25. al-Furqan' Mecca 42
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
وَقَالَ
الرَّسُولُ
يَا رَبِّ إِنَّ
قَوْمِي اتَّخَذُوا
هَذَا الْقُرْآنَ
مَهْجُورًا
﴿٣٠﴾
25:30. Then the Messenger will say:
"O my Lord! truly my people took this Qur'án for just foolish nonsense."
25:30 AND (on that Day] the Apostle will say: 23 "0 my Sustainer! Behold, [some of] my people have come to regard this Qur'an as something [that ought to be] discarded !" 24
[[Asad’s notes - 23 My interpolation of the words "on that Day" and the (linguistically permissible) attribution of futurity to the past-tense verb qala is based on the identical interpretation of the above phrase by great commentators like Abu Muslim (as quoted by Razi) or Baghawi.
24 I.e., as mere wishful thinking and, therefore, of no account, or as something that in the course of time has "ceased to be relevant". Since many of those whom the message of the Qur'an has reached did and do regard it as a divine revelation and therefore as most "relevant" in every sense of the word, it is obvious that the expression "my people" cannot possibly denote here all of the Prophet's community (either in the national or in the ideological sense of this word), but signifies only such of his nominal followers as have lost all real faith in the Qur'anic message: hence the necessity of interpolating the (elliptically implied) words "some of" before "my people". ]]
Yuksel’s note on 68:1
068:001 N50. This letter/number plays an important role in the mathematical system of the Quran based on code 19. For the meaning of this letter, see 74:1-56; 1:1; 2:1; 13:38; 27:82; 38:1-8; 40:28-38; 46:10; 72:28.
Ibn Kathir is a popular commentary of the Quran, which is respected because of its reliance on hadith to "explain" verses of the Quran. Ibn Kathir (d. 1372), in the classic commentary carrying his name, makes the following remarks on
verses 2:29 and 68:1. For this commentary, he relies mainly on a hadith from Abu Dawud (d. 888), one of the so-called authentic Sunni holy hadith books:
Ibn Abbas told all of you by Wasil b. Abd al-Ala al-Asadi- Muhammad b. Fudayl- al-Amash- abu Zabyan- ibn Abbas: the first thing God created is the pen. God then said to it: write!, Whereupon the pen asked: what shall I write, my lord! God replied: write what is predestined! He continued: and the pen proceeded to (write) whatever is predestined and gong to be to the coming of the hour. God then lifted up the water vapor and split the heavens off from it. Then God created the fish (nun), and the earth was spread out upon its back. The fish became agitated, with the result that the earth was shaken up. It was steadied by means of the mountains, for they indeed proudly (tower) over the earth.
After learning the intellectual level of the “believers,” collectors, narrators, and commentators of the above hadith, such as Abu Dawud (d. 888), al-Tabari (d. 1516), and Ibn al-Baz (1995), it becomes clear why Muhammad would utter the words in 25:30. See 21:33; 27:88; 36:40; 39:5; 79:30.
Yuksel’s version
68:1 N50, the pen, and what they write.*
68:2 You are not, by the blessing of your Lord, crazy.
68:3 You will have a reward that is well deserved.
68:4 You are on a high moral standard.
68:5 So you will see, and they will see.
68:6 Which of you are tormented.