The Winnowing Winds
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[51:1]
CONSIDER the winds that scatter the dust far and wide,
[51:2]
and those that carry the burden [of heavy clouds],
[51:3]
and those that speed along with gentle ease,
[51:4]
and those that apportion [the gift of life] at [God’s] behest!
[51:5]
Verily, that which you are promised is true indeed,
[51:6]
and, verily, judgment is bound to come!
[51:7]
CONSIDER the firmament full of starry paths!
[51:8]
Verily, [O men,] you are deeply at variance as to what to believe:
[51:9]
perverted in his views thereon is he who would deceive himself!
[51:10]
They but destroy themselves, they who are given to guessing at what they cannot ascertain
[51:11]
they who blunder along, in ignorance lost
[51:12]
they who [mockingly] ask, "When is that Day of Judgment to be?"
[51:13]
[It will be] a Day when they will be sorely tried by the fire,
[51:14]
[and will be told:] "Taste this your trial! It is this that you were so hastily asking for!"
[51:15]
[But,] behold, the God-conscious will find themselves amid gardens and springs,
[51:16]
enjoying all that their Sustainer will have granted them [because], verily, they were doers of good in the past:
[51:17]
they would lie asleep during but a small part of the night,
[51:18]
and would pray for forgiveness from their innermost hearts;
[51:19]
and [would assign] in all that they possessed a due share unto such as might ask [for help] and such as might suffer privation.
[51:20]
AND ON EARTH there are signs [of God’s existence, visible] to all who are endowed with inner certainty,
[51:21]
just as [there are signs thereof] within your own selves: can you not, then, see?
[51:22]
And in heaven is [the source of] your sustenance [on earth] and [of] all that you are promised [for your life after death]:
[51:23]
for, by the Sustainer of heaven and earth, this [life after death] is the very truth – as true as that you are endowed with speech!
[51:24]
AND HAS the story of Abraham’s honoured guests ever come within thy ken?
[51:25]
When those [heavenly messengers] came unto him and bade him peace, he answered, "[And upon you be] peace!" – [saying to himself,] "They are strangers."
[51:26]
Then he turned quietly to his household, and brought forth a fat [roasted] calf,
[51:27]
and placed it before them, saying, "Will you not eat?"
[51:28]
[And when he saw that the guests would not eat,] he became apprehensive of them; [but] they said, "Fear not" – and gave him the glad tiding of [the birth of] a son who would be endowed with deep knowledge.
[51:29]
Thereupon his wife approached [the guests] with a loud cry, and struck her face [in astonishment] and exclaimed: "A barren old woman [like me]!"
[51:30]
They answered: "Thus has thy Sustainer decreed; and, verily, He alone is truly wise, all-knowing!"
[51:31]
Said [Abraham]: "And what [else] may you have in view, O you [heavenly] messengers?"
[51:32]
They answered: "Behold, we have been sent unto a people lost in sin,
[51:33]
to let loose upon them stone-hard blows of chastisement,
[51:34]
marked out in thy Sustainer’s sight for [the punishment of] such as have wasted their own selves."
[51:35]
And in the course of time We brought out [of Lot’s city] such [few] believers as were there:
[51:36]
for apart from one [single] house We did not find there any who had surrendered themselves to Us.
[51:37]
And so We left therein a message for those who fear the grievous suffering [which awaits all evildoers].
[51:38]
AND IN [the story of Pharaoh and] Moses, too, [We left the same message: for] when We sent him unto Pharaoh with [Our] manifest authority,
[51:39]
and he turned away in [the pride of] his power and said, "A sorcerer [is this Moses], or a madman!"
[51:40]
We seized him and his hosts, and cast them all into the sea: and [none but Pharaoh] himself was to blame [for what happened].
[51:41]
And [you have the same message] in [what happened to the tribe of] ’ād, when We let loose against them that life-destroying wind
[51:42]
which spared nothing of what it came upon, but caused [all of] it to become like bones dead and decayed.
