Strong and unflinching faith and belief in Allah is the key to success for believers, both in this world and the hereafter. Once a believer attains that level of belief and faith that he sees no one other than Allah to be his guardian and deliverer from all his difficulties, misdeeds and sins. It is for these strong hearted and firm believers that Allah promises to be their Guardian and promises them to take them out of the fathomless darkness of ignorance and misbeliefs.
But at the same time, Allah disassociates Him from those who are followers of the evil, who fall from grace, from lightness into darkness and promises them the fire of hell where they would stay forever.
The 257th verse of Surah 2. Al Baqarah (The Cow), in our series of posts on "Selected Verses from Qur'an," is about these believers and evil followers:
اَللّٰهُ وَلِىُّ الَّذِيۡنَ اٰمَنُوۡا يُخۡرِجُهُمۡ مِّنَ الظُّلُمٰتِ اِلَى النُّوۡرِ وَالَّذِيۡنَ كَفَرُوۡۤا اَوۡلِيٰٓـُٔهُمُ الطَّاغُوۡتُۙ يُخۡرِجُوۡنَهُمۡ مِّنَ النُّوۡرِ اِلَى الظُّلُمٰتِؕ اُولٰٓـئِكَ اَصۡحٰبُ النَّارِۚ هُمۡ فِيۡهَا خٰلِدُوۡنَ
(2:257) Allah is the Guardian of those who believe, He brings them out of every darkness into light. And those who disbelieve, their guardians are the evil ones; they bring them out of light into all kinds of darkness. These are destined for the Fire, and there shall they abide.
"Darkness" stands for the darkness of ignorance that causes one to go astray from the Right Way, and to spend all one's efforts and energies in wrong way. In contrast to this, "light" stands for the light of the Truth which enables one to see clearly the Reality and perceive the real aim of life and follow consciously and deliberately the Right Way.
Literally لطَّاغُوۡتُۙ taghut applies to everyone who transgresses the limits. The Qur'an uses this word for one who rebels against Allah and claims himself to be the master and sovereign of His servants and forces them to become his servants.Man's rebellion against Allah has three degrees of criminality: (1) One is fasiq (disobedient) if one professes to be His subject but practically acts against His commandments; (2) One is kafir (disbeliever) if one becomes independent of Him or owes allegiance to someone else; (3) One is taghut if one rebels against Allah and exerts to make His subjects subservient to himself. Such a one may be Satan or a priest or a religious or a political leader or a king or a state. Therefore no one can be a true believer of Allah unless he disowns taghut.
Though taghut is singular in form, here it is plural in meaning, for the one who rejects Allah becomes a slave not of one but of several forms of taghut, One of these is Satan who goes on tempting him with many false and alluring temptations. Another is his own self that makes him a slave of passions and lusts and misleads him into crooked ways. Then there are others, his wife and children, his kith and kin, his clan and family, his friends and nation, his political and religious leaders and his government. All these are taghut for him and desire to make him a slave of their wishes and ambitions. And this slave of all these masters wastes his whole life in trying to accomplish the impossible feat of pleasing each and every one of them.
Javed Ahmad Ghamidi Explanation:
The actual words are: يُخْرِجُهُمْ مِّنَ الظُّلُمٰتِ اِلَي النُّوْرِ. Here the word النُّوۡر is singular and الظُّلُمٰت is plural. The reason for this is that the light mentioned here is the light of one’s faith, intellect and character. It is obvious that its source is one – the Almighty and there is no disparity in this source. On the other hand, the various types of darkness that come because of a lack of faith, intellect and character come from various sources and there is also great disparity among these sources as well.
The law of guidance that is mentioned in this verse is explained by Imām Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī in the following words:
… The main point in the law of guidance is whether a person seeks it from the Almighty or from someone else. If he holds on to the Almighty for this purpose, the Almighty guides and helps him, and His grace gradually takes him out from the desolate darkness of base desires and hypocrisy, religious innovation and polytheism and places him on the path that leads to faith and monotheism. However, if a person turns away from the Almighty and seeks someone else, he ends up with Satan and his progeny; Satan then leads him astray and deprives him of the light of his intellect and guidance. It is said that an empty mind is the devil’s playground; quite similarly, a heart which is devoid of faith becomes the devil’s playground and then these devils misguide and mislead these people forever. (Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī, Tadabbur-i Qur’ān, vol. 1, 598)
Qur'an Wiki:
The sūrah then goes on to present a vivid and graphic scene depicting the two paths of guidance and error. It indicates how God kindly and gently takes the believers by the hand and leads them out of the darkness, into the light, and how the false deities sponsor the unbelievers and lead them, too, by the hand, but out of the light into the darkness.
Faith is light that permeates man’s soul and conscience to radiate from within his being and illuminate all things, ideas and values around him. It gives the believer a clear vision and a steady and confident understanding that enable him to identify, discern and choose. It lights his route to God, His laws and teachings, putting man in perfect concord with the world around him. He proceeds through life in total harmony, free of all conflict and at peace with his human nature.
Please listen to the tafsir of the above said verse by eminent scholar Nouman Ali Khan:
May Allah help us understand Qur'ān and help us to act upon the commandments of Allah contained therein. Aameen.
For more Selected Verses, please refer to our reference page: Selected Invocations / Dua " دُعا " from the Qur'an. You may also refer to our Reference Pages for knowing more about Islam and Qur'ān.
An effort has been made to gather explanation / exegesis of the surahs of the Qur'ān from authentic sources and then present a least possible condensed explanation of the surah. In that the exegesis of the chapters of the Quran is mainly based on the "Tafhim al-Qur'an - The Meaning of the Qur'an" by one of the most enlightened scholars of the Muslim World Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi.
In order to augment and add more explanation as already provided, additional input has been interjected from following sources:
- Towards Understanding the Quran
- Tafsir Ibn Khatir
- Muhammad Asad Translation
- Javed Ahmad Ghamidi / Al Mawrid
- Al-Quran, Yusuf Ali Translation
- Verse by Verse Qur'an Study Circle
In addition the references of other sources which have been explored have also been given above. Those desirous of detailed explanations and tafsir (exegesis), may refer to these sites.
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1 comments:
Article attempted to make understand with explanation at para - 3 to be read with explanation of Javed Ghamidi Sahib is suffice for pure Souls. However, Allah is our Best Guardian from Satan and we must seek Allah 's shelter from Satan whose temptations are very dangerous for man kind and impossible for humans if Allah not wills. Always every one must read Taooz and get saved himself from Satan.
Allah is my priority no. 01 and I say in concluding :-
Allaho Noorus Samawate Wal Ard.
Wa La Hola Wala Quwatta Illah Billah Hil Aliyul Azeem
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