Sura- 12 [Yusuf mecca 53]

The Quranic Text & Ali’s version:

Asad’s Version:

12:5 And yet, I am not trying to absolve myself: for, verily, man’s inner self does incite to evil, and saved are only they upon whom my Sustainer bestows His grace. Behold my Sustainer is much forgiving, a dispenser of grace!” [see asad’s note 53]

Other versions:

Yusuf Ali "Nor do I absolve my own self (of blame): the (human soul) is certainly prone to evil unless my Lord do bestow His Mercy: but surely certainly my Lord is Oft-Forgiving Most Merciful."

Pickthall I do not exculpate myself. Lo! the (human) soul enjoineth unto evil, save that whereon my Lord hath mercy. My Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.

Yuksel "I do not make myself free of blame, for the person is inclined to sin, except what my Lord has mercy on. My Lord is Forgiving, Compassionate."

Transliteration Wa qa_lal maliku'tu_ni bihi astakhlishu linafsi, falamma_kallamahu_ qa_la innakal yauma ladaina_ makinun amin(un).

20:115 [Ta’ha, Mecca 45]

AND, INDEED, long ago did We impose Our commandment on Adam; 102 but he forgot it, and

We found no firmness of purpose in him.

20:116

For [thus it was:] when We told the angels, "Prostrate yourselves before Adam!" - they all

prostrated themselves, save Iblis, who refused [to do it]; 103 (20: 1 17) and thereupon We said: "O

Adam! Verily, this is a foe unto thee and thy wife: so let him not drive the two of you out of this garden and render thee unhappy. 104 (20: 118) Behold, it is provided for thee that thou shalt

not hunger here or feel naked, 105 (20: 1 19) and that thou shalt not thirst here or suffer from the

heat of the sun."

[[Asad’s note -102 The relevant divine commandment - or, rather, warning - is spelled out in verse 117. The present passage connects with the statement in verse 99, "Thus do We relate unto thee some of the stories of what happened in the past", and is meant to show that negligence of spiritual truths is one of the recurrent characteristics of the human race (Razi), which is symbolized here - as in many other

places in the Qur'an - by Adam. ]]

[[Ali’s note - 2640 The spiritual fall of two individual souls, Pharaoh and the Samiri, having been referred to, the one through overweening arrogance, and the other through a spirit of mischief and false harking back to the past, our attention is now called to the prototype of Evil (satan) who tempted Adam, the original Man, and to the fact that though man was clearly warned that satan is his enemy and will only effect his ruin, he showed so little firmness that he succumbed to it at once at the first opportunity. (20.115) ]]

103 See 2:30-34 and the corresponding notes, especially 23, 25 and 26, as well as note 31 on 15:41. Since - as I have shown in those notes - the faculty of conceptual thinking is man's outstanding endowment, his "forgetting" God's commandment - resulting from a lack of all "firmness of purpose"

in the domain of ethics - is an evidence of the moral weakness characteristic of the human race (cf. 4:28 - "man has been created weak"): and this, in its turn, explains maris dependence on

unceasing divine guidance, as pointed out in verse 113 above.

1 04 Lit. , " so that thou wilt become unhappy" . Regarding the significance of "the garden" spoken of here, see surah 2, note 27.

105 Lit., "be naked": but in view of the statement inverse 121 (as well as in 7:22) to the effect that only after their fall from grace did Adam and Eve become "conscious of their nakedness", it is but logical to assume that the words "that thou shalt not... be naked" have a spiritual significance, implying that man, in his original state of innocence, would not feel naked despite all absence of clothing. (For the deeper implications of this allegory, see note 14 on 7:20.)