claimed (this was
abrogated by the barāâa verse [of sūrat al-Tawba, Q. 9:4]). But when you are discharged, from pilgrimage
inviolability, then hunt for game (a command denoting permission). And let not hatred (read shanaâānu or shanâānu)
of a people that, because [they], barred you from the Sacred Mosque cause you to commit
aggression, against them by killing them or otherwise. Help one another to righteousness, by doing that to
which you were enjoined, and piety, by refraining from what you have been forbidden; do not help one another
(taâāwanū: one of the two original tāâ letters [in tataâāwanū] has been omitted) to sin, acts of
disobedience, and enmity, transgression of Godâs bounds. And fear God, fear His punishment by being obedient to Him;
surely God is severe in retribution, against those that oppose Him.
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Tafseer
Forbidden to you is carrion, that is, the consumption of it, and blood, that is,
what has been spilt, as mentioned in [sūrat] al-Anâām [Q. 6:145], and the flesh of swine, and what has
been hallowed to other than God, in that it was sacrificed in the name of something other than Him, and the
beast strangled, to death, and the beast beaten down, to death, and the beast fallen, from a height to its
death, and the beast gored, to death by another, and what beasts of prey have devoured, of such animals â
except for what you have sacrificed duly, catching it while it still breathes life and then sacrificing
it â and what has been sacrificed in, the name of, idols (nusub is the plural of nusāb) and that you apportion, that
is, that you demand an oath or a ruling, through the divining of arrows (azlām: the plural of zalam or zulam,
which is a qidh, âa small arrowâ, without feathers or a head). There were seven of these [arrows], [marked] with
flags, and they were retained by the keeper of the Kaâba. They would use them for abitrations and
when they commanded them they obeyed, and if they prohibited them they would desist; that is wickedness,
a rebellion against obedience. And on the Day of âArafa in the year of the Farewell Pilgrimage, the
following was revealed: Today the disbelievers have despaired of your religion, of you apostatising from
it, having hoped for it [earlier], for now they perceived its strength; therefore do not fear them, but
fear Me. Today I have perfected your religion for you, that is, its rulings and obligations (after
this [verse] nothing about [what is] lawful or unlawful was revealed) and I have completed My favour upon you, by
perfecting it [your religion], but it is also said by [effecting] their safe entry into Mecca; and I have
approved, chosen, Islam for you as religion. But whoever is constrained by emptiness, by hunger, to consume some of
what has been forbidden him and consumes it, not inclining purposely to sin, to an act of disobedience â
then God is Forgiving, to him for what he has consumed, Merciful, to him by permitting it to him, in
contrast to the one who [purposely] inclines to sin, that is, the one actively engaged in it, such as a
waylayer or a criminal, for whom [such] consumption is forbidden.
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Tafseer
114 They will ask you, O Muhammad (s), about what, food, is made lawful for them.
Say: âThe good, delicious, things are made lawful for you; and the, quarry of, hunting creatures, dogs,
wildcats or birds that catch food, you have taught, training [them] as hounds (mukallibīn is a circumstantial
qualifier, derived from kallabtu al-kalba, meaning, âI released the hound against the quarryâ) teaching
them (tuâallimūnahunna is a circumstantial qualifier referring to the subject of mukallibīn, âtraining
[them] as houndsâ, in other words, âdisciplining themâ) of what God has taught you, of the art of hunting; so eat
what they have caught for you, even if they have killed it, as long as they have not eaten any of it. This is
in contrast to the untrained [hunting creatures], whose catch is not lawful [for consumption]: the mark of
these [being trained hunting creatures] is that they should return after they have been sent out, that they
can be curbed when cried at and that they can seize the quarry without eating of it; the minimum number of
times by which this may be known is three. If they eat any of it, then it cannot be counted as âwhat they
have caughtâ for their trainers, and is consequently unlawful for consumption, as reported in hadīth in both of
the Sahīhs [of Bukhārī and Muslim] â therein it is also mentioned that a catch made by an arrow over which
Godâs name is mentioned is equivalent [in lawfulness] to the catch of trained hunting creatures. And
mention Godâs name over it, when you unleash it. And fear God. Indeed, God is swift at the reckoningâ.
