Al-Maede 5, Verses 65-70

  To avoid any potential copyright issue I will only include my own comments around the verses specified in each post, assuming that you are reading the original verses or the relevant translation concurrently on your own. 

5:65  Starting with this verse God  beautifully clarifies the fact that if someone truly believes in God, as many of "ahl ketab" do ,those who believe in the Scripture, God will cover their sins and will enter them in gardens of his favors.   One very important accompanying word in this verse and in many others where God speaks about believing is the word " Tagva"  which according to Yusef Ali's translation means "ward off evil" but I am not sure if it conveys the complete concept of "Tagva" that has been repeated throughout Quran.  The definition of "Tagva" ,I believe, is extremely significant and is a key to understand God's relationship with us.  I will have to talk about this word in future since is will take an entire post to explain . Assuming "Tagva" means avoiding evil for now, what this verse states is; it is not only Muslims who may qualify for their sins to be forgiven but also anyone who truly believes in God and does good deeds may be entered into heavens. More importantly it implies the way God judges us, in which we are not judged by the religion we have inherited.  In fact, what matters to God is what we have in our heart and what we do according to this verse and the next ones. 

5:66  "If they had followed Torah and Gospel and what had been revealed to them from God, they would have certainly be nourished from above them and from beneath their feet...."  While Jews and Christians are seemingly better off in life as far as their material needs are concerned, it is not obvious nor easy to make out what exactly this verse means at this age.  I don't mean it is wrong or it is not true, all I mean is there are verses that I personally fail to find their applications and the first part of this verse is probably one of them as it stands at this time. 

The verse 66 however, continues with categorizing believers of the Torah and  the Gospel into two groups.  First one is moderates and the second one is the sinners.  I believe the Arabic word "Mogtased" which has been commonly translated to moderation, is meant to mention those who  adhere to the parts of their belief that are sure to be from God and is absolutely true.  These are the believers of Torah and Bible who advocate for the existence of God primarily against atheism and they secondary promote the love relationship with the God as the way to enlightenment.  At current time I personally believe some one like Einstein who believed in the Torah ,judging from his quotes, is mostly likely a good fit to this type.  Among the living Christians  my favorites (those I have come across their lectures in YouTube recently) include university professors John Lennox, Ian Hutchinson and Francis Collins whom I highly respect and admire for their effort to invite public to God and for their emphasis on a love relationship with God.  I consider them as a few  examples of true believers in God among the elite.   

I have to admit that I know almost nothing about other faith such as Judaism and Christianity. Naming the above individuals does not mean in any way that these are the only true believers among the followers of the Scripture. The given names are just a few from many many more that I have not had the pleasure to know them yet.  

One other important point is no human is in a position to judge other people's faith and tell who is going to heaven or hell as God is the only single qualified Judge ever on this matter. what I am trying to portrait is the characteristics of believing in God as demonstrated over their specific quotes or lectures.  Neither do I mean that all of what these people have said or will say is correct.  

5:67 As explaining these revelation might have risen tensions leading to potential harm to the prophet Mohammad at the time, God is assuring his messenger that he should not hesitate to pass on these messages. God would  protect him from any harm from people and God will not guide those who deny the truth. 

5:68 I believe this verse is emphasising that it really does not matter which faith is older or has come before the other ones, nor being a Jew or a Christian mean anything unless the believers observe the Torah and the Gospel and all revelations from God. As I understand this verse has a subtle message that any believer in the older faith should keep his heart open to the new revelations that will for ever continue to descend from God, although it may not happen in form of a direct message passed to people by an assigned prophet anymore.

