Sura-43 [Az Zukhruf Mecca 63]
وَإِنَّهُ
لَعِلْمٌ لِّلسَّاعَةِ
...
43:61. And (Jesus) shall be a Sign (for the coming of) the Hour (of Judgment):
C4662. This is understood to refer to the second coming of Jesus in the Last Days before the Resurrection, when he will destroy the false doctrines that pass under his name, and prepare the way for the universal acceptance of Islam, the Gospel of Unity and Peace, the Straight Way of the Quran.
... فَلَا تَمْتَرُنَّ بِهَا وَاتَّبِعُونِ...
therefore have no doubt about the (Hour), but follow ye Me:
...هَذَا صِرَاطٌ مُّسْتَقِيمٌ ﴿٦١﴾
this is a Straight Way.
وَلَا
يَصُدَّنَّكُمُ
الشَّيْطَانُ
إِنَّهُ لَكُمْ
عَدُوٌّ مُّبِينٌ
﴿٦٢﴾
43:62. Let not the Evil One hinder you: for he is to you an enemy avowed.
وَلَمَّا
جَاء
عِيسَى بِالْبَيِّنَاتِ
قَالَ...
43:63. When Jesus came with Clear Signs, he said:
...قَدْ جِئْتُكُم بِالْحِكْمَةِ وَلِأُبَيِّنَ لَكُم بَعْضَ الَّذِي تَخْتَلِفُونَ فِيهِ...
"Now have I come to you with Wisdom, and in order to make clear to you some of the (points) on which ye dispute:
C4663. True wisdom consists in understanding the unity of the Divine purpose and the Unity of the Divine Personality. The man Jesus came to reconcile the jarring sects in Israel, and his true teaching was just the same as that which was expounded in a wider form by Islam. He did not claim to be God: why should not the Christians follow the doctrine of Unity rather than what has become their ancestral and traditional custom?
...فَاتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُونِ ﴿٦٣﴾
therefore fear Allah and obey me.
إِنَّ
اللَّهَ
هُوَ رَبِّي
وَرَبُّكُمْ
فَاعْبُدُوهُ
...
43:64. "For Allah;
He is my Lord and your Lord: so worship ye Him:
C4664.
- In verses 26-28 an appeal is made to the pagan Arabs, that Islam is their own religion, the religion of Abraham their ancestor;
- in verses 46-54, an appeal is made to the Jews that Islam is the same religion as was taught by Moses, and that they should not allow their leaders to make fools of them;
- in verses 57-65 an appeal is made to the Christians that Islam is the same religion as was taught by Jesus, and that they should give up their sectarian attitude and follow the universal religion, which shows the Straight Way.
... هَذَا صِرَاطٌ مُّسْتَقِيمٌ ﴿٦٤﴾
this is a Straight Way."
فَاخْتَلَفَ الْأَحْزَابُ مِن بَيْنِهِمْ...
43:65. But sects from among themselves fell into disagreement:
...فَوَيْلٌ
لِّلَّذِينَ
ظَلَمُوا مِنْ
عَذَابِ يَوْمٍ
أَلِيمٍ
﴿٦٥﴾
then woe to the wrongdoers, from the Penalty of a Grievous Day!
هَلْ
يَنظُرُونَ
إِلَّا السَّاعَةَ
أَن تَأْتِيَهُم
بَغْتَةً وَهُمْ
لَا يَشْعُرُونَ
﴿٦٦﴾
66. Do they only wait for the Hour --
that it should come on them all of a sudden, while they perceive not?
C4665. Cf. 12:107.
What is there to wait for?
The Hour of Judgment may come at any moment. It will come all of a sudden before they realise that it is on them. They should make up their minds to give up misleading disputations and come to the Straight Path.
الْأَخِلَّاء
يَوْمَئِذٍ
بَعْضُهُمْ
لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ
إِلَّا الْمُتَّقِينَ
﴿٦٧﴾
67. Friends on that Day will be foes, one to another,
except the Righteous.
C4666. The hatred and spite, which are associated with evil, will be felt with peculiar intensity in that period of agony. That itself would be a punishment, from which the righteous will be free. The righteous will have passed all perils of falling into wrong frames of mind.
