Conflicting Voices Within

Qur'aanic Verse 50:17:

Transliteration:

17. Ith yatalaqqa almutalaqqiyani AAani alyameeni waAAani alshshimali qaAAeedun


Translation:

17. When the two frequently confronting voices, one located on the right and one on the left, confront each other⁵

^{Study Note:}

5. Man has frequently to make a choice between two conflicting urges arising in his mind. To give an example from real life published in newspapers a few years ago, a woman found out that her young son had committed a crime. Her natural instinct was to hide this fact and save her son from punishment he was liable to under the law. But she was an Allah-fearing woman. And her conscience told her that this world’s punishment is better than the punishment in the Hereafter. So she herself took her son to the authorities that day! It is such conflicting views arising in a human mind that this Verse is alluding to here.

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The above is an extract from yet-to-be-published Qur'aanic Studies Manzil VII.

Mohammad Shafi

Hadeeth

Qur'aanic Verse 7:185:

Transliteration:

185. Awalam yanthuroo fee malakooti alssamawati waal-ardi wama khalaqa Allahu min shay-in waan AAasa an yakoona qadi iqtaraba ajaluhum fabi-ayyi hadeethin baAAdahu yu/minoona

Translation:

185. Do they not ponder over the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and whatever things Allah has created, and over the likelihood of their own death being near? What hadeeth⁷⁴ would they then believe in after this?

Study Note:

74. This Arabic word has been used in the Qur’aan variously in the meanings of (i) story, (ii) discourse, (iii) speech, or (iv) the Qur’aan itself. In the context of the preceding sentence, in this very Verse, the word here could connote the broad statement as under:

The orderly behaviour of the entire universe gives enough proof of the existence of a super-intelligent Being faultlessly governing it. When that Being can so control such a gigantic thing, He can obviously do the far less complex task of managing and controlling, inter alia, every human life. It is this Being – Whom we call Allah – that is guiding mankind in the proper conduct of their lives, through this Qur’aan. Every human being should grasp this Reality before it is too late. No one knows when death would come. It may be just round the corner.

But the word hadeeth came to acquire another meaning after the completion of the revelation of the Qur’aan, and the departure of the Prophet from this world. Centuries after the death of the Prophet, his orally reported sayings, and those of his companions, came to be recorded in writing. And these recorded sayings came to be known as ahaadeeth (plural of hadeeth). Allah Almighty knows all about the future. And at the time of the revelation of this Verse, He was aware of this future meaning of the term hadeeth. He (Allah), in that sense, is disapprovingly hinting here at future generations of the Muslim Ummah believing in such man-influenced, error-prone ahaadeeth in preference to the well-explained teachings in the Qur’aan, which can also be taken as referred to by the pronoun hu in baAAdahu of the Arabic text. The Verse is thus telling us categorically that the Qur’aan is the best hadeeth; one need not go after other ahaadeeth. 

King David

Translations of Qur'aanic Verses 38:21 to 39:24:

21. And has the information of the litigants come to your knowledge when they climbed over the walls of (King David’s) private chamber?

22. When they confronted David, he shrank back in fear of them. They said, “Fear not! We are two litigants. One of us has wronged the other. So judge between us with justice, and deviate not from what is right, and show both of us the right path.”

23. “This man here is my brother. He has ninety-nine ewes, whereas I have one ewe. And he asks me to hand over to him even the one I have. And he prevailed over me in the discourse we had.”

24. David said (to the complainant), “He has certainly wronged you by demanding that your ewe be added to his ewes! And indeed do many associates – except those who believe in Allah and do righteous deeds – wrong one another; but how few are those exceptions!” And David at once realized that We had tested him (by presenting to him the case of the ewes)! And so he asked his Lord to forgive him, and bowed down, and turned to Him in repentance.⁵

^{Study Note:}

5. In all probability the two litigants were angels sent by Allah Ta’ala to teach King David a lesson. Undoubtedly, the King had committed some unnamed impropriety, unbecoming of a Prophet King of his high stature. A safe bet is to assume that the King’s impropriety was of the nature of the impropriety involved in the litigants’ case. But since Allah almighty has thought it fit not to specifically name the King’s impropriety, we should better avoid echoing what Chritian scriptures (Old Testament) unabashedly accuse the King of committing an undoubtedly sinful act. The accusation has to be patently false since Allah Almighty could not have chosen a man committing such a heinous crime as His Prophet. The Christian scripture containing this accusation is not purely divine as the Qur’aan is. It is of the nature of the man-influenced and error-prone Ahaadeeth which too contain some unpalatable and unsavoury things about our own Prophet Muhammad (peace on him). What King David might have done could only be described as an impropriety not amounting to sin. And as the next Verse below informs us Allah forgave King David.

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The above is an extract from yet-to-be-published Qur'aanic Studies Manzil VI.

Mohammad Shafi