Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Tafseer of Al-Maun (Chapter 107 from The Qur'an)

A common translation (i.e. by Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali, Ph.D. and Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan) of Al-Maun, the surah (chapter) 107 from the Qur'an is as follows -

Bismi Allahi alrrahmani alrraheemi (In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.)

1. Have you seen him who denies the Recompense?
2. That is he who repulses the orphan (harshly),
3. And urges not the feeding of AlMiskîn (the poor),
4. So woe unto those performers of Salât (prayers) (hypocrites),
5. Who delay their Salât (prayer) from their stated fixed times,
6. Those who do good deeds only to be seen (of men),
7. And refuse Al-Mâ'ûn (small kindnesses e.g. salt, sugar, water, etc.).

[ Arabic recitation | 555KB ]
From - http://www.islamicacademy.org/html/audio/Qirat/Qirat_Arb.htm

After listening to the tafseer(elaboration) done by various scholars of the past, translated and presented in English by Nouman, Ali Khan, your way of looking at things changes. The in between lines are so powerful you just can't help but really appreciate the eloquence of Qur'an. The full tafseer, in audio format is about one and a half hour long so for those who don’t have the time for it, let me try to sum it up(copying from him here and there) into a ten minute reading material. Note that, do not let my poor and unintentional erroneous way of expressing things get you off the real thick juice you can find in the real tafseer. So here it is.

Believing in a God or Gods or at least a supreme power is easy and a natural thing that everyone starts their life with and every now and then revisits, especially at time of calamities. Even the concept of a messenger is somewhat digestible as; if there is a god then it’s only logical that he could communicate through a messenger. But the recompense or the idea of paying back in full for every little thing one have done in this life is the hardest part to accept. Believing in God and his messengers makes you a nice man but taking recompense seriously means you have to make some serious changes in your custom, comfortable life which most people are not willing to do, either consciously or not. So they start building up logics like – If God was so merciful then why would he punish his creations like this or that? As if they are hoping for a personalized God who is more merciful to them than they actually deserve. And when God’s prescribed way doesn’t quite fit their desired ways, they become convinced about their doubts and starts to reject the idea of recompense cause that would give them the golden ticket of “just do as you please” way of life. So denying the recompense is the first step a man takes to the way of downgrading himself to the level of a pig, figuratively speaking. So this surah exposes these people by describing their characteristics even if they don't admit their denial of recompense publicly. It also serves as a check list for one to see if he/she is in a state of denial, unconsciously.

So Allah teaches us that the first sign of the one who had denied the recompense is that he would repulses orphan or to be general, one who has no one to back him up. He fails to see any benefit in giving them a hand and rather look at it as a waste of time and wealth. Also, he do it harshly to prevent any future interactions from this guy. This is the first drop down of the character and an easy one as they don't have to answer to anyone for doing this as this is their private matters or sometime a hidden preference. By the way, it is worth to mention that this surah was targeted particularly on the Quraish, the leaders of Macca at the time of its revealing but in general it can be applied to all the leaders of the nations, the head of a clan, a hero of the day of all the time.

Now the second drop - "And urges not the feeding of the poor". Note that it is not said like they don't feed the poor. Forget feeding of the poor, they are past that, they don't even encourage others to feed the poor because that would be only inviting trouble for them. That would expose their true nature because people would start asking - I haven't seen you doing that lately so why are you asking me that for? So it's a gentle man's agreement, I won't scratch your back so you won't scratch mine and let's overlook this all together.

So woe unto those performers of Salât (prayers)”. It is kind of shocking because performers of salat are usually praised by Allah! But in this case they are condemned! This is the way of the teaching of the Qur'an and a very effective one as it catches attentions from all audiences. So far someone might be thinking well I'm not like those persons so I am off the hook. I do my prayers and my good deeds. But now, this line should make him think - am I going to be described next?

And the next is - "Who delay their Salât (prayer) from their stated fixed times "

On one hand, this set you on alert for a self assessment. Are you from the one who do this a lot? When it's time for the jama'ah(congregation) prayer, do you think, well I'm entertaining the guests at the moments and it's a good deed plus I can always do it later on. Do you prefer attending a wedding ceremony over jama'ah? Are you truthful enough to say, sorry I can't attend you party cause it overlaps my salaah time? A woe from Allah should be enough to rethink these matters.

On the other hand, linking back to the previous lines, this is another characteristic of a tropical hypocrite. Point to note; if this surah was dedicated for Quraish, who were non Muslims, why mention of salat then? Well if you have this question them you might be from those who think Salat was introduced only after Islam came. In that case, this might be a good time for you to dig some history(or listen to tafseer). Anyway, the characteristic of a tropical hypocrite, is to delay their salat from their sated fixed time is the main point.


Next, "Those who do good deeds only to be seen (of men)". Have you ever seen a leader or a hero praying in Eid Jama'ah? and it's all over the news? And that's the only time you see him praying, ever? Have you seen someone handing over a check to some other guy and both of them are facing the camera from a ninety degree angle? And if it's a movie camera then they are like stack in that position for couple of seconds? Funny but watch out for this people. Cause not only they don't really care about the rights of Allah by doing good deeds only for the sake of Allah, but they are actually using that to gain some publicities. How low! yet so easy for them to do this cause, they denied the recompense to began with. And this is why the last verse - "And refuse Al-Mâ'ûn" seems nothing too them. Al-Ma'un means something so small (e.g. salt, sugar, water, etc. so) and insignificance that you would not feel anything when you give it away. This line is so powerful that I had to take it to another blog post. For more clarification, you might want to check that out.

And I am done. Now I think I got carried away from the main tafseer that I was supposed to give you some idea about which successfully shows how rights of Allah and rights of people, are interconnected. It is really beyond my scope to capture this beautiful tafseer in my words. My intention was to capture a little bit of interest from you side. So failing or succeeding, either way I strongly urge you to spend some time with the real dead, the tafseer.

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