The Guiding Light — Page 175
S u rah al-Baqarah, Verses 9-17 175 the criticism that the God of the Qur’an is given to mocking. The criticism is due to the utter ignorance of Arabic idiom and usage. In Arabic, punishment for an evil is sometimes denoted by the term used for the evil itself. Thus the expression ا ﷲ ﻳ ﺴﺘ-ﺰ ٴ ی ﺑﻬﻢ ( All a hu yastahzi’o bihim ) does not means, Allah shall mock at them, but that Allah will punish them for their mocking. The former meaning, followed by some translators, is absolutely inconsistent with the spirit of the Qur’ a n which condemns jest and ridicule as marks of ignorance (2:68). How, then, can God attribute to Himself what He declares to be a practice of the ignorant? The clause, All a h will let them continue in their transgression , should not be understood to mean that God grants the hypocrites respite to let them increase in transgression. Such a meaning is contradicted by verses 6:111 and 35:38, where it is clearly stated that God grants the disbelievers respite with the sole object of reforming them but they unfortunately only increase in transgression. The word ﻳ ﻌﻤ-ﻮن ( ya‘mah u n ) wandering blindly is derived from the root (‘a ma ha ) which signifies, besides other meanings, the absence of signs or marks. The meaning here