El-Essawy Interpretation of the Holy Qur'an: PART 1

El-Essawy Interpretation of the Holy Qur'an

PART 1

Published by THC-UK Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 by Dr. Hesham Mahmoud El-Essawy.

hesham@thc-uk.com

Smashword Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. SURAT AL-FATI’HA

2. SURAT AL BAQARAH

3. SURAT AA’LA IMRAN

4. SURAT AL NISA’A

5. SURAT AL MA’IDAH

6. SURAT AL AN’AAM

7. SURAT AL A’RAAF

8. SURAT AL AN’FAAL

9. SURAT AL TAW’BAH

10. SURAT YOUNUS

11. SURAT HUDE

12. SURAT YOUSUF

13. SURAT AL RA’AD

14. SURAT IBRAHIM

15. SURAT AL HIJR

16. SURAT AL NAH’L

17. SURAT AL IS’RAA

18. SURAT AL KAH’F

19. SURAT MARYAM

20. SURAT TA HA

This Book

1.

Do we need it?

If you are absolutely sure that our existence ends at the moment of death and that we will not stand one day for judgment to account for what we have done throughout our lives, and if you have no wish to find out if your contention is true or false, then there is no need for you to read this book.

You will only need this book if you wish to find out how to live this life in a way that ensures that you will live for ever in a place, where there is no death, no disease, no injustice, no oppression, no betrayal, no injuries, no insults, no back biting, a place where there is only unending pleasure and absolutely no displeasure.

The place is called ‘Al Jannah’, or paradise.

You do not need to read this book if you are absolutely sure that there is no place called ‘Jahannam’ or Hellfire, which you might consider it wise to avoid. A very hot place that is swelteringly hot all the time, where there is nothing to eat but the bitter fruits of a certain tree that satisfies no hunger and fattens no body. And where there would be nothing to drink other than hot water that quenches no thirst and cools no one.

You do not need to read this book if you are absolutely sure that this world was made without a maker, that it just happened, all by itself! If you are absolutely sure that the sun the moon the stars, the nebulas, the galaxies, the electromagnetic energy, the huge gravity of the planets and the stars, let alone the black holes or the pulsars just happened, and that they all go through orbits that made itself without tragically smashing into each other, then you do not need to read this book.

This book claims to be a road map to paradise. It makes it possible for you to know ‘The Maker’ of everything that is ‘made’, the maker whom I call, Allah, God. This book will help you find out who God is and what are His attributes.

This book claims to be a guide for you to help you to know who you are, and what you are here for. It will guide you to an answer to a question, which you might not find easy to find elsewhere, and that is the meaning of life.

This book claims to guide you to the best way to live your life, here on earth, in a way that is conducive to safety, security, contentment and happiness, and also that of every one who shares your interests. It helps you to modify your ‘human’ response to stresses and events and raise it to the high level of the recommended ‘Divine response’, such as responding to a bad deed done to you with a good deed such as forgiveness, or ignoring insults in order to promote peace on earth, or over-riding the built-in selfishness with a generous spirit that makes you care for the needy more than you care for yourself, or building bridges with those who cut their bridges with you, or never betraying even the person who betrayed you, or respecting the other person’s privacy and his right to dignity during his presence with you and during his absence. There are much that this book can recommend to you, much that will help you to become a much better person.

It is a book that claims to define the ‘whom’, the ‘what’, the ‘where’, the ‘when’, and the ‘why’ of everything that affects your life and helps you to achieve the ultimate success and happiness that you might desire. Yes, it is a book of Divine law, but it also a book of wisdom, which shows you the reasons behind the legislation as well the law itself.

It also claims to be a book without faults or contradictions that speaks to your mind and challenges your ability to exercise reason and to think. It is a book of literature that does not engage in fiction, but only deal with facts.

It is not a book that seeks to impose anything upon you, for it respects your freedom to choose so much that it does not seek to ‘hypnotize’ you into believing in something implausible. Attaining to faith is based on reason and reason alone in this book.

Because of our God-given freedom to choose, we might think that we know where we are going and that we know our way around. And just in case we discover that we actually do not, our Creator, Our God, and out of His mercy, sent us this book, The Qur’an.