[51:43]
And in [the story of the tribe of] Thamūd, too, when they were told, "You shall enjoy your life for [but] a little while,"
[51:44]
after they had turned with disdain from their Sustainer’s commandment – whereupon the thunderbolt of punishment overtook them while they were [helplessly] looking on:
[51:45]
for they were unable even to rise, and could not defend themselves.
[51:46]
And [thus, too, We destroyed] Noah’s people aforetime: for they were iniquitous folk.
[51:47]
AND IT IS We who have built the universe with [Our creative] power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.
[51:48]
And the earth have We spread out wide – and how well have We ordered it!
[51:49]
And in everything have We created opposites, so that you might bear in mind [that God alone is one].
[51:50]
And so, [O Muhammad, say unto them:] "Flee unto God [from all that is false and evil]! Verily, I am a plain warner to you from Him!
[51:51]
And do not ascribe divinity to aught side by side with God: verily, I am a plain warner to you from Him!"
[51:52]
[But] thus it is: never yet came any apostle to those who lived before their time but they said, "A spellbinder [is he], or a madman!"
[51:53]
Have they, perchance, handed down this [way of thinking] as a legacy unto one another?
Nay, they are people filled with overweening arrogance!
[51:54]
Turn, then, away from them, and thou shalt incur no blame;
[51:55]
yet go on reminding [all who would listen]: for, verily, such a reminder will profit the believers.
[51:56]
And [tell them that] I have not created the invisible beings and men to any end other than that they may [know and] worship Me.
[51:57]
[But withal,] no sustenance do I ever demand of them, nor do I demand that they feed Me:
[51:58]
for, verily, God Himself is the Provider of all sustenance, the Lord of all might, the Eternal!
[51:59]
And, verily, they who are bent on doing evil shall have their share [of evil] like unto the share of their fellows [of old]: so let them not ask Me to hasten [their doom]!
[51:60]
For woe unto those who are bent on denying the truth – [woe] on the Day which they have been promised!
* v.4 : These symbolical epithets, consisting of adjectival participles without any mention of the nouns which they qualify, have been variously interpreted by the early commentators; but since there is a consensus of opinion regarding the first of these participles – adh-dhāriyāt – as denoting “dust-scattering winds,” we may assume that the other three relate to different phases or manifestations of the same phenomenon (Rāzī) – namely, to the life-giving function of the combination of wind, clouds, and rain – pointing, symbolically, to the miraculous creation of life as such and, thus, to the existence of a conscious, purposeful Creator.
* v.5 : I.e., life after death.
* v.7 : I.e., “think of the Creator of this great universe and, hence, of your responsibility to Him.”
* v.8 : Lit., “you are indeed in a discordant opinion (qawl),” i.e., as to whether or not there is life after death, whether God exists, whether there is any truth in divine revelation, and so forth.
* v.9 : Lit., “perversely turned away from this [truth] is he who is made to lie” – or, according to the Tāj al-‘Arūs, “he who is perverted in his reason and opinion,” i.e., who is a priori disposed to deceive himself: implying that belief in God and, hence, in life after death is inherent in man’s mind and feeling, and that, therefore, a departure from this belief is but an outcome of intellectual perversion.
* v.10 : For this rendering of the expression qutila, see note 9 on 74:19.
* Thus the Tāj al-‘Arūs, explaining the deeper meaning of al-kharrāsūn. “That which they cannot ascertain” is, in this context, synonymous with al-ghayb, “the reality which is beyond the reach of human perception.”
* v.13 : This “trial (fitnah) by the fire” is in tune with several Qur’anic allusions to the effect that the otherworldly suffering described as “hell” is not to be eternal: see in this connection note 114 on 6:128, note 10 on 40:12 and note 53 on 43:74.
* v.14 : A reference to their one-time sarcastic demand that they should be punished for their rejection of the Qur’anic message: cf. 6:57-58 and 8:32.
* v.16 : Lit., “before that [Day].”
* v.18 : See note 10 on 3:17.