Jesus' Birth as a Sign for the End of the World
43:61 He was a sign for knowing the moment. You should have no doubt about it. Follow Me; this is a straight path.*
43:62 Let not the devil repel you; he is to you a clear enemy.
43:63 When Jesus came with the proofs, he said, "I have come to you with the wisdom, and to clarify some of the matters in which you dispute. So be aware of God and obey me."
43:64 "God is my Lord and your Lord. So serve Him. This is a straight path."
43:65 The groups disputed among themselves. Woe to those who have been wicked from the retribution of a painful day.
43:66 Do they only wait for the moment to come to them suddenly, while they do not perceive?
43:67 Friends on that day will become enemies of one another, except for the righteous.
43:68 "O My servants, you will have no fear on this day, nor will you grieve."
43:69 They are the ones who acknowledged Our signs, and had peacefully surrendered.
[[Yuksel’s note - 043:061 The Quran contains some hints regarding the time of the end of the world (20:15; 15:87). See 47:18
43:61 AND, BEHOLD, this [divine writ] is indeed a means to know [that] the Last Hour [is bound to come]; 48 hence, have no doubt whatever about it, but follow Me: this [alone] is a straight way.
(43:62) And let not Satan bar you [from it] - for, verily, he is your open foe!
43:63 NOW WHEN Jesus came [to his people] with all evidence of the truth, he said: "I have now come unto you with wisdom, 49 and to make clear unto you some of that on which you are at variance: 50 hence, be conscious of God, and pay heed unto me.
43:64 "Verily, God is my Sustainer as well as your Sustainer; so worship [none but) Him: this [alone] is a straight way!"
(43:65) But factions from among those [who came after Jesus] began to hold divergent views: 51 woe, then, unto those who are bent on evildoing - [woe] for the suffering [that will befall them] on a grievous Day!
43:66 ARE THEY [who are lost in sin] but waiting for the Last Hour - [waiting] that it come upon them of a sudden, without their being aware [of its approach]?
(43:67) On that Day, [erstwhile] friends will be foes unto one another 52 - [all] save the God-conscious.
[[Asad’s notes -
45 Objecting to the Qur'anic condemnation of their idolatrous worship of angels - whom they describe here as "our deities" - the pagan Quraysh pointed to the parallel Christian worship of Jesus as "the son of God", and even as "God incarnate", and argued more or less thus: "The Qur'an states that Jesus was purely human - and yet the Christians, whom the same Qur'an describes as 'followers of earlier revelation' (ahl al-kitab), consider him divine. Hence; are we not rather justified in our worshipping
angels, who are certainly superior to a mere human being?" The fallacy inherent in this
"argument" is disposed of in the sequence.
46 Since the Qur'an condemns explicitly, and in many places, the deification of Jesus by the Christians, this unwarranted deification cannot be used as an argument in favour of the pagan worship of angels and, thus, against the Qur'an: in the words of Zamakhshari, such an argument amounts to "applying a false analogy to a false proposition" (qiyas batil bi-batil).
47 Implying not only that Jesus was not a supernatural being, but that the angels, too, are mere created beings finite in their existence - as indicated by the phrase "succeeding one another" - and, therefore, utterly removed from the status of divinity (Baydawi).
48 Whereas most of the commentators regard the pronoun hu in innahu as relating to Jesus and, consequently, interpret the above phrase as "he is indeed a means to know [i.e., an indication of the coming of] the Last Hour", some authorities - e.g., Qatadah, Al-Hasan al-Basri and Sa'id ibn Jubayr (all of them quoted by Tabari, Baghawi and Ibn Kathir) - relate the pronoun to the Qur'an, and understand the phrase in the sense adopted in my rendering. The specific mention of the Last Hour in the above
context is meant to stress man's ultimate responsibility before the Creator and, therefore, the fact that worship is due to Him alone: and so this parenthetic passage follows logically upon the mention of the false deification of Jesus.
49 I.e., with divine revelation.
50 According to Tabari, the restrictive allusion to "some of that..., etc., bears on the realm of faith and morals alone, since it was not a part of Jesus' mission to deal with problems of his people's worldly life. This observation coincides with the image of Jesus forthcoming from the (admittedly fragmentary) description of his teachings available to us in the Synoptic Gospels. ]]