43.

Sura Zukhruf (or Gold Adornments)

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

By the Book (Qur-an) that makes matters clear to understand. It is in

the Mother of the Book (The Foundation of Revelation, Preserved Tablet) and
revealed in the language of Arabic for you to understand well. We would have
utterly ignored you as you are a people who transgress beyond bound. How
many Messengers were sent to the people before you? But the evil-mongers
always mocked and disobeyed them. So We destroyed such people although
they were much much more in power and pelf than you people (Meccan
Pagans). The events of those people of the past have become the parables for
the present and the future generations. If you (O Muhammad) question these
people: Who has created the heavens and the earth? It is sure, they will
answer: God, Exalted in Power, Full of Knowledge. Ask them: Who made the
earth as a resting place for you, and placed roads (and channels) for you
therein, that you may find your way? Ask them: Who sends down water from
the sky in due measure and revive a dead land therewith? In the same way you
will also be raised once again. He created all in pairs, and appointed for you
ships and cattle on which you ride and cover long distances. So that you may
remember your Lord’s favours when you mount on them and may say: Glorify
be He Who has subdued these to us, as such we were not capable of subduing
them. Surely, for the men of understanding their thoughts go to their Lord and
are sure that they have ultimately to return to Him. Yet some of Our servants
are ungrateful and attribute to some of His servants a share with Him. Truly,
man is blasphemous.

To imagine goddesses (female gods) or mothers or daughters to God

was particularly blasphemous in the mouth of people who held the female sex
in contempt. Such were the pagan Arabs. They wince when a daughter is born
to them and hanker after sons. With that mentality: How can they attribute
daughters to God? The females is usually brought up among trinkets and
ornaments, and, on account of the retiring modesty which for the sex is a
virtue, is unable to stand up boldly in a fight and give clear indications of the
will to win. Is that sort of quality to be associated with God? They make the
angels, who are the slaves of the Beneficient, as females. Did they witness
their creation? Their testimony will be recorded and they will be questioned.
They say: If the Beneficent One had (so) willed, we should not have
worshipped them. They have no knowledge whatsoever of that. They do but
guess. What! Have We given them a Book before this (Qur-an), to which they
are holding fast? They say that they found their fathers following religion
practice, so they follow their elders. (O Muhammad), their thinking is just the
identical as of those before them to whom also the Messengers were sent for
the guidance. The Warner said: What! Even though I bring you a better
guidance than that you found your fathers following? They answered: Lo! In
what you bring we are disbelievers. So We requited them. Then see the nature
of the consequences for the rejectors!
 If the Arabs of the Desert hark back to ancestory, why not to accept the
Faith of Abraham, the True? He joined not gods with God. Abraham left this
eternal message for decendents and his believers, so that they may not astray.
Yes, I (God) have given the good things of this life to these men and their
fathers, until the Truth (Qur-an) has come to them, and an Apostle is with them
making things clear. But when the Truth came to them they called it just a
sorcery and nothing more! Also they call to question and say: Why is not this
Qur-an sent down to some leading man in either of the two Chief Cities
(Mecca and Taif)? Is it they who apportion their Lord’s mercy? We have
apportioned among them their livelihood in the life of the world, and raised
some of them above others in rank that some of them may take labour from
others; and the Mercy of your Lord is better than the wealth they amass. And
were it not that mankind would have become one community (through love of
riches), We might well have appointed, for those who disbelieve in the
Beneficient, roofs of silver for their houses and stairs (of silver) whereby to
mount, silver thrones on which they could recline. Also, adornments of gold.
But all these are nothing but conveniences of the present life. In the sight of
your Lord, Hereafter is for the righteous ones.

If anyone withdraws himself from the remembrance of God, the

natural consequence, under God’s decree, is that they join on with evil. Such
evil ones turn them from the right path. They think evil to be their good. They
go deeper and deeper into the mire, and become more and more callous. If
ever the presence of God is felt, or at the time of Judgement, a glimmering of
truth comes to the deceived soul, and it cries to its evil companion in its agony,
“Would that I had never come across you! Would that we were separated
apart!” But it cannot shake off evil, By deliberate choice it had put itself in its
snare. All partners in evil will certainly share in the punishment, but that is no
consolation to any individual soul, Evil desires the evil of others but that does
not diminish its own torment, or get rid of the personal responsibility of each
individual soul. The evil go heading into sin, and sink deeper and deeper until
their spiritual faculties are deadened and no outside help can bring them back.
God’s grace they have rejected. There is hope for a person who wanders in
quest of truth, and even for one who wanders through mistake or by weakness
of will. But there is none for one who, by deliberate choice, plunges into
manifest error, i.e. error which anyone can see. The Unbelievers always
plotted against you (O Muhammad), to keep you in bonds, or slay you or get
you out of your home. But even if their plots had succeeded against human
beings. They could not defeat God’s Plan, nor escape the just punishment of
their deeds. Let the wicked rage, say what they like, or do their worst: the man
of God is encouraged to go forward steadfastly in the Light given him, for he
is on a Path that leads straight to God. The Qur-an is a Message for you and
your people. Soon all of you will be brought before Him to account for their
deeds on earth and ask those of Our Messengers whom We sent before you:
Did We ever appoint gods to be worshipped beside God, Most Gracious?