This book has no chapters; it has Suras. And the word ‘Sura’ means, a gift.

2.

About Miracles

Have you ever seen a miracle happen?

Have you ever touched one, or been touched by one?

Of course, you must have seen many. The birth of your child is a huge miracle; the conception itself is a huge miracle. Let alone the seed of anything, itself another miracle, that you plant in the land and it grows to give you many fruits many vegetables and many other seeds. It is the grain of wheat that you plant and a few months later you get many thousands of grains that sustain your life, which also is another miracle.

But common miracles eventually dull our sense of wonderment, and soon we consider miracles to be ‘normal’ or ‘usual’ happenings that we do not question or wonder about. I am talking about other types of miracles, the ones that do not happen every day of your life.

When God sent the prophet Moses, He gave him a few miracles that could not be classified as ‘normal’ or ‘usual’. Such miracles served as indications to his target audience to support his claims that he was sent by God.

He could turn an ordinary shepherd staff into a cobra, he could put his hand under his armpit and takes it out and there it was, brilliantly white though healthy. He turned the water in the Nile into blood, and he brought about to Pharaoh and his people so many plagues that served as a huge challenge for pharaoh, who claimed to be God. It was as if to say to pharaoh, here is what My God gives you. Now, if you truly were the god of these people, remove these plagues from them!

Moses parted the red sea so that the children of Israel can go through in safety to the other side and away from slavery. And he hit a stone with his staff, and out of it gushed twelve springs, one for each tribe of the children of Israel.

It was not only Moses who was supported with miracles. Miracles were sent with most prophets to support their claims that they came from God.

The prophet Isa Jesus was sent with many wonderful miracles. The archangel Gabriel supported him closely, and it was the archangel who performed so many miracles, such as bringing back to life a person who was dead. Isa Jesus, the great messenger of God, cured many sick people to the extent that some called him, a physician! He reportedly carved a piece of earth and transformed it into a mirror with special qualities, and faced it to the people who were about to stone a woman for adultery, and in that special mirror, each of them saw himself as he once was, committing the same act that he was about to stone the woman for! The self-righteous mob threw down the stones and ran away because every one of them thought that the others had seen, in that mirror, what they were up to! He simply faced them with their earlier deeds and said, ‘Which ever among you who sinned not, let him cast the first stone!"

Many were the miracles that were sent with many prophets. They were there, they convinced some and not others, but they all share one thing, they have all gone away and left no trace behind. All gone except one, and that is the one you have between your hands, The Holy Qur’an. No more messages or messengers are awaited after that, this is, simply, it.

And how could a book become a miracle? How could the book carry within it the proof of its authenticity as a Divine revelation, the like of which was never seen? It is really simple. First, all its claims are incontrovertible. It contains not a single fault or contradiction. It has a unique style that makes you enjoy reading it more and more and makes you want to read it as frequently as you possible can. It contains a level of wisdom unattained elsewhere. No reasonable person can argue against its system of care, of goodness, of justice and compassion. It is easy to remember; even some four-year old Muslim boys and girls do manage to memorize it, all of it, by heart. It amazingly contains references to scientific matters that no one knew anything about back in the seventh century. It contains references about matters that we still do not know anything about in the twenty first century, such as the presence of seven heavens and seven earths. We are currently investigating only the near portions of the first heaven.

With nothing more than a book, Islam has spread from one man, one messenger whose name is Muhammad, to currently include one in every four persons in this world. It is spreading fast everywhere, and the converts that this religion claim every day are not people who are hypnotized into believing, they are intelligent highly educated people who came to Islam through reading this book, The Qur’an.

As in any truth, the Quran makes perfect sense, it’s claims are simple, sensible, and it calls for justice, compassion, honesty, safety, security, care for the needy, care for the orphaned, care for one’s family, especially one’s parents.

It calls for the sanctity of human life and property, for freedom and equality of all, men and women of all walks of life without any form of distinction. It calls for respect for the dignity of man and for the doing of goodness to everything and every one. It simply calls for a safe and happy existence here on earth, which is rewarded by happy and safe existence in paradise for eternity. Now do you see why I believe in it very strongly?

