26. ash-Shuara, Mecca 47

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

وَمَا أَسْأَلُكُمْ عَلَيْهِ مِنْ أَجْرٍ...

26: 127. "No reward do I ask of you for it:

...إِنْ أَجْرِيَ إِلَّا عَلَى رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ ﴿١٢٧﴾

my reward is only from the Lord of the Worlds.

Asad’s Version:

26: 227 [Most of them are of this kind - ] save those who have attained to faith, and do righteous deeds, and remember God unceasingly, and defend themselves [only] after having been wronged, 101 and [trust in God's promise that] those who are bent on wrong doing will in time come to know how evil a turn their destinies are bound to take ! 102

[[Asad’s notes:-

99 An allusion to the fact that some of the pagan Arabs regarded the Qur'an as a product of Muhammad's supposedly poetic mind. (See also 36:69 and the corresponding notes 38 and 39.)

100 The idiomatic phrase hama fi widyan (lit., "he wandered [or "roamed"] through valleys") is used, as most of the commentators point out, to describe a confused or aimless and often self- contradictory - play with words and thoughts. In this context it is meant to stress the difference between the precision of the Qur'an, which is free from all inner contradictions (cf note 97 on 4:82), and the vagueness often inherent in poetry.

101 Thus the Qur'an makes it clear that a true believer may fight only in self-defence: cf.

22:39-40, the earliest reference to war as such, and 2:190-194, where the circumstances making

war fully justified are further elaborated.