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Tafseer
Today the good, the delicious, things are permitted to you, and the food of
those who were given the Scripture, that is, animals slaughtered by the Jews and Christians, is permitted
to you, and permitted to them is your food. Likewise, the believing, free, married women, and the married
women of those who were given the Scripture before you, are permitted to you for marriage, if you give
them their wages, their dowries, in wedlock, in marriage, and not illicitly, fornicating overtly with
them, or taking them as lovers, so as to fornicate with them secretly. Whoever disbelieves in faith, that is,
[whose] apostatises, his, prior good, work has indeed failed, and so it counts for nothing and he will not be rewarded
for it, and in the Hereafter he shall be among the losers, if he dies in this state [of unbelief]. 2848851345
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Tafseer
O you who believe, when you stand up, that is, when you intend to go, to pray,
and you are in [a state of] ritual impurity, wash your faces, and your hands up to the elbows, that is,
including them [the elbows], as is clarified in the Sunna; and wipe your heads (the bāâ in bi-ruâūsikum is for
âadherenceâ), that is to say, wipe over [the head] adhering [the hand] closely, without [excessive] water pouring
over; the noun [raâs, âheadâ] is generic, and so the minimum required to fulfil [the stipulation] is
acceptable, which is the wiping of some of the hair, as al-Shāfiâī asserts); and your feet (read wa-arjulakum in the
accusative as a supplement to aydīyakum; or wa-arjulikum in the genitive because of its adjacency to [the
genitive] bi-ruâūsikum), up to the ankles, that is, including them [the ankles], as is clarified in the Sunna,
and they are the two protruding bones at the juncture of the legs and the feet. The interposing of the wiping of
the head between [the mention of] the hands and the feet, which are washed, is intended to show the
requirement of [a specific] order during the purification of these limbs, as al-Shāfiâī asserts. In
addition, the requirement of making intention (niyya) in this [ablution], as in the other rituals of worship, is
taken from the Sunna. If you are defiled, purify, wash, yourselves; but if you are sick, with an illness made
worse by water, or on a journey, travelling, or if any of you comes from the privy, that is, [if] he has
defecated, or you have touched women (as mentioned already in the verse in [sūrat] al-Nisāâ [Q. 4:43]), and you
cannot find water, having made the effort to look for it, then head for, seek, wholesome dust, that is, clean
earth, and wipe your faces and your hands, including the elbows, with it, using two strikes (the bāâ of
bi-wujūhikum, âyour facesâ, denotes âadherenceâ; it is explained in the Sunna that the requirement here is for the
wiping to encompass the whole of these two parts. God does not desire to make any hardship for you, any
constraint, in the obligations He has imposed on you with regard to ablution, washing and purification with dust;
but He desires to purify you, of filth and sins, and that He may perfect His grace upon you, through
Islam, by explaining the laws of the religion; so that you might give thanks, for His graces.
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Tafseer
And remember Godâs grace upon you, through Islam, and His covenant, His pledge,
which He made, He 115 bound, with you when you said, to the Prophet (s) upon pledging allegiance to
him: âWe hear and we obeyâ, all that you command and forbid, of what we love and what we despise. And fear
God, in His covenant, lest you break it. Surely God knows what is in the breasts, that is, what is in the
hearts [of people], all the more reason for [Him to have knowledge of] other things.
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Tafseer
O you who believe, be upright before God, in [fulfilling] what is His due,
witnesses in equity, in justice. Let not hatred of a people, namely, the disbelievers, cause you not to be just, and
to harm them on account of their enmity; be just, towards both friend and foe, that, justice, is nearer to
God-fearing. And fear God; surely God is aware of what you do, and will requite you for it.
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Tafseer
God has promised those who believe and perform righteous deeds, an excellent
promise: they shall have forgiveness and a great wage, that is, Paradise.
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Tafseer
And they who disbelieve and deny Our signs â they shall be the inhabitants of
Hell-fire.
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Tafseer
O you who believe, remember Godâs favour upon you, when a people, namely,
Quraysh, purposed to extend their hands against you, in order to attack you, but He restrained their hands
from you, and protected you from what they intended to do to you; and fear God; and in God let the believers
put their trust.