I know that you want to ask me about ‘Muslims’ who perform acts of mass murder in the name of Allah! When you read this book you will know that Allah has set a unique punishment for them, one that is reserved only for them, both here and in the hereafter. You will also realize that God said in this book that, he who murders one innocent person is like one who killed the entire human population. This means simply that, the entire human population has the right to avenge that murder from whoever commits it.

This book explains to us that we are here on earth as trustees, to rule over it in the same way that God would, and to make it a better place, not to corrupt it.

This book is also a literary master piece, a book of exquisite beauty, and that is why a person like me can never tire of reading it again and again, for it truly is a joy to read. I mean here, the Qur’an in its original form, which exists in one form, and it is in Arabic.

What is between your hands is my interpretation of this magnificent book, and let me be the first to tell you, it does not compare at all with the real book. I may have managed by the grace of God to convey some of the meanings of its Ayahs or signs, but how could you explain to a person, who never tasted honey, what honey tastes like?

This book is God’s lasting miracle sent to humankind, all of them, not just one section as what happened before. When you read it, you will find many references that you cannot fail to recognize as scientific facts discovered recently and that Muhammad or any one in his generation back in the seventh century could never have known.

You are indeed holding in your hands, God’s ever-lasting miracle.

3.

Some Characteristics of the Qur’anic Text.

Unlike any other book, the Qur’an in its original Arabic form is a preserved book. Preserved by God from the tampering hand of man. The Qur’an has never been and will never be altered. God took it upon Himself to preserve the Qur’an from the tampering hand of man. Being the last and final revelation from God to Humankind, there is no room for tampering.

You will find some letters of the Alphabet at the beginning of many Suras, and that is God saying to us, here, these are the building blocks that you make your literary work and your poems out of, now see what I make out of the same letters.

When you read the Qur’an, you will notice that many of its themes are repeated again and again, albeit in a slightly different style. Many of the stories of the prophet and what happened before the coming of Muhammad were told in an intriguing way, for it sites the end before it tells us about the beginning, and it mentions one bit in the middle before it mentions another.

The Qur’an exists in one language and one format only, the Arabic original text. It can only be preserved that way. If you compare many of the existing translations, you will discover a huge number of errors, but all of these are errors of translation and not errors in the original text. I promise you that I did my very best to stay true to the original and never to stray away from the true meaning of any part of it.

You will also find that, when you read something like ten Ayahs together, from any part of the book, you will find that you can gleam the entire message of the whole book. Try that and see for yourself. Frankly, I am not aware of any other book that has that curious characteristic. So, you do not have to read the entire book from cover to cover to get the whole message.

Another curious characteristic of the original is that the Qur’an is so easy to memorise by heart, even for those who do not speak Arabic. It was made that way. You will find throughout the Muslim world many young boys and girls, and I mean children as young as four, who would know the Qur’an by heart and can recite it for you from cover to cover. I am not aware of any other book in the world that shares this characteristic. It is a highly musical text with rhythmic beauty all of its own. Many people are comforted, just by listening to a recitation of some parts of it; just the music within is comforting.

It will amaze you if you are a scientist, for it talks to you about matters that were never known in the seventh century when the Qur’an was revealed, so you should ask the question, how did the prophet Muhammad know about that? How could he have known about pulsars, the constellations, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth? How could he have known about embryology!

In Arabic writing, linguistic beauty necessitates a few things; one of them is brevity and omitting words from one’s speech out of respect for the intelligence of the reader. To give you an example, if I say to an intelligent person that I am thirsty, he will understand that I am asking for some water. For a less intelligent person I will have to use many more words to reach the same end. Had I used the same number of words when addressing the intelligent, he might take it as an insult.

This is the case with almost all of the Ayahs of the Qur’an; it speaks to your intelligence. But you will not get the full meaning in a translation unless I insert back in the translated text the words that were omitted from it, and that is what I did. You will find the omitted words inserted back but in Italics and between brackets.

So, the translation itself will appear in one font; Garamond, and the ‘inserted back text’ will be in Garamond Italic. Please remember that, these are the words that I thought were omitted from the text. There is another font that you will find, and that is the Times New Roman, which I used throughout to indicate to you that these are my words, my interpretation of the text, not that of Allah, God. When you see the font change to Times New Roman you should realize that, it is fallible me, talking to you, not the infallible God.

