27. An-Naml (The Ants)
Mecca Period 48
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
أَمَّن
يُجِيبُ
الْمُضْطَرَّ
إِذَا دَعَاهُ...
27: 62 Or, who listens to the (soul) distressed when it calls on Him,
...وَيَكْشِفُ السُّوءَ ...
and who relieves its suffering,
C3297. Besides the evidence of external nature, there is the still more intimate evidence in man's inner conscience and heart.
Allah listens to man's cry of agony and relieves his suffering, and He has given him superiority over other creation on this earth, through his mind and soul. Is man then going to run after inferior beings and forget Allah?
... وَيَجْعَلُكُمْ خُلَفَاء الْأَرْضِ...
and makes you (mankind) inheritors of the earth?
...أَإِلَهٌ مَّعَ اللَّهِ...
(Can there be another) god besides Allah?
...قَلِيلًا مَّا تَذَكَّرُونَ ﴿٦٢﴾
Little it is that ye heed!
أَمَّن
يَهْدِيكُمْ
فِي ظُلُمَاتِ
الْبَرِّ
وَالْبَحْرِ...
27: 63. Or, who guides you through the depths of darkness on land and sea,
...وَمَن يُرْسِلُ الرِّيَاحَ بُشْرًا بَيْنَ يَدَيْ رَحْمَتِهِ...
and who sends the winds as heralds of glad tidings, going before His mercy?
After external nature, our attention was drawn to our inner consciousness; after that, it is drawn here to our social and collective life, in which we use the forces of nature for international intercourse, trade, agriculture, production, and economic well-being generally. In the next verse, we are asked to contemplate creation from its primeval stages, through its intermediate processes, to the final Destiny in a new Creation-a new heaven and a new earth.
...أَإِلَهٌ مَّعَ اللَّهِ...
(Can there be another) god besides Allah? --
...تَعَالَى اللَّهُ عَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ ﴿٦٣﴾
high is Allah above what they associate with Him!
Asad’s Version:
27:62 Nay - who is it that responds to the distressed when he calls out to Him, and who removes the ill [that caused the distress], and has made you inherit the earth? 57
Could there be any divine power besides God? How seldom do you keep this in mind!
27:63 Nay - who is it that guides you in the midst of the deep darkness of land and sea, 58 and sends forth the winds as a glad tiding of His coming grace?" Could there be any divine power besides God? Sublimely exalted is God above anything to which men may ascribe a share in His divinity!
[[Asad’s notes -57 Cf. 2:30 and the corresponding note 22. In the present instance the accent is on God's having caused man to "inherit the earth" by endowing him with specific faculties and abilities an implicit denial of man's claim that he is independent and "master of his fate". ]]