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 57, verse 16
Is it not time that the hearts of
all who have attained to faith should feel humble
at the remembrance of God and of all the truth that
has been bestowed [on them] from on high, [ 1 ]
lest they become like those who were granted revelation
aforetime, and whose hearts have hardened with the
passing of time so that many of them are [now] depraved?
[ 2 ]
Chapter 57, verses 20-21
Know [O men] that the life of this
world is but a play and a passing delight, and a
beautiful show, and [the cause of] your boastful
vying with one another, and [of your] greed for
more and more riches and children.
Its parable is that of [life-giving] rain: the herbage
which it causes to grow delights the tillers of
the soil; but then it withers, and thou canst see
it turn yellow; and in the end it crumbles to dust.
But [the abiding truth of man’s condition
will become fully apparent] in the life to come:
[either] suffering severe or God’s forgiveness
and His goodly acceptance: for the life of this
world is nothing but an enjoyment of self-delusion.
[Hence,] vie with one another in seeking to attain
to your Sustainer’s forgiveness, and [thus]
to a paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth,
which has been readied for those who have attained
to faith in God and His Apostle; such is the bounty
of God which He grants unto whomever He wills -
for God is limitless in His great bounty.
______________________
Translator’s Notes
[ 1 ] I.e.,
“Should not the remembrance of God and His
revelation make them humble rather than proud?”
This is an emphatic warning against all smugness,
self-righteousness and false pride at having “attained
to faith” – a failing which only too
often attains to such as consider themselves “pious”.
[ 2 ] I.e., so that now they act
contrary to the ethical precepts of their religion:
implying that the purpose of all true faith is to
make man humble and God-conscious rather than self-satisfied,
and that a loss of that spiritual humility invariably
results in moral degeneration.
_____________________
