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Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 1–3The question of whether a man is a true believer is decided on the basis of how he conducts himself in extraordinary rather than in ordinary circumstances.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 4–7To be a believer is often synonymous with going against the trend of the times.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 8–9Of all the creatures, a man’s parents have the greatest right over him.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 10–11When one who calls himself a believer, or mu’min, shows himself to be such only when some advantage is to be gained, but otherwise recants, he reveals himself to be what the Quran calls a hypocrite, or munafiq.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 12–13Inventing a lie, or iftira, consists of saying something of one’s own concoction and then attributing it to God.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 14–15Noah lived for nine hundred and fifty years.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 16–18Making anybody other than the One God the centre of one’s noble feelings is a sin, because it amounts to presuming that divine attributes inhere in beings other than God.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 19–23Man was non-existent and came into being only at a certain point in time.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 24–27Any social custom, which assumes the position of a national tradition, soon becomes a standard requirement for every individual of the society in question.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 28–30Lot left Babylon and settled in Jordan.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 31–35A severe earthquake destroyed the region where Lot’s community lived in the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 36–37The community, to which Shu‘ayb was appointed as prophet, was a trading community.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verse 38God’s retribution was likewise meted out to the ‘Ad and the Thamud.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 39–40Whenever the addressee communities rejected the prophets sent to them, they were destroyed by calamities which burst upon them either from the heavens or from the earth.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 41–44It is shown here that one who sees a spider’s web and learns a lesson about reality from it, is a learned person in the true sense.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verse 45‘Recite what has been revealed to you of the book’ here means ‘the propagation of the revelation’ i.e. reciting the Quran before people and making them aware of the will of God.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verse 46Rather than become entangled in unnecessary discussions and bickering, it is best if the preacher (da‘i) greets his antagonists formally and then avoids them.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 47–49There are two types of individuals—one who already possesses a knowledge of the Truth and the other who apparently does not.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 50–52People used to raise the objection that the Prophet Muhammad had not been given signs of God such as had been given to others, such as Moses, God’s answer to them was that signs or miracles were matters pertaining to Him and not to the prophets.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 53–55Man’s deeds make his Paradise and his deeds make his Hell too.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 56–60Sometimes a change is necessary in the mode of performing a task.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 61–63Creating the earth and the sky was such a major event that only Almighty God could perform it.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 64–66The real reason for a man going astray is that he is so completely engrossed in the glamour and problems of the world that he cannot rise above them and think independently.Chapter 29, The Spider (Al-‘Ankabut) · verses 67–69The Sacred House of Makkah, i.e. the Kabah, is a wonderful gift of Almighty God.