Before this, We sent Moses with Our Signs to Pharaoh and his Chiefs.
Moses said: I am an apostle from the Lords of the Worlds. But they mocked
him. Moses showed them Signs after Signs each greater than the preceding
one. But this made no difference to their idealogy and attitudes. At last We
seized them, and punished them one after the other. But these did not produce
any change in them. For the time being they promised to obey. But as soon as
that punishment was removed by the grace of God, they again became
obdurate and used to call Moses as a great Sorcerer! Pharaoh proclaimed
among his people: “O my people! Does not the dominion of Egypt belong to
me, witness these streams flowing underneath my palace? Don’t you see then,
I am better than Moses who can scarcely express himself clearly? And if he is
right, then, why have armlets of gold not been set upon him or angels sent
along with him?” Thus Pharaoh persuaded his people to make light of Moses
and they obeyed him. Lo! They were the rebellious lot. So, when they angered
Us, We punished them and drowned them every one and made a civilization of
the past and an example for the coming generations.

When (Jesus) the son of Mary is quoted as an example, behold, the

people laugh out and say: Are our gods better, or is he? They raised the
objection only for the sake of objection. They were a contentious people.
Jesus, son of Mary, was no more than a servant of God and He granted His
favours to him, and made him a pattern for the Children of Israel! Had We
willed, We could have set among you angels to be viceroys on earth. Jesus,
son of Mary, shall be a Sign of the coming of the Day (i.e. this is understood to
refer to the second coming of Jesus in its Last Days of the earth, before the
Resurrection of the human beings. As such, 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 Qur-an. And let
not the Evil one (Satan) turn you aside. Lo! he is an open enemy of mankind.
When Jesus came with clear proofs of God’s sovereignty, he said: I have come
to you with Wisdom, and to make plain some of that concerning which you
differ. So keep your duty to God, and obey me. For God, He is my Lord and
your Lordl. So worship Him and that is the Straight Way. But sects from
among themselves fell into disagreement. The wrong-doers have to be
punished grieviously. They have only to wait till such time which will come
on them all of a sudden at a time when they least thought of its approach. That
Day shall be such when friends will become foes to one another, except those
who were righteous ones. My obedient devotees who believed in Our Signs
and bowed their will to Ours in Islam, shall have no fear nor grief on that Day.
They shall be in the complete state of bliss. There shall be no fear nor grief for
them. They shall be told to enter the Garden along with their wives for their
good deeds which they did in their life span. To them will be passed round,
dishes and goblets of gold. There will be all that souls could desire or eyes
could delight. They shall be there for ever. The Sinners will be in the
Punishment of Hell and will be there forever. Their punishment shall never be
lightened and always be in the state of depair. The wrong-doers suffer not
because God is unjust or cruch. But because their evil deeds must bear their
inevitable fruit. God’s Grace was ever ready to accept repentance and offer
forgiveness. But they rejected it. They were unjust to themselves. They will
cry and desire for death, but there is no death for any soul in the Hereafter.
They will be told that the Truth was brought to you but you hated the Truth.
Have the Unbelievers made any Plan among themselves. They should know, it
is God alone who settles things. Do they think that We do not hear their secrets
and their private discussions? Indeed, We do, and Our envoys with them, also
record it. Say (O Muhammad): The Beneficient One has no son. Had He one, I
(Apostle) would have been the first to worship. Glorified be the Lord of the
heavens and the earth, the Lord of the Throne, from that which they ascribe to
Him! So let them flounder in their talk and play until they meet the Day which
they are promised. Blessed be He to Whom belongs the Sovereignty of the
heavens and the earth and all that is between them, and with Whom is
knowledge of the Hour, and to Whom we all have to return. Those to whom
they cry instead of Him possess no power of intercession – only he who bears
witness to the Truth, and they (Unbelievers) knew him well (Apostle SA, as a
man of probity). If you ask these Unbelievers as that who had created them,
they would say; “God”. How then are they turned away? God has knowledge
of the Prophets cry, “O my Lord! Truly these are the people who will not
believe!”. (O Muhammad!) Turn away from them, and say “Peace!” But soon
shall they know!