As an established believer, one may naturally have a tendency to resist changing his beliefs which have taken a lot of effort to form in the first place.   That is how we may ,as believers, fall for our biases that work against any new revelations from God.  This conflict will grow substantially if we have developed certain personal interests out of that faith like establishing ourselves as a social religious authority.  Up to a point when we will find the new ideas (revelations) require dramatic changes in our previous way of thinking, habits and rituals which can lead to challenge our ego and or the social authority we have been enjoying for some time.   This complication could finally result in a state of total denial of any new genuine prophet.  It is of human nature to find it hard to go out of our comfort zone so by keep denying and covering the truth despite numerous sings we will go apart from the right path far and farther into darkness until comes a time we one will fail to see any traces of light at all.  If someone chooses such path of ignorance and constant denial knowingly and willingly he has deprived himself from mercy of God.  It will then be a reasonable consequence to expect God's telling his prophet not to be sad for such people since however he tried to buy our heart or whatever sign he revealed to us we ignored and denied.

5;69 This verse goes on even further in explicitly clarifying that ,in fact, the only requirements for anyone to be saved and forgiven is believing in God, the last day and doing good. That is to say being a Jew, a Christian or of no religion "Sabeon" makes no difference to God, should one meet the three conditions.

In 5:70 God is illustrating the concepts mentioned in the earlier verses by providing an example of the decedents of "Yagoob" -Israel-  who commit themselves to God but later on they dined the following messages brought to them by later prophets because the new revelations were against their personal interests. So they called some of the prophets lie rs and killed some others. This verse, I believe, is referring to a long period of time over which there must have been a number of prophets chosen by God to guide people of the time.

   Concluding this post, I can highlight two major teachings underlying the above 5 verses:

1. Those who believe in God, in the day of judgment as well as they do good deeds, they shall be saved by God and they shall not have fear after life regardless of their religion.
2. We can not label believers of other faith including Judaism and Christianity or any one else as non believer or infidel and then threat them inhumanly based on our judgment.  

Can We Understand Every Verse of Quran?

     I found it a huge undertaking for anyone to try to understand all verses of Quran one after another.  The main reason ,I believe, is the fact that Quran has been transcended upon situations of life in a certain period of time.  That is to say as certain events were developed which lead to specific instruction or clarifications from God to guide the believers through the on going circumstances at the time. Therefore, we can clearly realize from direct reading of Quran that this is a contextual text. Traditionally , this has always meant that in order to understand Quran you are required to know the historical events surrounding the time of descend of each verse, 

  While it certainly helps to know the history behind the verses, history has always been very controversial and in many cases contradictory. Besides, if there are some prerequisites such as knowing history or some other humanly developed knowledge, then Quran cannot be a guide for every one. You have to know this and that, you have to be qualified as .....  I found this contradictory to the fact that God's message must be of a nature that can reach any one and can be understood by everyone.  

   This will follow with a question; if we do not have a reliable means to relate to the situations for which verses of Quran have been descended, how can we understand such contextual concepts?    The answer could be; all those situations are for ever repeating in life -commonly believed as "history repeats itself"- meaning all life events come down to making choices between right and wrong, good and bad.  This also implies as we are moving through different stages of our lives we will encounter situations when we feel as if a specific verse of Quran is precisely talking to us, addressing our specific question or situation that we are in.  That is why we can make sense of some of the verses easier than others some of which we can barely relate to.  In my opinion, they are hard to conceive due to the fact that we have not yet been in the relevant context to be able to make sense of those words of God.  This is also the reason why many verses appear to be merely of historical value at the first glance but on a closer inspection they start to enlighten us if we found our self in a similar position.   

   Therefore as we are accumulating more experience throughout our unique journey of life we can probably understand more and more of Quran in a way that is very personal. It will be a custom guide because each of us is in a unique circumstances resulting in unique questions and needs. That said, it is also absolutely possible for every one to wish to understand more of natural world as God's work or similarly more of Quran as God's words.  In this sense, Quran is no different than any other faces of existence or maybe we can call them signs of God.  In other words, we can embark on an intellectual quest to comprehend God ,by the way of examining his creations, as much as the concentration, dedication and persistence we put in, no matter whether our quest for truth is in physical realm or in the metaphysical side of the world.

