The City
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[90:2]
this land in which thou art free to dwell –

---

* v.2 : Lit., “while thou art dwelling in this land.” The classical commentators give to the term balad the connotation of “city,” and maintain that the phrase hadha ’l-balad (“this city”) signifies Mecca, and that the pronoun “thou” in the second verse refers to Muhammad. Although this interpretation is plausible in view of the fact that the sacredness of Mecca is repeatedly stressed in the Qur’ān, the sequence – as well as the tenor of the whole sūrah – seems to warrant a wider, more general interpretation. In my opinion, the words hadha ’l-balad denote “this land of man,” i.e., the earth (which latter term is, according to all philologists, one of the primary meanings of balad). Consequently, the “thou” in verse 2 relates to man in general, and that which is metaphorically “called to witness” is his earthly environment.