The Heights (Al-A‘raf)
Verses 28-30 GROUP_253 7.28-30
28
وَإِذَا فَعَلُواْ فَاحِشَةً قَالُواْ وَجَدْنَا عَلَيْهَا آبَاءنَا وَاللّهُ أَمَرَنَا بِهَا قُلْ إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْفَحْشَاء أَتَقُولُونَ عَلَى اللّهِ مَا لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ
And when they commit an indecency, they say, ‘This is what our fathers used to do and God has enjoined it on us.’ Say, ‘God does not enjoin what is indecent. Would you attribute to God something of which you have no knowledge?’
29
قُلْ أَمَرَ رَبِّي بِالْقِسْطِ وَأَقِيمُواْ وُجُوهَكُمْ عِندَ كُلِّ مَسْجِدٍ وَادْعُوهُ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ كَمَا بَدَأَكُمْ تَعُودُونَ
Say, ‘My Lord has commanded you to act justly. Turn your faces up toward Him at every time and place of worship, and call upon Him, making yourselves sincere towards Him in religion. As He brought you into being, so shall you return.’
30
فَرِيقًا هَدَى وَفَرِيقًا حَقَّ عَلَيْهِمُ الضَّلاَلَةُ إِنَّهُمُ اتَّخَذُوا الشَّيَاطِينَ أَوْلِيَاء مِن دُونِ اللّهِ وَيَحْسَبُونَ أَنَّهُم مُّهْتَدُونَ
Some He has guided and some have earned misguidance: they have taken devils rather than God as their patrons, thinking that they are rightly guided.
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Commentary
(a) The way that Satan leads a man astray is by misinforming him. He shows the prohibited tree as the fountainhead of all advantages. He approaches man by such innocuous ways that he has no suspicion that he is about to be misled. Satan knows all the weak points, delicate places in the moral armour of human beings and he takes care to attack those very spots. Which people is Satan successful in misguiding? He is successful with those who are unable to give proof of faith on occasions of trial; with those who do not carefully ponder over the signs of God; with those who reject valid arguments; and with those who cannot abide by the demands of truth in preference to their own personal inclinations. They do not recognize Truth as such if it does not promote their interests. (a) The word ‘justice’ (qist) signifies a form of behaviour which fulfills every moral criterion. It is what it should be. Worship in the form of prayer is a natural urge in every man; he wants to accept some Being as supreme and to prostrate himself before Him. In this matter justice will be done only if he worships the one true God who is his Creator, Lord and Sustainer. Man wants to have some Being at the core of his conviction. In this case, justice will consist in his making God, who is all-Powerful, the basis of his trust. Similarly, acceptance of further life after death will be justice in the absolute sense, because when a man is born, he comes into existence from non-existence. So believing in the life after death (resurrection) will amount to believing in the very reality which every man has already experienced at the time of his birth in this world. Man looks to the luminaries of former times for support, so that he may reject the preacher of Truth. The greatness of these ancient forebears has been historically established and in the eyes of all and sundry their being in the right is taken for granted. As opposed to this, the preacher of Truth before them is a new preacher who has not yet been sanctified by historical testimony. When the individual looks at the ancients, who are revered as saints because of their illustrious history, and compares them to the new missionary of Truth with no tradition behind him, he rejects him outright, believing himself to be on the right path. But this sort of misunderstanding cannot provide an excuse in the eyes of God, for, in rejecting the missionary, one is not really following God: one is merely following Satan in the name of God.