Surah As-Saff in English (61)

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Verse 1

All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorifies God, that is to say, [everything] proclaims His transcendence (the lām [of li’Llāhi] is extra, and mā has been used instead of min in order to indicate the predominance [of non-rational creatures]) and He is the Mighty, in His kingdom, the Wise, in His actions.

Verse 2

O you who believe, why do you say, in demanding [to participate in] the struggle, what you do not do?, for you retreated at Uhud.

Verse 3

It is greatly loathsome (maqtan is for specification) to God that you say (an taqūlū constitutes the agent of [the verb] kabura, ‘it is great[ly]’) what you do not do.

Verse 4

Indeed God loves, He assists and honours, those who fight for His cause in ranks (saffan is a circumstantial qualifier, in other words [understand it as] sāffīna), as if they were a solid structure, with all of its parts compacted together, firm.

Verse 5

And, mention, when Moses said to his people, ‘O my people, why do you harm me — [for] they had said that he had a hernia in his testicles, which he did not have, and they denied him — when certainly (qad is for confirmation) you know that I am the messenger of God to you?’ (annī rasūlu’Llāhi ilaykum: this sentence is a circumstantial qualifier) and [when you know that] messengers ought to be respected. So when they deviated, when they swerved away from the truth by harming him, God caused their hearts to deviate: He turned them away from guidance, in accordance to what He had preordained since pre-eternity, and God does not guide the immoral folk, those who, in His knowledge, are disbelievers.

Verse 6

And, mention, when Jesus son of Mary said, ‘O Children of Israel — he did not say ‘O my people’ [as did Moses] because he was not related to them in any way — I am indeed God’s messenger to you, confirming what is before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger who will come after me, whose name is Ahmad.’ God, exalted be He, says: Yet when he brought them, [when] Ahmad brought the disbelievers, the clear signs, the revelations and the indications, they said, ‘This, namely, what has been brought, is manifest sorcery!’ (sihrun: a variant reading has sāhirun, ‘a sorcerer’, meaning the one who has brought them [is a manifest sorcerer]).

Verse 7

And who does — that is to say, none does — greater wrong than he who invents lies against God, by ascribing a partner and a child to Him and describing His signs as being sorcery, when he is [actually] being summoned to submission [to God]? And God does not guide the wrongdoing folk, the disbelieving [folk].

Verse 8

They desire to extinguish (li-yutfi’ū is in the subjunctive form because of an implicit an [sc. an yutfi’ū], the lām being extra) the light of God, His Law and His proofs, with their mouths, with their sayings, that this is sorcery, or poetry or soothsaying; but God will perfect, He will manifest, His light (mutimmun nūrahu: some have read this in the form of a genitive annextation, mutimmu nūrihi) though the disbelievers be averse, to this.

Verse 9

It is He Who has sent His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it prevail, that He may raise it, over all [other] religions, [over] all the religions which oppose it, though the disbelievers be averse, to this.

Verse 10

O you who believe, shall I show you a commerce that will deliver you (read tunjīkum or tunajjīkum) from a painful chastisement? It is as if they had replied, ‘Yes’, so that He then says:

Verse 11

You should believe, you should maintain faith, in God and His Messenger and struggle for the cause of God with your possessions and your lives. That is better for you, should you know, that it is better for you, then do it.

Verse 12

He will [then] forgive you (yaghfir is the response to an implied conditional, that is to say, ‘if you do this, He will then forgive you’) your sins and admit you into gardens underneath which rivers flow and pleasant dwellings in the Gardens of Eden, as a residence. That is the supreme triumph.

Verse 13

And, He will give you, another, grace, which you love: help from God and a victory near at hand. And give good tidings to the believers, of assistance and victory.

Verse 14

O you who believe, be helpers of God, of His religion (a variant reading [of ansāran li’Llāhi] has the genitive annexation ansāra’Llāhi) just as said (kamā qāla to the end [of the statement] means ‘just as the disciples were so’, as is indicated by [what follows]) Jesus son of Mary to the disciples, ‘Who will be my helpers unto God?’, that is to say, who [of you] will be helpers alongside me turning to help God? The disciples said, ‘We will be God’s helpers!’ [These] al-hawāriyyūn [were] the intimates of Jesus, for they were the first to believe in him. They were twelve men of pure white complexion (hawar); but it is also said that [their epithet derives from the fact that] they were bleachers (qassārūn) who bleached (yuhawwirūna) clothes. So a group of the Children of Israel believed, in Jesus, saying: ‘He is [indeed] the servant of God, [who has been] raised to heaven’, while a group disbelieved, because they said that he was the son of God, whom He had raised unto Himself. Thus the two groups waged war against one another. Then We strengthened those who believed, of the two groups, against their enemy, the disbelieving groups, and so they became the triumphant, the victors.

Surah AS-SAFF / The Ranks in English | Surah 61

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