The Table (Al-Ma’idah) المائدة 109–110
109
يَوْمَ يَجْمَعُ اللّهُ الرُّسُلَ فَيَقُولُ مَاذَا أُجِبْتُمْ قَالُواْ لاَ عِلْمَ لَنَا إِنَّكَ أَنتَ عَلاَّمُ الْغُيُوبِ
The Day when God assembles the messengers and asks them, ‘What was the response you received [from the people]?’ they will reply, ‘We have no knowledge of it. You alone know what is hidden.’
110
إِذْ قَالَ اللّهُ يَا عِيسى ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ اذْكُرْ نِعْمَتِي عَلَيْكَ وَعَلَى وَالِدَتِكَ إِذْ أَيَّدتُّكَ بِرُوحِ الْقُدُسِ تُكَلِّمُ النَّاسَ فِي الْمَهْدِ وَكَهْلاً وَإِذْ عَلَّمْتُكَ الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَالتَّوْرَاةَ وَالإِنجِيلَ وَإِذْ تَخْلُقُ مِنَ الطِّينِ كَهَيْئَةِ الطَّيْرِ بِإِذْنِي فَتَنفُخُ فِيهَا فَتَكُونُ طَيْرًا بِإِذْنِي وَتُبْرِىءُ الأَكْمَهَ وَالأَبْرَصَ بِإِذْنِي وَإِذْ تُخْرِجُ الْمَوتَى بِإِذْنِي وَإِذْ كَفَفْتُ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ عَنكَ إِذْ جِئْتَهُمْ بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ فَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ مِنْهُمْ إِنْ هَـذَا إِلاَّ سِحْرٌ مُّبِينٌ
Then God will say, ‘Jesus, son of Mary, remember My favour to you and to your mother: how I strengthened you with the holy spirit, so that you could speak to people in childhood and in maturity; and how I taught you the Book, and wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel; how by My leave you fashioned from clay the shape of a bird and blew upon it, so that, by My leave, it became a bird, and healed the blind and the leper by My permission, and when you brought forth the dead by My permission; and how I prevented the Children of Israel from harming you when you came to them with clear signs, when those of them who denied the truth said, “This is sheer magic.”
No class discussions published for this verse group yet.
(a) Those 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. In spite of this, every group treated itself as the ummah (community) of its prophet, though after deviating from the real teachings of that prophet, they ceased to have any link with him. The Jews claim to have a connection with Moses and the Christians with Jesus, though their present religions are unconnected with those prophets. This fact has become obscure in the present world of trial. But, on the Day of Judgement, all will be made clear. On that Day, God will assemble all the prophets and, in the presence of their communities, He will ask them what teachings they gave their community and how the community adopted them. In this way, it will be made clear to every community before its prophet as to how far its members contravened their prophet’s teachings on the religion of God, and it will be shown how they had falsely linked their self-made religion with the prophet. (a) Among those prophets, there is the example of Jesus, who is an intermediate link between the earlier prophets and the last of the prophets. Jesus was given very special miracles to perform. Those who had embraced the faith through him were very few in number and his opponents, the Jews, enjoyed worldly power. In spite of this, they could not inflict any harm on him and were not successful in destroying his companions. The result of these miracles should have been that people should have accepted the religion brought by him. But what actually happened was that his opponents ignored him, saying that the miracles performed by him were merely feats of magic. On the contrary, those who embraced his faith later on gave him the status of a god. On Judgement Day, it will be made clear to those who claim to be his followers that whatever feats Jesus had performed were all done at God’s behest. It was God who saved him from the dangers presented by his opponents. When this was the true state of affairs and Jesus himself will testify to this, standing before them, then his people will have to explain who had given them the religion which they had wrongly attributed to Jesus.