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Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 1–2A believer’s life is a regulated life.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 3Some animals, due to their being harmful from the point of view of health and morality, are not fit to be consumed by human beings as food.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 4–5All those things which are considered clean and perfectly formed in the eyes of nature, and all those animals whose nature is compatible with human nature, are all legitimate and permissible for human consumption.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 6The purpose of salat (prayers) is to purify a man of all evils.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 7–11Faith is the vow which binds God and His subject.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 12–13A pledge was taken from the Children of Israel by their prophet that they would lead a godly life, and twelve chiefs from their twelve tribes were appointed to keep a watch over them.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 14When The People of the Book (i.e. those communities blessed with Divine Scriptures) go astray, they disregard the clear-cut, eternal parts of the Scriptures and hasten to embrace those parts which are of purely local or topical interest.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 15–17The People of the Book made two mistakes in their religion.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 18–19A community which is blessed with the Book and a prophet, and proves that it accepts them, receives many blessings from God—special help and victory over opponents; domination on the earth; God’s pardon and the promise of paradise, etc.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 20–24It is the way of God that He chooses a group in order to convey His message to the people.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 25–26At the time the Children of Israel left Egypt under the leadership of Moses and reached the Sinai desert, a tyrant community, the Amaliqa, was ruling Syria and Palestine areas.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 27–29The real reward for the deeds performed for the sake of God will be given in the Hereafter.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 30–31Whatever a man receives in this world is bestowed by God.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 32–34When one person kills another, he is the killer of not only one person but of all human beings, because he contravenes the law of respect for human life upon which the lives of all human beings depend.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 35–40The principle on which God has created the system of this world is that everybody should discharge his duty, and nobody should unnecessarily interfere in the sphere of others.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 41Within Madinah there were two kinds of people who opposed the Islamic mission—one the hypocrites and the other the Jews.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 42–43The common form of bribe (suht) is that which is taken directly as such.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 44–47The purpose of God’s Book coming to the world was to guide the people to the way of eternal welfare, and to bring them out of the darkness of desire-worship and into the light of Truth-worship.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 48Here ‘the Book’ means the original and basic teachings of religion.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 49–50The Quran and other Divine Scriptures are not separate books.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 51–53In Arabia, in the early days of Islam, the Jews and Christians held a monopoly of the major economic resources of the country, and made efforts day and night to uproot the Muslims, who were as yet a newly emerging force.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 54–56In a person’s life, the most critical moment is when he has to make some sacrifice in order to stay resolutely on the path of Islam.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 57–60When the call for true and pure religion goes out those who claim, on the basis of a self-made religion, to have a monopoly of devotion to God, develop such an extreme aversion to it that they lose all sense of rationality.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 61–63There were certain of the Jews of Madinah who were impressed by Islam.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 64In the Quran, when stress was laid on spending in charity for God’s sake and when people were urged to give gratuitous loans to God, the Jews made this the subject of ridicule.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 65–66The root cause of all waywardness is man’s reckless bravado.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 67When the Prophet Muhammad appeared in Arabia , it was not the case that there was nobody professing religion there at that time.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 68–69The members of the Jewish community, thriving on stories of the excellence of their community and the supposed holiness of their elders, had not subjected themselves and their personal affairs to the will of God.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 70–71God had taken the pledge of faith and obedience from the Jews through Moses.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 72–76The bearers of divine scriptures in later periods developed the belief that they were the special people of God and that whatever they did, they would not have to face any reckoning.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verse 77In the eyes of Jesus’s early disciples ‘Jesus was a man who was from God.’Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 78–81Frequently the reason for a people’s deviation from the right path of God is that they have been impressed by the thoughts of communities which have gone astray and seek to emulate them; while accepting the religion of God, they interpret it in such a way that it appears to be in consonance with current thinking.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 82–86The Children of Israel faced this downfall, but that did not stop them from making self-righteous utterances and the elect among them went on making fine speeches.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 87–89The connection between man and God is a live relationship which is established on a psychological level.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 90–93The imbibing of intoxicants, gambling and frequenting abodes where beings other than God are worshipped or offered sacrifices and the drawing of lots, in which seeking help from someone other than God is involved—all these are base, satanic actions.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 94–95The real purpose of this order is that God may know those who fear Him, even if they cannot see Him.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 96–100Hunting is prohibited (haram) while in the state of ihram.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 101–108It has been recorded in the traditions that when the order regarding Hajj was received, the Prophet Muhammad said in a sermon ‘O, people!Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 109–110Those who embraced the faith on the strength of their prophets’ teachings later fell away from the true religion and concocted their own religion in the name of the prophet.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 111–115It is the dayee who performs the duty of calling upon people to Truth.Chapter 5, The Table (Al-Ma’idah) · verses 116–120When the Day of Judgment arrives, man will come to know without being told what is right and what is wrong.