Jonah (Yunus)
Verses 18-19 GROUP_374 10.18-19
18
وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ مَا لاَ يَضُرُّهُمْ وَلاَ يَنفَعُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ هَـؤُلاء شُفَعَاؤُنَا عِندَ اللّهِ قُلْ أَتُنَبِّئُونَ اللّهَ بِمَا لاَ يَعْلَمُ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَلاَ فِي الأَرْضِ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ
Instead of God they worship what neither harms nor benefits them, and they say: ‘These are our intercessors with God.’ Say, ‘Do you inform God about something in heavens and on earth that He does not know? Glory be to Him; may He be Exalted over whatever they associate [with Him]!’
19
وَمَا كَانَ النَّاسُ إِلاَّ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً فَاخْتَلَفُواْ وَلَوْلاَ كَلِمَةٌ سَبَقَتْ مِن رَّبِّكَ لَقُضِيَ بَيْنَهُمْ فِيمَا فِيهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ
Mankind was only one community, but then they differed, and had it not been for a prior word from your Lord, their differences would have been settled for them.
No class discussions published for this verse group yet.
Commentary
(a) The events that occur in this world of ours seem, outwardly, to be the result of certain material causes, but the reality is that God’s control and management have been the underlying factors in all these events. In this world nobody has any personal or intrinsic power at all. A man is a monotheist (believing in the oneness of God) if he goes beyond the outwardly apparent phenomena and reaches the invisible God through them. As opposed to this, he is a polytheist (believing in partners to God) if he can go no further than outwardly apparent phenomena and if he confers on created things the status of their Creator. In this world nobody except God has the power to grant benefits or to inflict harm. A person who realises this truth devotes all his attention to God. He worships only God; he fears only Him and reposes his hopes in Him alone; he makes the one and only God his all. Unlike him, those who are preoccupied by mere things, make somebody other than God their God, according to their inclinations, and attach to these false gods such hopes and fears as should have been directed towards the one and only God. One form of these wrongful ideas is the belief in ‘recommen- dation.’ People suppose that there are some superior beings among human beings and among creatures other than human beings, who are holy in the eyes of God; God hears their recommendation and on the basis of this, He takes a decision about granting worldly provision and salvation in the after-life. But this kind of belief is false; it amounts to an underestimation of God’s godliness. God is free of every kind of shirk (imputing partners to God). No such belief befits the image of the qualities of God as is introduced and projected by the immense universe created by Him. Any such belief would mean that God is not what He seems to be in the mirror of His creative attributes, or that there is a contradiction in His attributes. Obviously, neither of these alternatives is possible. (a) God initially grounded human existence in the religion of nature. At that time, the religion of all humanity was one and the same. But, people had their differences and devised different forms of religions. The reason for this is the misuse of the freedom given to the people for the purpose of testing them. If God were to reveal Himself, human arrogance would come to an end on observing His powers, and suddenly unity would replace differences, because extremity of fear demolishes a a multiplicity of opinions. But God will not intervene in this state of affairs before Judgement Day. God had created the present world for the sake of putting human beings to the test, and to maintain the atmosphere of testing, it is necessary to keep the reality concealed, so that people should have the opportunity to use their wisdom in both right and wrong directions.