8. [al-Anfal, Medina 88, after Badr, 2H]
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
يِا
أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ
آمَنُواْ إَن
تَتَّقُواْ
اللّهَ يَجْعَل
لَّكُمْ فُرْقَاناً...
8: 29. O ye who believe!
if ye fear Allah, He will grant you a criterion (to judge between right and wrong),
The battle of Badr is called the Furqan in Muslim theology, because it was the first trial of strength by battle, in Islam, between the powers of good and evil. Evil was defeated, and those who had real faith were tested and sorted out from those who had not faith enough to follow the banner of Faith.
...وَيُكَفِّرْ عَنكُمْ سَيِّئَاتِكُمْ وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ...
remove from you (all) evil (that may afflict) you,
and forgive you:
...وَاللّهُ ذُو الْفَضْلِ الْعَظِيمِ ﴿٢٩﴾
for Allah is the Lord of grace unbounded.
8: 29
Asad O you who have attained to faith! If you remain conscious of God, He will endow you with a standard by which to discern the true from false [note 29], and will efface your bad deeds, and will forgive you your sins: for God is limitless in His great bounty.
Pickthall O ye who believe! If ye keep your duty to Allah, He will give you discrimination (between right and wrong) and will rid you of your evil thoughts and deeds, and will forgive you. Allah is of infinite bounty.
Transliteration Ya_ ayyuhal lazina a_manu_ in tattaqulla_ha yaj'al lakum furqa_naw wa yukaffir 'ankum sayyi'a_tikum wa yagfir lakum, walla_hu zul fadlil 'azim(i).
[[ Asad’s note 29 – I.e., the faculty of moral valuation (Manar lX, 648) See also surah 2, note 38.]]
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2. [al-Baqara, Medina 87]
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
وَإِذْ
آتَيْنَا مُوسَى
الْكِتَابَ
وَالْفُرْقَانَ
...
2: 53. And remember We gave Moses the Scripture and the criterion (between right and wrong),
C68. Allah's revelation, the expression of Allah's Will, is the true standard of right and wrong. It may be in a Book or in Allah's dealings in history. All these may be called His Signs or Miracles.
In this passage some commentators take the Scripture and the Criterion (Furqan) to be identical.
Others take them to be two distinct things:
- Scripture being the written Book and
- the Criterion being other Signs.
I agree with the latter view.
The word Furqan also occurs in 21:48 in connection with Moses and Aaron and in the first verse of Surah 25, as well as in its title, in connection with Muhammad.
As Aaron received no Book, Furqan must mean the other Signs.
Mustafa had both the Book and the other Signs: perhaps here too we take the other Signs as supplementing the Book.
Cf. Words worth's "Arbiter undisturbed of right and wrong." (Prelude, Book 4)
... لَعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ ﴿٥٣﴾
there was a chance for you to be guided aright.
Asad’s Version:
2:53
And [remember the time] when We vouchsafed unto Moses the divine writ – and [thus] a standard by which to discern the true from the false [note 38] – so that you might be guided aright;
[[Asad’s note 38 – Muhammad Abduh amplifies the above interpretation of al-furqan (adopted by Tabari, Zamakhshari and oterh great commentators) by maintaining that it applies also to “human reason, which enables us to distinguish the true from the false” (Manar iii, 160), apparently basing this wider interpretation on 8:41, where the battle of Bdr is described as “yawm al-furqan” (“the day on which the true was distinguished from the false”). While the term furqan is often used in the Quran to describe one or another of the revealed scriptures, and particularly the Quran itself, it has undoubtedly also the connotation pointed out by Abduh: for instance, in 8:29 where it clearly refers to the faculty of moral valuation which distinguishes every human being who is truly conscious of God. ]]