In the main font, which is Garamond, is what I hope is an accurate translation of the words of the Qur’an. It only took me thirty-five years to get all of that in a readable book that I hope will give you a much-needed access to the will of God. Ultimately, my success, and that of yours, depends on how much agreement there is between our will and that of God.

If after all of that you still have a question that you need an answer for, and let me tell you, you cannot ask me a question that the Qur’an does not provide us with an answer for, you are very welcome to email me at:

hesham@quran-elessawy.com

Please also visit:

www.quran-elessawy.com

I hope and pray that you will enjoy reading this book just as much as I enjoyed the process of producing it in a way that is both readable and faithful to the inimitable original, The Holy Qur’an.

An Acknowledgment

And an Important Preface

Going round the Holy Mosque in Makkah during my first ever Umrah, I complained to Allah that, I hear the recitation and read the words of the Qur’an and am shaken to the core by them, yet, much of it I do not understand, and when I read books of ‘Tafseer’ or exegesis, I saw great contrast between them and the beauty of the Qur’an itself.

I was brought up by a highly educated and very tolerant graduate of the first university in the world, Al Azhar university, my beloved father, the late Sheikh Mahmoud El-Essawy, from whom I learned at a very young age about the real stories of the prophets rather than the fictional ones of Cinderella and snow white. I loved the Qur’an from a very young age.

I asked My beloved God, Allah, to make me understand His Holy Book. And He did. The discerning reader will find in this book many plausible explanations of many Ayahs that were not to be found in any book in any language. How could that be? How could the meaning of Ayahs only become clear when a dentist in London, without as much as a certificate of fluency in Islamic subjects, makes them clear? The answer is that, it is not for us to choose; it is only for Allah to choose whom to educate. And just as I prayed and He answered, you too may pray, and He will answer, He said so.

I decided not to keep such enlightenment, such delight, for myself, but to share what He taught me with the world. The result is this book. As time goes by, the Qur’an will lend itself to further understanding, for there is no end to the treasures of this book; the Qur’an.

Ironically, the day I thought that I finished interpreting the Qur’an, I felt rather sad, for it meant the end of the many hours spent with God’s book, enjoying that process of education. I felt as if my long lost friend is going to depart from me again. Yes, over my thirty-four years of companionship with God’s book I developed a close friendship with it.

To The Author of the Qur’an, Allah Himself, I offer my sincere and grateful thanks for allowing me such an education, such a journey of Joy and delight, without which, my life would not have been the same.

I asked myself, why do I love God so much. And my answer came, it is because He gives me the air that I breathe, the food that I eat, the water that I drink, and the warmth that I need! It is because He makes my heart beat, my tissues and organs tick. Because He watches over me, He ensures my safety, and He puts delight into my heart!

All without expecting anything material in return. For all of what I have are in fact His.

And because I love Him, I obey Him.

But, if I forget one day, and disobey, He would never turn His back on me, but patiently waits for me to, voluntarily, come back, then He receives me with ‘open arms’ and with an earth-full of forgiveness.

And when I obey Him, and I love to obey Him, for He commands nothing but goodness, He promises me, compassionately, delight for eternity, which far exceeds any good deeds that I am ever able to proffer.

Such One is certainly most worthy of my love.

I am also indebted to one man, and his name is Muhammad, the messenger of God, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. Born in the year 570 CE, an orphan in a society that recognizes only wealth and power and treads over the rights of the weak and the meek. They ironically recognised Allah as the supreme God but ascribed some of His powers to stone idols that they placed in the place that their father Ibrahim built for the worship of Allah alone. It was Allah who sent them food and water but they chose to give thanks, not to Allah, but to Hubal; a stone god that could not shush a fly away from landing on its face. A society such as that knew no justice, no mercy and no compassion.

When he was born, the great, great grandson of the patriarch Ibrahim, he was given the name Muhammad. No one knew at the time the connection between that name and the root word ‘Hemda’, or the name of the awaited messenger of God that the Torah spoke about.

He himself, considered it ridiculous to bow to a stone and call it a god, but he had no way of his own to find His God. During the Months of Ramadan, He would go up a mountain with some provisions, to live in seclusion for a month, in a cave that had some vast panoramic views over Makkah, to think about the universe, what is it and where is it going to, and to try and find an answer to the question, what does it all mean?

