Sura-9 [Al Tauba medina 113]

The Quranic Text & Ali’s version:

الأَعْرَابُ أَشَدُّ كُفْرًا وَنِفَاقًا وَأَجْدَرُ أَلاَّ يَعْلَمُواْ حُدُودَ مَا أَنزَلَ اللّهُ عَلَى رَسُولِهِ...   

9:97.  The Arabs of the desert are the worst in unbelief and hypocrisy,

and most fitted to be in ignorance of the command which Allah hath sent down to His Messenger:

... وَاللّهُ عَلِيمٌ حَكِيمٌ ﴿٩٧﴾

but Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise.

Asad’s Version:

9: 97

Asad [The hypocrites among] the Bedouin [note 130] are more tenacious in [their] refusal to acknowledge the truth ……………God is all-knowing, wise [note 131].

Yusuf Ali The Arabs of the desert are the worst in unbelief and hypocrisy and most fitted to be in ignorance of the command which Allah hath sent down to his apostle: but Allah is All-Knowing All-Wise.

Pickthall The wandering Arabs are more hard in disbelief and hypocrisy, and more likely to be ignorant of the limits which Allah hath revealed unto His messenger. And Allah is knower, Wise.

Transliteration Al a'ra_bu asyaddu kufraw wa nifa_qaw wa ajdaru alla_ ya'lamu_ hudu_da ma_ anzalalla_hu 'ala_ rasu_lih(i), walla_hu 'alimun hakim(un).

[[ Asad’s note 130 – The words interpolated by me between brackets at the beginning of this sentence are based on the interpretation given by Razi obviously in view of verse 99, which speaks of believers among the Bedouin. ]]

[[ Asad’s note 131 – Owing to their nomadic way of life and its inherent hardship and crudity, the Bedouin find it more difficult than do settled people to be guided by ethical imperatives unconnected with their immediate tribal interests - ………It is for this reason the Prophet that the Prophet often stressed the superiority of a settled mode of life to a nomadic one: cf. his saying “He who dwells in the desert (al-badiyah) becomes rough in disposition”, recorded by Tirmidhi, Abu Daud, Nasai and Ibn Hanbal on the authority of Iben Abbas, and a similar tradition, on the authority of Abu Hurayrah, by Abu Diud and Bayhaqi.}