| مَنْ كَانَ يَظُنُّ أَنْ لَنْ يَنْصُرَهُ اللَّهُ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ فَلْيَمْدُدْ بِسَبَبٍ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ ثُمَّ لْيَقْطَعْ فَلْيَنْظُرْ هَلْ يُذْهِبَنَّ كَيْدُهُ مَا يَغِيظُ |
| Asad | : | If anyone thinks that God will not succour him14 in this world and in the life to come, let him reach out unto heaven by any [other] means and [thus try to] make headway:15 and then let him see whether this scheme of his will indeed do away with the cause of his anguish.16 |
| Malik | : | If anyone thinks that Allah will not help His Rasool in this world and in the Hereafter, let him stretch out a rope to the sky if he can and cut a hole to peep through and see for himself whether his device can avert that which irritates him. |
| Mustafa Khattab | : | Whoever thinks that Allah will not help His Prophet in this world and the Hereafter, let them stretch out a rope to the ceiling and strangle themselves, then let them see if this plan will do away with ˹the cause of˺ their rage.1 |
| Pickthall | : | Whoso is wont to think (through envy) that Allah will not give him (Muhammad) victory in the world and the Hereafter (and is enraged at the thought of his victory), let him stretch a rope up to the roof (of his dwelling), and let him hang himself. Then let him see whether his strategy dispelleth that whereat he rageth! |
| Yusuf Ali | : | If any think that Allah will not help him (His Apostle) in this world and the Hereafter let him stretch out a rope to the ceiling and cut (himself) off: then let him see whether his plan will remove that which enrages (him)! 2786 |
| Transliteration | : | Man kana yathunnu an lan yansurahu Allahu fee alddunya waalakhirati falyamdud bisababin ila alssamai thumma liyaqtaAA falyanthur hal yuthhibanna kayduhu ma yagheethu |
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I.e., that God is not enough to succour him: obviously an allusion to the type of man who "worships God on the border-line of faith" (verse {11} above) and therefore doubts His power to guide men towards happiness in this world and in the hereafter. The assumption of the majority of the commentators that the personal pronoun "him" relates to the Prophet Muhammad is, to my mind, very far-fetched and certainly not warranted by the context. |
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The rendering of la-yaqta' as "let him [try to] make headway" is based on the accepted, tropical use of the verb qata'a (lit., "he cut") in the sense of "traversing a distance": and this is the interpretation of yaqtac by Abu Muslim (as quoted by Razi). The expression "by any [other] means" (bi-sabab) relates to what has been said in verses {12-13} above. |
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There is some difference of opinion as to the interpretation of this verse. Most Commentators are agreed that the pronoun "him" in the second line ("will not help him") refers to the holy Prophet, and that the "any" in the first line refers to his enemies, who wished to see him destroyed and removed from the scene of his labours. Ibn 'Abbas, whom I have followed here, and whom a great number of Commentators follow, construes the later clauses in the sense given in the text. Freely paraphrased, it means: if the enemies of Allah's Messenger are enraged at his successes, let them fix a rope to their ceiling and hang themselves. Samaa is thus rendered by the word "ceiling". If Samaa is rendered by the word "heaven" (the usual meaning), the paraphrase would be : if the enemies of Allah's Messenger are enraged at the help he gets from heavens, let them stretch a rope to heavens, and see if they can cut off the help in that way!-in other words, they are fools if they think they can intercept Allah's help by their petty devices! |