The answer came one day, when a huge ‘being’ suddenly gripped him and commanded him to ‘Recite. With the words imprinted indelibly in his memory, Muhammad, aged 40 at the time, during the year 610, he ran to his trusted and much loving wife Khadijah, and told her what happened. As he ran home, wondering what happened, fearing that he might have imagined it all, or that he had become mad, touched by the Jinn or some thing, he looked up toward the vast voice of this vast being that filled the entire four corners of the horizon, as that being said to him, Muhammad, I am the Archangel Gabriel, and you are the messenger of God."

Trembling, Muhammad asked his wife, Khadijah, to tuck him in bed and cover him well. The Archangel came again later to reveal what became known as Suras, or gifts by God, and to tell Muhammad in a kindly way, O you who is tucked up in bed, get up, and deliver the message.

Gradually, he accepted his fate, and readied himself to deliver the message for which he was chosen to deliver.

He gathered his people, who were up until then respectful and even loving towards him, and said to them that he was sent to them from the God of the universe with a message, that unless they mend their ways and uphold justice and compassion in the society as Allah commands, they risk eternal damnation in hellfire.

He told them that they were worshipping the wrong gods, and that proved intolerable to them, as they made their living out of worshipping these ‘housed gods of Arabia’. His uncle, Abu Lahab, was the guardian of these gods, and he and the elite of Makkah declared war against Muhammad and whoever dares to believe in his message.

As things go with a newly sent prophet, it was only the weak and the meek that followed Muhammad. He and his followers were persecuted, expelled, chased, tormented, tortured, and some were killed. To save his followers from such behaviour, he sent the weakest to Al Habashah, Ethiopia, whose priest ruler called Al Nagashi recognised the new messenger and protected his followers.

With a murder plot hatched against him, he was commanded to emigrate to Madinah, whose in-fighting tribes decided to ask Muhammad to come to Madinah and rule over them.

On his way out of Makkah, he looked back to the town and said, O Makkah, you truly are the most beloved of God’s towns to my heart, and had your people not expelled me from you, I would not have left you!

Between his forced emigration or expulsion from Makkah and his return to it, Islam, the religion of his father Ibrahim, which Muhammad was sent to resurrect, grew from one man to a nation that ruled with justice and compassion and managed to attract an ever-increasing multitudes to its folds from among people who were earlier regarded as its enemies.

Coming back to Makkah, which people already had two wars against him and a massive siege, all happened around Madinah, to root out the believers, Muhammad led an army of ten thousand believers who extracted no revenge on its people, and instead he said to them, Go, for you are all free!

His magnanimity in victory won him even more converts to his religion. He forgave them all, even the woman that plotted the murder of his beloved uncle Hamza, and ordered his killer to cut him open for her to eat his liver!

His ever-growing army of believers became strong to the extent that Caesar, the ruler of the decaying Roman Empire refused to fight Muhammad’s army. Caesar knew that Muhammad was indeed the awaited messenger of God, and that he will ultimately triumph. Within one hundred years, and after the death of Muhammad, Islam spread so fast that its borders stretched from china in the east to France in the west.

Muhammad lived as a poor man. Sleeping in a friend’s garden, on a straw matt that left marks on his side, his friend, Omar, asked him, O prophet of God, you are like that, and Kisra (Khosro, the rulers of Farris or Persia) lives in such luxury! The prophet responded by saying to Omar ibn El-Khattab, who was later to prove to be the best ruler ever on this earth, O, Omar, what do I do with this world? To this world, I am just like a traveller who sat for a while in the shade of a tree, then he left it and went on his way.

Muhammad fell ill soon after his mission was accomplished and after he completed the recitation of the Qur’an upon his people, the preserved book of God, a mission that lasted for twenty three years of hard work.

When he awoke from his coma, he asked to be taken to the mosque, where he uncovered his back and turned it to the people and said to them in his, by then, weak voice, O my people, had I ever whipped any of you on his back, here is my back, let him avenge it from me. Muhammad, a man loved by Muslims more than their own parents, died aged 63.