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Tafseer
God had made a covenant with the Children of Israel, for what will be mentioned
shortly, and We raised up (there is a shift of address away from the third [to the first] person) from
among them twelve leaders, from each tribe one leader, to be responsible for his peopleâs fulfilment of the
covenant, as a way of binding them [to it]. And God said, to them: âI am with you, helping and assisting. Surely if
(la-in, the lām is for oaths) you establish the prayer, and pay the alms, and believe in My messengers and succour
them, help them, and lend to God a goodly loan, by expending in His way, I will absolve you of your
evil deeds, and I will admit you to gardens underneath which rivers flow. So whoever of you disbelieves after
that, covenant, surely he has strayed from the right wayâ, he has erred from the path to Paradise
(al-sawāâ originally means âthe middle wayâ). And they broke the covenant.
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Tafseer
God says: So because (bi-mā, the mā is extra) of their breaking their covenant,
We cursed them, We removed them from Our mercy, and made their hearts hard, unyielding to the
acceptance of faith; they pervert words, pertaining to the descriptions of Muhammad (s) in the Torah and
other things, from their contexts, those in which God has placed them, in other words, they substitute
them; and they have forgotten, they have abandoned, a portion, a part, of what they were reminded
of, [of what] they were enjoined to in the Torah, in the way of following Muhammad (s); and you â
addressing the Prophet (s) now â will never cease to discover some treachery on their part, in the way of
breaking a covenant or some other matter, except for a few of them, who have submitted themselves [to
Islam]. Yet pardon them, and forgive; surely God loves the virtuous: this was abrogated by the âswordâ verse
[Q. 9:5].
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Tafseer
And with those who say âWe are Christiansâ (this is semantically connected to
[what follows]) We made a covenant, just as We did with the Children of Israel, the Jews, and they have
forgotten a portion of that they were reminded of, in the Gospel, pertaining to faith and other matters, and they
[too] broke the covenant. 116 So We have stirred up, We have caused, among them enmity and hatred until the
Day of Resurrection, on account of their schisms and differing whims, each sect charging the other with
unbelief; and God will assuredly tell them, in the Hereafter, of what they wrought, and requite them
for this.
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Tafseer
O People of the Scripture, Jews and Christians, now there has come to you Our
Messenger, Muhammad (s), making clear to you much of what you used to conceal of the Scripture, the Torah
and the Gospel, such as the âstoningâ verse and the description [of the Prophet Muhammad (s)], and
pardoning much, of it, which he does not reveal, since this would not be of any benefit, serving only to
disgrace you. There has verily come to you from God a light, namely, the Prophet (s), and a Book, a Qurâān, lucid,
plain and manifest,
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Tafseer
whereby, that is, the Book by which, God guides whoever follows His good
pleasure, by believing, to the ways of peace, the paths of safety, and brings them forth from the shadows,
[from] unbelief, into the light, [into] belief, by His leave, by His will, and He guides them to a straight path,
the religion of Islam.
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Tafseer
They indeed are disbelievers those who say, âGod is the Messiah, son of Maryâ,
insofar as they make him [Jesus] a god, and these were the Jacobites, a Christian sect. Say: âWho then
can do anything, [who then can] defend, against, the chastisement of, God if He desires to destroy the
Messiah, son of Mary, and his mother, and all those who are on earth?â, that is to say, none can do anything
of the sort, since if Jesus were a god, he would be able to do so. And to God belongs the kingdom of the
heavens and the earth, and all that is between them. He creates what He will. God has power over
everything, which He wills.
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Tafseer
The Jews and Christians, both of them, say: âWe are the sons of God, that is,
[we are] like his sons in terms of closeness and rank, and He is like a father to us in terms of compassion and
care, and His beloved onesâ. Say, to them, O Muhammad (s): âWhy then does He chastise you for your sins?, if
what you say is true. For, the father does not punish his son, nor the loving his beloved; but He has
punished you, and therefore you are saying lies. Nay; you are mortals from among, all, those, mortals, He
created, you shall be rewarded as they are rewarded and you shall be requited as they are requited. He forgives,
him for, whom He wills, forgiveness, and He chastises, him for, whom He willsâ, chastisement, and there
can be no objection thereto. For to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth, and all that is
between them; to Him is the journeyâs end, the [final] return.