   Upon reading this, skeptics may strongly argue that how studying nature ,which involves empirical evidence can ever have any thing to do with exploring abstract aspects of the world which entails intuition and inspiration for the most part.  I believe the following quote from Einstein is properly addressing their concern. "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious, it is the source of all true art and all science."

   Finally, the main reason I started this post was to tell you in advance that there are going to be verses or many verses that I will probably wont understand and will not have any clue what they mean. Based on the above argument, I do not expect my self to be able to comprehend Quran Entirely.  I thought, perhaps you shouldn't either. Nevertheless, we shall never be disappointed and move on tracing the light in our heart as closely as we can. After all if there is a God, which I firmly believe in, there is always hope and light that will guide us through the darkest routs and times in life.

    On a separate note, for the sake of giving this blog a regular pace, I have re-joined a Quran reading group which will hopefully help me post my thoughts here once a week covering about one page every time.  In order to pick up where the group is reading I will have to skip the first 4 Sura up to the verse # 65 of the 5th Sura "Al-Maeda".  Although I usually feel truly inspired when reading Quran in a group , the views and thoughts posted here are strictly personal and a matter of opinion.  

Back after two years....

    It took me all this time to make sure I want to write this blog and give it a priority over other activities I am engaged in my daily life.   Some times you have to experience other potential choices in your life to rule them out and find peace and comfort in the path  in which you feel most fit. I would like to resume writing this blog with naming God again and repeating the most beautiful starting words ever.   

                                      بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   

                                         In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful 

   What could be the meaning of the two adjectives of "Rahman" the Beneficent and "Rahim" the Merciful ?  

    I believe if we would feel a relationship with God deep in our heart this will inevitably make us feel that every action we are about to take will either strengthen or weaken our relationship. In other words we will find a compass, a direction or an scale to check out every little mundane deed against the impact it may have on our relationship with God.  

   In essence, it is more or less like a love relationship that we experience over the course of  our human life.  When we truly love someone every thing we want to do will essentially get us closer or farther to our loved one.  We sometimes deprive our self from simple pleasures of life that are absolutely legitimate  and which we can never  refuse in the absence of that relationship.   There are times ,for example, when we may not eat a delicious meal alone feeling that our partner would have loved to eat this food with us.   We may intentionally pick something not as good or rather not to eat at all ( if it is just a mater of short time before you can eat together) in certain occasions. In exchange you will feel ever more closer to your loved one while surprisingly your partner will feel and act the same way without being aware of the choice you have  made. So we refrain from a eating despite hunger and similarly from many other physical pleasures that we would never stand otherwise. These are typical voluntarily acts of self deprivation out of love which will result in reinforcing our love relationship.

   Although it is probably not right to project the scope and qualities of earthly love to the the heavens, I believe there are striking similarities between the nature of the two.  I strongly believe that one of the main reasons we are going trough the journey of life is to experience and learn qualities and aspects of existence ,including love, which are the eternal and the most fundamental principals of existence as a whole.  By the way of example, we can see the world as a lab in that we have been granted our time of life to play with toys of every kind to learn and form concepts which will govern our lives on earth and beyond  through eternity. In this analogy, all every single experience that we go through over the course of life is a learning lesson which is supposed to build up a big picture of the whole life for us making sense of all the pain and joy that life will bring about.  They are the pieces of a puzzle which constitute an abstract perception of the whole that can only be seen by our heart.  An understanding with a nature of an inspiration which can not even be comprehended by our mind despite been instrumental to form that picture. 

   Going back to explain the way our relationship with God works, as we expect in any two sided  bond, if you take one step toward or for your loved one you would naturally expect the other side to do the same for you.  By the same token,  If we do something for God we would expect he does something for us in return.  More importantly, one would wish that the partner's reaction would be exclusively tailored for him or for her..  That is to say, it is not for you as well as others it is done entirely and specifically for you. That is the most important determinant quality of a love relationship ,exclusiveness, if we can call it that way. That happens to be exactly God's expectation from us in the first place, living exclusively for him.   Are we entitled to expect the same from God? I believe we can, if we prioritize him above everything else in our life..  