Because of the huge store of love that his followers had for him, they refused to believe that such a man could die. His most loved companion, Abu Bakr, who was at his side all the way through his mission, stood up and cried, He who was worshipping Muhammad, let him know that Muhammad is dead. And he who worships God, let him know that Allah is alive, and He dies not.

He was buried where he died, in Madinah, and his simple grave and his mosque are constantly receiving vast numbers of visitors.

Muhammad was the only prophet who came under the full glare of history. Every word he said and every movement he made was recorded, and historians fully acknowledge him, and they acknowledge his historical achievement. He delivered the Qur’an to humankind during the seventh century, a time when a man would be killed for claiming that the earth was not flat as the priests of that time claimed.

It was the message that was carried to humankind by Muhammad that put the ‘light’ in the enlightenment, and it was upon the foundations that he built that European Renaissance was finally established and led the west to become what it is today. The debt remains undiscovered and un-recognised to this day, but to the reader of this book, this interpretation of the holy Qur’an, it will not at all seem as it is, a fourteen centuries old book, for it is as relevant today as it always was, and as it will always be.

Dr. HESHAM EL-ESSAWY.

March 2010.

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1.

Surat Al-Fati'ha

(The Opener)

Revealed in Makkah after Surat Al Mud’dathir. Seven Ayahs.

______________________________________

1.

In the name of Allah,

The Compassionate,

The Merciful.

2.

Praise be to Allah,

The Lord of the worlds,

3.

The Compassionate,

The Merciful,

4.

Lord of the Day of Judgment.

5.

Only You we worship,

And upon You,

We depend.

6.

Guide us to the straight path,

7.

The path of those,

Upon whom you bestowed Your grace,

Not that of those who displeased You,

Or that of those who went astray.

(This Sura opens the way to God's mercy and compassion for those who faithfully recite it, and that is why it is called Al Fati'ha, meaning the one that brings openings or success in the test of life.

(It forms the basis of the Muslim daily prayer as it is recited a total of seventeen times during the five daily prayers. And that is why it is also called the prayer and in effect it is the form in which God taught us to pray to Him and to intercede for ourselves and all the believers before Him.)

1.

In the name of Allah,

The Compassionate,

The Merciful.

(It is important to understand that God created Man from mud, and appointed him, that is every single member of the human race, as trustees for the earth on behalf of Allah, and as His deputies.

(That means that we are all here on earth as God's deputies, and the job specifications for the deputy is naturally similar to that of His Lord.

How we discharge our duties forms the basis of our test here on earth.

(To recite the Basmalah which is what this Ayah is called, is to declare one's acceptance of that role as God's deputies, and is to enter into a solemn contract with God on one hand and life on earth on the other.

(The Basmalah, or the contract, also defines the manner in which our responsibility should be discharged.

(So that we could understand Him, God described Himself to us using ninety-nine glorious names which meanings could be familiar to us. But Allah wants us to act on earth only in the name of His mercy and compassion)

2.

Praise be to Allah,

The Lord of the worlds,

3.

The Compassionate,

The Merciful,

(You may say, Thank you! to a person who serves you a glass of water, but what would you say to him if actually created it for you from nothing?

(To praise Allah is to recognize Him as The creator of all, and is to recognize His innumerable favours upon us and to thank Him for them.

(Allah is The Sustainer of all. He is the giver of all the food that we eat the water that we drink and the air that we breathe.

(To say, 'praise be to Allah' amounts to 'settling one's account' for things such as the lighting and the heating that we get from the sun, and on which our life depends, as well as all the great bounty that, because it seems to have been given freely, we strangely take them for granted.

(But when you recognize Allah and praise Him for His bounty, you also gain even more than just 'paying for them,' and what you gain this time is an everlasting reward called 'Hasanaat' or credit points.

('Al Hamdu Lillahi,' or praise be to Allah, is a prayer in itself, and it is described by God in the Qur'an as the ultimate prayer spoken by the people of paradise. It is a prayer to Allah to accept from us such a small 'thank you' for such a vast array of otherwise unobtainable bounty in paradise.

('Lord of the worlds' here means Lord of the world of humankind and the world of Jinn, who were created from fire, and who are much more powerful than us, and who can see us but we cannot see them, yet it was the will of Allah to appoint the sons of Adam as rulers of the earth and as deputies of God upon it, to rule it with justice and compassion.)

