Gems from the Holy Qur’an
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 years of devoted study 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” (people who think). Forwarded by Dr Ismat Kamal.
Chapter 27, Verses 65-69
Say: None in the heavens or on earth knows the hidden reality [of anything that exists: none knows it] save God.
And neither can they [who are living] perceive when they shall be raised from the dead: nay, their knowledge of the life to come stops short of the truth: [ 1 ] nay, they are [often] in doubt as to its reality: nay, they are blind to it. [ 2 ]
And so, they who are bent on denying the truth are saying: “What! After we have become dust – we and our forefathers – shall we [all], forsooth, be brought forth [from the dead]? Indeed, we were promised this – we and our forefathers – in the past as well; it is nothing but fables of ancient times!”
Say: “Go all over the earth and behold what happened in the end to those [who were thus] lost in sin!” [ 3 ]
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Translator’s Notes
[ 1 ] I.e., they cannot truly visualize the hereafter because its reality is beyond anything that man may experience in this world: and this, it cannot be stressed often enough, is an indirect explanation of the reason why all Qur’anic references to the conditions, good or bad, of man’s life after death are of necessity expressed in purely allegorical terms.
[ 2 ] I.e., blind to its logical necessity within God’s plan of creation. For, it is only on the premise of a life after death that the concept of man’s moral responsibility and, hence, of God’s ultimate judgment can have any meaning; and if there is no moral responsibility, there can be no question of a preceding moral choice; and if the absence of choice is taken for granted, all differentiation between right and wrong becomes utterly meaningless as well.
[ 3 ] I.e., those who denied the reality of a life after death and, hence, of man’s ultimate responsibility for his conscious doings. As pointed out in the preceding note, the unavoidable consequence of this denial is the loss of all sense of right and wrong: and this, in turn, leads to spiritual and social chaos, and so to the downfall of communities and civilizations.
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