2. Surah Al Baqarah

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

وَإِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلاَئِكَةِ إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً ...

2: 30. Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: "I will create a vicegerent on earth."

... قَالُواْ أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاء...

They said, "Wilt thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood?

... وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ ...

Whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy holy (name)?"

... قَالَ إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ مَا لاَ تَعْلَمُونَ ﴿٣٠﴾

He said: "I know what ye know not."

C47. It would seem that the angels, though holy and pure, and endued with power from Allah, yet represented only one side of Creation. We may imagine them without passion or emotion, of which the highest flower is love.

If man was to be endued with emotions, those emotions would lead him to the highest and drag him to the lowest.

The power of will or choosing would have to go with them, in order that man might steer his own bark. This power of will (when used aright) gave him to some extent a mastery over his own fortunes and over nature, thus bringing him nearer to the God-like nature which has supreme mastery and will.

We may suppose the angels had no independent wills of their own; their perfection in other ways reflected Allah's perfection but could not raise them to the dignity of vicegerency.

The perfect vicegerent is he who has the power of initiative himself, but whose independent action always reflects perfectly the will of his Principal.

The distinction is expressed by Shakespeare (Sonnet 94) in those fine lines:

"They are the lords and owners of their faces.

Others but stewards of their excellence."

The angels in their one-sidedness saw only the mischief consequent on the misuse of the emotional nature by man; perhaps they also, being without emotions, did not understand the whole of Allah's nature, which gives and asks for love. In humility and true devotion to Allah, they remonstrate; we must not imagine the least tinge of jealousy, as they are without emotion.

This mystery of love being above them, they are told that they do not know and they acknowledge (in 2:32 below) not their fault (for there is no question of fault) but their imperfection of knowledge. At the same time, the matter is brought home to them when the actual capacities of man are shown to them (2:31, 33).

Asad’s Version:

2:30

AND LO!²¹ Thy Sustainer said unto the angels: "Behold, I am about to establish upon earth one who shall inherit it."²²

They said: "Wilt Thou place on it such as will spread corruption thereon and shed blood -
whereas it is we who extol Thy limitless glory, and praise Thee, and hallow Thy name?

[God] answered: "Verily, I know that which you do not know."

20 The term sama' ("heaven" or "sky") is applied to anything that is spread like a canopy above
any other thing. Thus, the visible skies which stretch like a vault above the earth and form,
as it were, its canopy, are called sama: and this is the primary meaning of this term in the

Qur'an; in a wider sense, it has the connotation of "cosmic system". As regards the "seven

heavens", it is to be borne in mind that in Arabic usage - and apparently in other Semitic

languages as well - the number "seven" is often synonymous with "several" (see Lisan al-'Arab), just as "seventy" or "seven hundred" often means "many" or "very many" (Taj al-'Arus). This, taken together with the accepted linguistic definition that "every sama' is a sama' with
regard to what is below it" (Raghib), may explain the "seven heavens" as denoting the
multiplicity of cosmic systems. - For my rendering of thumma, at the beginning of this
sentence, as "and", see surah 7, first part of note 43.

21 The interjection "lo" seems to be the only adequate rendering, in this context, of the

particle idh, which is usually - and without sufficient attention to its varying uses in

Arabic construction - translated as "when". Although the latter rendering is often justified,
idh is also used to indicate "the sudden, or unexpected, occurrence of a thing"
(cf. Lane 1, 39), or a sudden turn in the discourse. The subsequent allegory, relating as
it does to the faculty of reason implanted in man, is logically connected with the preceding
passages.

22 Lit., "establish on earth a successor" or a "vice-gerent". The term khalffah - derived from the verb khalafa, "he succeeded [another] " - is used in this allegory to denote man's rightful supremacy on earth, which is most suitably rendered by the expression "he shall inherit the earth" (in the sense of being given possession of it). See also 6:165, 27:62 and 35:39, where all human beings are - spoken of as khala'if al-ard.