(Humankind and the Jinn 'who were masters of the earth before humankind were appointed when Adam was created' are the only two creatures in the universe that accepted the freedom of choice; that is the freedom to believe or not believe, to obey or disobey.

(Our freedom is limited by our responsibility, and for which we will have to account for our choices on the day of judgment.

(A person succeeds in life when he recognizes that Allah is The Lord of his world, and is the One who should be worshipped and whose words should be obeyed

(It is important to know and remember that Allah totally rejects the artificial notion of having mediators or intercessors of any kind, animate or inanimate, and that He definitely considers such mediation to be 'shirk' or ascribing another with Allah.

(There is nothing and there is no one on earth or in the universe or beyond who has the ability or the authority to make God change His mind, His plans or to alter His judgment. 'Lord of the worlds' here means that no one can force the hand of God.)

3.

The Compassionate,

The Merciful,

(To His faithful servants, Allah is Compassionate by name and Merciful by deeds. It is clear from the Qur'an that mercy and compassion are the two supreme attributes of Allah that override all else, including His justice.

(Allah also seeks here to remind us that He will be merciful to us if we repent our sins and mend our ways.

(He said to humankind in a Hadith Qudsi narrated by Muhammad The Messenger of God, Oh My servants! If you come to Me, believing in Me and recognizing no other gods beside Me, and with as much sins as fills the entire earth, I would meet you with as much forgiveness.

(He said in the Qur'an O. My servants who sinned excessively! Despair not from the mercy of Allah, for He forgives all sins

(When it comes to believers, God's mercy and compassion knows no bounds. All that is needed for a person to gain it is to pray for it with a sincere and repentant heart.

(One important aspect of God's compassion is that he gives every one of us a minimum of ten Hasanaat or credit points for every one good deed that we do, and only one Sa'yi'ah or discredit point, for every misdeed.

(All the discredit points are instantly wiped out when one turns to Allah directly and without any mediators or intercessors and ask Him to blot out our sins.

(The only thing that cannot be forgiven is the lasting unbelief, either in its total form, or partially in the form of 'shirk,' which is defined as allocating unauthorized divine powers to something or someone to whom God gave no such powers.)

4.

Lord of the Day of Judgment.

(Here on earth, God gave man the freedom to believe or not to believe, and to give their allegiance to whatever forms of false gods they choose to give, be it animate or inanimate.

(A notice is hereby served on all. The Day of Judgment has only One Lord, and He is God Allah, The One who created, and The One who will judge all.

(On the Day of Judgment, which shall come just like every tomorrow has so far come, all false gods will vanish, and only Allah will remain, and before Him, every person shall have to stand and account for his deeds. Nothing is ever left unaccounted for.)

5.

Only You we worship,

And upon You, we depend.

(To be a slave of God is to be free of all forms of slavery. A believer has only one master, Allah. An unbeliever has many masters.

(To worship Allah means to believe in Him and to obediently do His will by upholding justice on earth and by seeking, each according to his ability, to leave no one on hungry or needing any of the necessities that are required for dignified living.

(It is important to know that life is only a test at the end of which success or failure will be determined on the day of resurrection and judgment.

(Because of our inherent weakness and inability to fully discharge our duties as God's deputies, we turn to Him for His guidance and support, which we need and upon which we truly depend.)

6.

Guide us to the straight path!

(Allah promises in the Qur'an that, on a day known only to Him, The Hour will come. That is when all the living shall die, and then soon after, all the dead of all ages shall rise again for judgment.

(On that day, unbelievers will be lead in shackles and manacles and thrown into eternal torments in hellfire.

(Believers will have to stand for judgment before Their Lord, when they will have their books of registered deeds and misdeeds, that were kept by the angels, spread open, and on which basis they will be justly judged.

(If good deeds were to outweigh misdeeds, the believer will then be able to go with light shining from all of his sides, along 'The Straight Path' into paradise, wherein for them there will be as much eternal bounty and delight as no eyes have ever seen, no ear has ever heard, and not even the most imaginative has ever imagined, as the prophet Muhammad described.