   That is why I believe "Rahman" "the Beneficent" means he is the one who takes the first step toward us, He is first to benefit every one, to favor every one equally. he is the one who initiates the relationship with all humans. He loves every one first, and then if we would take one and only one step toward him, he is the one that is "Rahim" "The Merciful" who will reply with exclusive favor to us making us feel he has a unique relationship with us. there is no one else who can replace you or me for him.  we are so special for him that he favors us in a way that only includes our individuality and the unique circumstances that defines our personal life.  

   What a heart worming words to being everything in life with: In the name of God, the one who loves us first, the one who cares about all of us and then the one who will love us exclusively if we turn to him. We are ,in fact, defining the propose of every deed with these words.  We will indeed determine the outcome right upfront, which is to strengthen our relationship with God , which will fill our heart with more of his love and his light. What would be the possible fruit of our earthly mundane life then?  I guess nothing but joy and peace which will emit from our heart to others'.

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There are many verses in Quran where the word "Rahim" is used.  Blew are a few :

Sura 4 ; Verse 16
وَٱلَّذَانِ يَأۡتِيَـٰنِهَا مِنڪُمۡ فَـَٔاذُوهُمَا‌ۖ فَإِن تَابَا وَأَصۡلَحَا فَأَعۡرِضُواْ عَنۡهُمَآ‌ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ڪَانَ تَوَّابً۬ا رَّحِيمًا
However, if they repent and make amends, then, overlook them. Surely, Allah is Most-Relenting, Very-Merciful. 

Sura 9 : Verse 5
 فَإِذَا ٱنسَلَخَ ٱلۡأَشۡہُرُ ٱلۡحُرُمُ فَٱقۡتُلُواْ ٱلۡمُشۡرِكِينَ حَيۡثُ وَجَدتُّمُوهُمۡ وَخُذُوهُمۡ وَٱحۡصُرُوهُمۡ وَٱقۡعُدُواْ لَهُمۡ ڪُلَّ مَرۡصَدٍ۬‌ۚ فَإِن تَابُواْ وَأَقَامُواْ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَءَاتَوُاْ ٱلزَّڪَوٰةَ فَخَلُّواْ سَبِيلَهُمۡ‌ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ غَفُورٌ۬ رَّحِيمٌ۬
..... Then, if they repent and establish Salah and pay Zakah, leave their way. Surely, Allah is most Forgiving, Very-Merciful.

Sura 11: Verse 90
وَٱسۡتَغۡفِرُواْ رَبَّڪُمۡ ثُمَّ تُوبُوٓاْ إِلَيۡهِ‌ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّى رَحِيمٌ۬ وَدُودٌ۬
Seek forgiveness from your Lord, then turn towards Him in repentance. Surely, my Lord is very merciful, most loving.

Sura 16: Verse 7
وَتَحۡمِلُ أَثۡقَالَڪُمۡ إِلَىٰ بَلَدٍ۬ لَّمۡ تَكُونُواْ بَـٰلِغِيهِ إِلَّا بِشِقِّ ٱلۡأَنفُسِ‌ۚ إِنَّ رَبَّكُمۡ لَرَءُوفٌ۬ رَّحِيمٌ۬
And they carry your loads to a city where you were not able to reach without putting yourselves to arduous labor. Surely, your Lord is Very-Kind, Very-Merciful. 

Quoted from Quran Explorer website.   http://www.quranexplorer.com/

Interestingly in most cases "Rahim" is usually used in conjunction with another adjective giving it a sense of exclusiveness that we  talked above.  It is important to emphasis however, that my impression from this word is not directly derived from the text, a word by word translation approach, but it is a subtle relationship that can be inferred from the context.