* v.19 : Sc., “but could not beg” – and this applies to all living creatures, whether human beings or mute animals (Rāzī), irrespective of whether the need is of a physical or an emotional nature.
* v.21 : See note 3 on 45:4.
* v.22 : I.e., both physical (rain) and spiritual (truth and guidance).
* Lit., “even as you speak” or “are able to speak”: an allusion to man’s ability to think conceptually and to express himself – that is, to something of which man is absolutely, axiomatically conscious.
* v.24 : This story (as well as the subsequent mention of what happened to Lot’s people and to the tribes of ‘ād and Thamūd, of Moses and Pharaoh’s people, and of Noah’s people) is connected with the preceding references to the “signs,” visible and conceptual, of God’s existence and almightiness and the inflexible moral causality apparent in what the Qur’ān describes as “the way of God” (sunnat Allāh). The story of Abraham’s angelic guests appears also in 11:69 ff. and – in a somewhat shorter version – in 15:51 ff. as well.
* v.25 : Lit., “unknown people’ – i.e., not realizing that they were angels.
* v.28 : See note 101 on 11:70.
* I.e., with prophethood (cf. 15:53).
* v.32 : I.e., Lot’s people.
* v.33 : Lit., “stones of clay” – the noun “clay” (tīn) is, according to Zamakhsharī, identical with the term sijjīl mentioned in 11:82 and tentatively explained in the corresponding note 114 as signifying “chastisement pre-ordained.”
* v.34 : For an explanation of this rendering of the term musrifīn, see note 21 on 10:12.
* v.35 : Lit., “And then,” i.e., after the events described in 11:77 ff. and 15:61 ff.
* v.36 : I.e., Lot’s family.
* v.37 : I.e., in the utter destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
* v.38 : The above interpolations are based on the consensus of most of the classical commentators regarding the phrase “And in Moses, too.”
* v.40 : This is an illustration of the Qur’anic doctrine that the suffering which is bound to befall an evildoer in this world or in the life to come, or in both, is but a consequence of his own doings.
* v.42 : See 69:6-8. For the story of the tribe of ‘ād as such, see the second half of note 48 on 7:65.
* v.43 : Cf. 11:65. An outline of the story of the Thamūd is given in 7:73-79.
* v.47 : Lit., “the sky” or “the heaven,” which in the Qur’ān often has the connotation of “universe” or, in the plural (“the heavens”), of “cosmic systems.”
* See note 38 on the first part of 21:30. The phrase innā la-mūsi‘ūn clearly foreshadows the modern notion of the “expanding universe” – that is, the fact that the cosmos, though finite in extent, is continuously expanding in space.
* v.48 : I.e., in accordance with the requirements of the living organisms that were to – and did – develop on it.
* v.49 : Lit., “of every thing have We created pairs” – a phrase which is explained in note 18 on 36:36.
* Cf. 89:3 and the corresponding note 2.
* v.51 : Lit., “do not set up any other deity.”
* v.52 : Lit., “sorcerer.”
* v.56 : For a full discussion of the term jinn (“invisible beings”), see Appendix III. As pointed out by most of the philologists – and stressed by Rāzī in his comments on the above verse – this term includes also the angels, since they, too, are beings or forces “concealed from man’s senses.”
* Thus, the innermost purpose of the creation of all rational beings is their cognition (ma‘rifah) of the existence of God and, hence, their conscious willingness to conform their own existence to whatever they may perceive of His will and plan: and it is this twofold concept of cognition and willingness that gives the deepest meaning to what the Qur’ān describes as “worship” (‘ibādah). As the next verse shows, this spiritual call does not arise from any supposed “need” on the part of the Creator, who is self-sufficient and infinite in His power, but is designed as an instrument for the inner development of the worshipper, who, by the act of his conscious self-surrender to the all-pervading Creative Will, may hope to come closer to an understanding of that Will and, thus, closer to God Himself.
* v.59 : Implying that every act of evildoing bears the seed of its own retribution either in this world or in the hereafter.