Tâ Hâ
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE
[20:81]
"Partake of the good things which We have provided for you as sustenance, but do not transgress therein the bounds of equity lest My condemnation fall upon you: for he upon whom My condemnation falls has indeed thrown himself into utter ruin!"


* v.81 : The reference to God’s bestowal of “manna (mann) and quails (salwā)” upon the Israelites during their wanderings in the Sinai Desert after their exodus from Egypt is found in the Qur’ān in two other places as well (namely, in 2:57 and 7:160). According to Arab philologists, the term mann denotes not only the sweet, resinous substance exuded by certain plants of the desert, but also everything that is “bestowed as a favour,” i.e., without any effort on the part of the recipient. Similarly, the term salwā signifies not merely “a quail” or “quails,” but also “all that makes man content and happy after privation” (Qāmūs). Hence the combination of these two terms denotes, metonymically, the gift of sustenance freely bestowed by God upon the followers of Moses.
* Or: “do not behave in an overweening manner” – i.e., “do not attribute these favours to your own supposed excellence on account of your descent from Abraham.”
* There is almost complete unanimity among the classical commentators in that God’s “condemnation” (ghadab, lit., “wrath”) is a metonym for the inescapable retribution which man brings upon himself if he deliberately rejects God’s guidance and “transgresses the bounds of equity.”