59 Al-Hashr (The Gathering)

Medina Period [101]

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

كَمَثَلِ الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ قَرِيبًا ...

59: 15.  Like those who lately preceded them,

C5392. The immediate reference was probably to the Jewish goldsmith tribe of the Qaynuqa, who were also settled in a fortified township near Madinah. They were also punished and banished for their treachery, about a month after the battle of Badr, in which the Makkan Pagans had suffered a signal defeat, in Shawwal, A.H. 2. The Nadir evidently did not take that lesson to heart.

The general meaning is that we must learn to be on our guard against the consequences of treachery and sin. No fortuitous alliances with other men of iniquity will save us.

... ذَاقُوا وَبَالَ أَمْرِهِمْ وَلَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ ﴿١٥﴾

they have tasted the evil result of their conduct, and (in the Hereafter there is) for them a grievous Penalty --

Asad’s Version:

59:15 [To both kinds of your enemies, 21 O believers, is bound to happen] the like of [what happened to] those who, a short while before them, had to taste the evil that came from their own doings, 22 with [yet more] grievous suffering awaiting them [in the life to come]:

Asad’s note on 59:15

20 Sc, "with a view to achieving what is good for themselves" : implying that people who have no real faith and no definite moral convictions can never attain to true unity among themselves, but are always impelled to commit acts of aggression against one another.

21 This interpolation - relating as it does to both the outright deniers of ihe truth and the hypocrites - is justified by the occurrence of the dual form in verse 17.

22 In the first instance, this is apparently an allusion to the fate of the pagan Quraysh at the battle of Badr (Zamakhshari) or, according to some authorities (quoted by Tabari), to the treachery and subsequent expulsion from Medina, in the month of Shawwal, 2 H., of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qaynuqa'. But in a wider perspective - strongly suggested by the next two verses - the meaning is general and not restricted to any particular time or historical occurrence. ]]