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Tafseer
O People of the Scripture, there has verily come to you Our Messenger, Muhammad
(s), making clear to you, the laws of religion, after an interval between the messengers, for there
was no messenger between him and Jesus, an interval of 569 years; lest you should say, if you are
punished: âThere has not come to us any bearer of good tidings (min bashīr, the min is extra) nor any warnerâ.
Indeed, there has come to you a bearer of good tidings and a warner, and so you shall have no excuse. God has
power over all things, including punishing you for not following him [the Messenger].
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Tafseer
And, mention, when Moses said to his people, âO my people, remember Godâs favour
to you, when He established among you, that is, from among you, prophets, and established you as
kings, possessing servants and retinues, and gave you such as He had not given to any in all the
worlds, in the way of manna and quails, the parting of the sea and other things.
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Tafseer
117 O my people, enter the Holy, the purified, Land which God has ordained for you,
[which] He commanded you to enter, and this is Syria (al-shām), and do not turn back in flight, [do
not] retreat in fear of the enemy, or you will end up as losersâ, in your efforts.
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Tafseer
They said, âO Moses, there are giants in it, those remaining of the people of
âĀd, who were very tall and mighty; we will never enter it until they depart from it; if they depart from it
then we will enterâ, it.
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Tafseer
There said, to them, two men of those who feared, contravening Godâs command,
and these were Joshua and Caleb â who were from among the leaders that Moses dispatched to bring back
news of those giants â to whom God had been gracious, by making them virtuous, for they concealed what
they had discovered about the giants, telling only Moses, unlike the other leaders, who divulged the
news, and so the people became cowardly. âEnter against them by the gate!, the gate of the town, and
have no fear of them, for they are bodies without hearts. For if you enter by it, you will be victorious: the
two [Joshua and Caleb] said this because they were certain of Godâs assistance and the fulfilment of His promise.
Put your trust in God, if you are believersâ.
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Tafseer
They said, âO Moses, we will never enter it so long as they are in it. So go
forth, you and your Lord, and fight, them, we will be sitting hereâ, away from the fighting.
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Tafseer
He, Moses, thereupon, said, âMy Lord, I control none but myself and my brother,
and I control no one else to be able to force them to obedience. So separate, distinguish, us from the wicked
folkâ.
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Tafseer
He, God, exalted be He, said, to him: âThen it, the Holy Land, shall be
forbidden them, to enter, for forty years; they shall wander lost, bewildered, in the land â according to Ibn âAbbās
this [land] was about nine parasangs [sc. 30 miles]; so do not grieve for the wicked folkâ. It is reported
that they would travel throughout the night earnestly, but in the morning would find themselves back
where they had started. And they would travel all day, with the same result, until they all perished, except
those under twenty years of age. It is said that they numbered 600,000. Moses and Aaron died in the
wilderness, and this was a mercy for them, and a chastisement for those others. When Moses was on the verge of
death, he asked his Lord to bring him close to the Holy Land, to within a stoneâs throw, and He did, as
related in hadīth. Joshua became a prophet sometime after his fortieth year and he was commanded to fight against
the giants. So he sallied forth with those that remained by his side and he fought against them; it was a
Friday and the sun stopped for him for an hour, until he had finished with fighting them. Ahmad [b. Hanbal]
reported in his Musnad the [following] hadīth, âThe sun was never detained for any human, except for Joshua
during those days in which he marched towards the Holy House [of Jerusalem]â.
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Tafseer
And recite, O Muhammad (s), to them, your people, the story, the tale, of the
two sons of Adam, Abel and Cain, truthfully (biâl-haqq is semantically connected to utlu, âreciteâ), how
they each offered a sacrifice, to God, which in Abelâs case was a ram, and in Cainâs, some green crops, and it was
accepted from one of them, namely, from Abel, when a fire came down from the heaven and consumed his
offering, and not accepted from the other, that is, from Cain, and so he became furious and kept
secret his envy until Adam left on pilgrimage. He said, to him, âI will surely slay you,â, and the other
said, âWhy?â, to which the first replied, âBecause only your offering was acceptedâ. The other said, âGod accepts
only from the God-fearingâ. 118
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