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 36, verses 11 –
12
[O Prophet] Thou canst only warn him who is willing
to take the reminder to heart, and who stands in
awe of the Most Gracious although He is beyond the
reach of human perception: unto such, then, give
the glad tiding of [God’s] forgiveness and
of a most excellent reward!
Verily, We shall indeed bring the dead back to life;
and We shall record whatever [deeds] they have sent
ahead, and the traces of [good and evil] which they
have left behind: for of all good things do We take
account in a record clear.
Chapter 36, verses 33 – 36
And [yet,] they have a sign [of Our power to create
and to resurrect] in the lifeless earth which We
make alive, and out of which We bring forth grain,
whereof they may eat; and [how] We make gardens
of date-palms and vines [grow] thereon, and cause
springs to gush [forth] within it, so that they
may eat of the fruit thereof, though it was not
their hands that made it. Will they not, then, be
grateful?
Limitless in His glory is He who has created opposites
in whatever the earth produces, and in men’s
own selves, and in that of which [as yet] they have
no knowledge. [ 1 ]
Chapter 36, verse 77
Is man, then, not aware that it is We who create
him out of a [mere] drop of sperm – whereupon,
lo! he shows himself endowed with the power to think
and to argue?
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Translator’s Notes
[ 1 ] A reference to the polarity evident in all
creation, both animate and inanimate, which expresses
itself in the existence of antithetic and yet complementary
forces, like the sexuality in human beings, animals
and plants, light and darkness, heat and cold, positive
and negative magnetism and electricity, the positive
and negative charges (protons and electrons) in
the structure of the atom, and so forth. The mention
of “that of which they have no knowledge”
evidently relates to things or phenomena not yet
understood by man but potentially within the range
of his comprehension.