(At present, paradise, which is vaster than the universe itself, is stationed in waiting at the outer limit of the seventh heaven. It will be brought near to earth when the Hour comes, and the successful ones will reach it through 'Al Siraat Al Mustaqeem,' which is the straight path leading from earth to paradise that will be, on that day, brought near.)

7.

The path of those,

Upon whom you bestowed Your grace,

Not that of those who displeased You,

Or that of those who went astray.

(The Qur'an gives a full account of those who displeased Allah and those who went astray after having been guided by Him. A believer prays here that he will not be among those deprived of Their Lord's mercy.)

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2.

Surat Al Baqarah

(The Cow)

Revealed in Madinah save for Ayah 281, which was revealed in Hejjatul Wadaa? Two hundred and eighty-six Ayahs.

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(When a Sura is given a name such as this one, 'The Cow', this does not mean that you are reading a chapter about cows as it would be the case when reading an ordinary book, but rather that there is a mention in this Sura of 'a cow', with some important significance attached.

(This entire Sura, except for Ayah 281 which was sent down in Mina during what is known as the prophets farewell Hajj, is by far the longest one of the Qur'an, and was sent down during the last periods of the Prophet Muhammad's message in Madinah, and much of it concerns organizing all aspects of Muslim life and society.

(It contains a very wide variety of essential religious guidance on faith, Divine Law governing such matters as marriage, divorce, inheritance, fasting, Hajj, Zakah, alms, and some important laws governing financial affairs.

(The significance of the story of the cow referred to in 2:67-71 is that, obedience to Allah is paramount for a believer no matter how incomprehensible to him Allah's commands might appear to be at the time. Whatever comes from God has an essential lining of mercy, even if it appears otherwise to the unaware.

(When Allah commanded the children of Israel through Musa (Moses), to slaughter a cow, they thought that they were being mocked, for they only went to Musa asking him to help them in identifying the person who killed one of their number. When Musa asked Allah for help with that, He responded to their request by commanding the children of Israel to slaughter a cow!

(The command was initially to slaughter any cow of their choice. But, as a result of their continuous arguing, what started as 'any cow', ended up being a very particular one, described to them in minute detail as, bright yellow in colour, neither too old or too young, pleasant to look at, has no blemish or any defect, a cow that tills no land and waters no crops!

(There was only one cow around that fitted that description, and it belonged to a poor family whose breadwinner died leaving them nothing but that apparently useless and therefore worthless cow! Now that a big demand suddenly appeared for that particular one, yesterday's seemingly worthless cow suddenly became very valuable.

(When they bought and reluctantly slaughtered 'that' cow as they were commanded, they were told by God through Moses to strike the corpse of the dead person with some bits of that dead cow. When they did that, the dead person rose from his death and told those who were watching about the identity of his killer.

(One of the recurrent characteristics of God's commands is that, there would always be many reasons behind it, and that is also true here.

(It happened that, at that time, some of the children of Israel were disputing, or doubting, the resurrection, and therefore 'The Judgment'. By such a simple command as that of slaughter a cow, and may I be forgiven for seeing the Divine humour in it, God showed the children of Israel, that, in His hand, the resurrection is as easy as striking the corpse of a dead person with bits of a dead cow!)

In The name of Allah,

The Most Compassionate,

The Most Merciful.

1.

Alif. Laam. Meem.

(Alif Laam Meem are some of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, with which Allah often starts many of His Suras. The letters on their own form an Ayah, or a miracle. For the use of these letters either orally or visually in a written form will result in the miracle of transmitting knowledge from one mind to another, even ones who has never met face to face, through the miraculously built-in ability in man to assimilate these letters into thoughts.

(The mention of some of the letters of the alphabet in the beginnings of many Suras also draws attention to the miraculous nature of the Qur'an, for it is built using the same 'building blocks' that the Arab of the time, who was famed for his sharp poetic sense, would appreciate and understand. The mention of the alphabet serves as an invitation to the thinking reader to appreciate that these words of the Qur'an were not the words of man.)

2.

This is the incontrovertible Book (of Allah),

Sent as guidance to those,

Who would avoid incurring the wrath of Allah!

3.

Who believe in the invisible (truths).

And who keep their prayers,

And who spend from what (funds),

We give them