Path
Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 1–4Every man who is living in this world is nearer to death than life.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 5–6The messenger of truth always presents the truth on the strength of sound arguments.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 7–9Those who refused to accept the prophethood of the Prophet Muhammad on the grounds that he was a human being like them, were told that if they were sincere and serious in their objection, they should not find it difficult to come to a correct understanding of the truth.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 10–15The Book of God is not a mere book in the ordinary sense of the word.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 16–18Those who are not serious about the divine call, consider the present world as a plaything of God which has no purpose except temporal entertainment.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 19–20Every object on the earth and in the skies is God’s creation.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 21–23The earth is not isolated from the rest of creation; it is inseparably bound with the cosmos.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 24–25The assumption of there being anyone worthy of worship other than God is not based on any real reasoning, but on total ignorance.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 26–29To consider one thing as right and some other thing as wrong curtails the freedom of human beings.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verse 30The solid mass which God ‘tore asunder’ probably refers to the earliest state of the earth and skies which, in this modern age is explained in terms of the ‘Big Bang’ theory.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 31–33Here some prominent features of the earth have been mentioned which remind man of God in order to make him a grateful servant of God.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 34–35Those who were opponents of the Prophet Muhammad in Makkah were more affluent and powerful in terms of material resources.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verse 36The gods of the Quraysh were, in reality, the great ones of the community.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 37–41The people of Arabia, although believers in the life hereafter, denied that concept of the Hereafter, as described by the Prophet Muhammad.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 42–43God’s reckoning is not something which belongs to a distant future.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verse 44In ancient times, the people of Makkah were considered leaders of the Arab world.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 45–46‘I warn you only through the Revelation’ means warning people with the help of arguments.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verse 47In the present world, a ‘balance (or scale)’ is a device for finding out the weight of an object.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 48–50The criterion or discernment (al-furqan), light and reminder or remembrance (dhikr), which were given to Moses, were the same things which all the prophets received from God.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 51–54It is God’s principle to give according to the capability of the receiver.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 55–58During Abraham’s period, people’s minds were in the grip of polytheistic ideas, so much so that in the beginning they took Abraham’s criticism to be frivolous.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 59–63The next day when the people entered the temple and saw their deities broken to pieces, they were shocked.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 64–67On hearing such replies from Abraham, the people could have accused him of insolence and taken him to task, as usually happens in such cases.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 68–70Those who enjoy power always resort to oppressive methods when they fail in the field of reasoned argument.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 71–73The Prophet Abraham was born in Iraq.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 74–75Wisdom means realization of God (ma‘rifah) and knowledge (‘ilm) means divine revelation.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 76–77The Prophet Noah performed his divine task of giving the call for the Truth among his community over an extremely long period, but except for a few individuals, nobody was reformed.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 78–80In these verses two Israelite prophets have been mentioned—One David (Dawud) and the other, his son, Soloman (Sulayman).Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 81–82Here the taming of the winds means making navigation on the seas a possibility, for in ancient times ocean travel was revolutionised when man invented ships with sails.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 83–84God provides examples differing in kind and of the highest order through His prophets, the purpose being to give people a set of ideals.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 85–86Ishmael (Isma‘il) was the Prophet Abraham’s son.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 87–88Jonah (Yunus) was sent as a prophet to Nineveh, an ancient city of Iraq.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 89–90Prophets are those on whom God has bestowed His special Grace.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verse 91The special quality of Mary (Maryam) is said to be that she guarded her chastity.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 92–94God has sent all prophets with the same religion, namely, one according to which the one and only God should be one’s God and that He alone should be worshipped.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 95–97When the Truth appears with clear arguments, a man is compelled to recognise it by the compulsion of his very nature.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 98–103‘Abdullah ibn az-Zab‘ari was a famous poet of ancient times.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 104–106The expanse of the present universe was brought into existence for the purpose of creating a testing ground.Chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’) · verses 107–112All the prophets who were sent by God were sent here for one and the same purpose.