16. Sura al-Nahl
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
16: 112. Allah sets forth a parable:
... قَرْيَةً كَانَتْ آمِنَةً مُّطْمَئِنَّةً يَأْتِيهَا رِزْقُهَا رَغَدًا مِّن كُلِّ مَكَانٍ...
a city enjoying security and quiet, abundantly supplied with sustenance from every place:
C2149. The reference may be to any of the cities or populations in ancient or modern times, which were favoured with security and other blessings from Allah, but which rebelled from Allah's Law and tasted the inevitable penalty, even in the midst of their iniquities.
Some Commentators see here a reference to the city of Makkah under Pagan control.
See next note.
... فَكَفَرَتْ بِأَنْعُمِ اللّهِ...
yet was it ungrateful for the favors of Allah:
... فَأَذَاقَهَا اللّهُ لِبَاسَ الْجُوعِ وَالْخَوْفِ بِمَا كَانُواْ يَصْنَعُونَ ﴿١١٢﴾
so Allah made it taste of hunger and terror (in extremes) (closing in on it) like a garment (from every side), because of the (evil)which (its people) wrought.
C2150. There is a double metaphor:
- the tasting of hunger and terror after the abundant supplies and the full security which it had enjoyed; and
- the complete enfolding of the City as with a garment, by these two scourges, hunger and a state of subjective alarm.
If the reference is to Makkah shortly before its fall to the Muslims, the "hunger" was the seven years' severe famine which afflicted it, and the alarm was the constant fear in the minds of the Pagans that their day was done. Peace and prosperity were restored after the re-entry of the Prophet.
Other versions:
16: 112
Asad And God propounds a parable: a town which was secure and at ease, with its sustenance coming to it abundantly from all quarters, and which thereupon blasphemously refused to show gratitude for God’s blessings: and therefore God caused it to taste the all-embracing misery of hunger and fear in result of all [the evil] that its people had so persistently wrought.
Pickthall Allah coineth a similitude: a township that dwelt secure and well content, its provision coming to it in abundance from every side, but it disbelieved in Allah's favors, so Allah made it experience the garb of dearth and fear because of what they used to do.
Transliteration Wa daraballa_hu masalan qaryatan ka_nat a_minatam mutma'innatay ya'tiha_ rizquha_ ragadam min kulli maka_nin fa kafarat bi an'umilla_hi fa aza_qahalla_hu liba_sal ju_'i wal khaufi bima_ ka_nu_ yasna'u_n(a).