090 - Sūrat al-Balad

 In the name of Allah (who is) Rahmān (and) Rahīm.

[For explanation, see Sūrat al-Fātiha: 1]

1

I swear (lā is extra) by this land, of Mecca,

2

and you, O Muhammad "sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam", have free disposal of, sanction for, this land, in that you will be given permission to fight in it - and indeed Allahu ta’ālā fulfilled this promise to him on the day of the Conquest [of Mecca] (thus this is a parenthetical statement intervening between that by which the oath has been sworn and that which is a supplement thereto).

3

And [by] the begetter, that is, Adam, and that which he begat, that is, his descendants (mā, 'that which', [actually] means man, 'whom').

4

We certainly created man (al-insān: the generic noun) in travail, in [a state of] toil and hardship, struggling with the tribulations of this world and the calamities of the Hereafter.

5

Does he suppose, does the strong man of Quraysh, namely, Abū'l-Ashadd b. Kalada, presume, on account of his strength, that (an: softened in place of the hardened form, its subject omitted, that is to say, annahu) no one will have power over him? Yet Allahu ta’ālā has power over him.

6

He says, 'I have exhausted, in enmity of Muhammad "sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam", vast wealth!', great [wealth], piles and piles of it.

7

Does he suppose that (an, in other words, annahu) no one has seen him?, with regard to what he has expended to know the quantity thereof; Allahu ta’ālā knows the quantity thereof; but it is not [in reality that much so as] to be considered a great amount, and [in any case] He will requite him for his evil conduct.

8

Have We not given (an interrogative meant as an affirmative, in other words, 'We have [certainly] given') him two eyes,

9

and a tongue, and two lips,

10

and guided him to the two paths?, [did We not] point out to him the path of good and that of evil?

11

Yet why does he not assault the obstacle?, [why] does he [not] surmount it?

12

And what will show you, [what will] make known to you, what the obstacle is?, that he is to surmount - intended to emphasise its enormity (this statement is a parenthetical one). He explains the way to surmount it by saying:

13

the freeing of a slave, from bondage,

14

or to give food on a day of hunger,

15

to an orphan near of kin (maqrabah means qarāba),

16

or a needy person in misery (matraba: [literally means] 'clinging to the dust [turāb]' because of his poverty; a variant reading has two verbal nouns in place of the two verbs [fakka, 'he freed', and at'ama, 'he fed'], the first being in a genitive construction, fakku raqabatin, 'the freeing of a slave', and the second with nunation, it'āmun, 'to give food', in which case there is an implied iqtihāmu before al-'aqaba, of which the said reading becomes the explication);

17

while being (thumma kāna is a supplement to iqtahama, 'he assaulted'; thumma is for the ordering of things to be mentioned) in other words, [what is meant is that] at the point of the assault he was: one of those who believe and enjoin one another to steadfastness, in [pursuing] obedience and in refraining from disobedience, and enjoin one another to compassion (al-marhamah means rahma), towards creatures.

18

Those, the ones described by the said attributes, are the ones of the right [side] (al-maymanah means al-yamīn).

19

But those who disbelieve in Our verses, they are the ones of the left [side] (al-mash'amah means al-shimāl).

20

Over them will be an enclosing Fire (read mu'sadah or mūsada), closed on top [of them].