The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 281
PT. 2 AL-BAQARAH famine (Aqrab). is especially that evil or affliction which relates to one's person, as disease, etc. whereas is that which relates to property, as poverty, etc. (Lane). Commentary: The verse points to an important principle relating to form and spirit. Every commandment must have an outward form as well as an underlying spirit. What, however, is really meant is the underlying spirit and not the outward form which mostly serves as an outer shell for preserving the inner kernel. To illustrate this principle, the verse refers to the commandment relating to the turning of faces to a particular direction while offering Prayers. The verse points out that Islam has not directed the Faithful to face in a particular direction during Prayers, because it considers such an act to be of any intrinsic virtue. The fixing of a special direction is merely meant to bring about uniformity, whereas what really counts is the underlying it, which is perfection of faith and deeds. The Quran, accordingly, proceeds to give in a nutshell the Islamic teachings about these two subjects. آمن purpose The literal translation of the clauses is, "but righteousness is one who believes" which is obviously incomplete. So some words must be understood here. According to Sībawaih, a great authority on Arabic syntax, the rules of the Arabic language sometimes permit the omitting of a word for the sake of brevity or for laying special stress or for affording greater elasticity in CH. 2 speech. In accordance with this rule,. i. e ولكن البر من آمن : the clause would read the "but righteousness is righteousness of one who believes. " Instances of such omissions of words are not lacking in the Arabic language (Sībawaih, i. 109). According to yet another rule of the Arabic language, as (infinitive noun) is sometimes used in place of an (active participle) in order the word (righteousness) in the to convey an intensified sense. Thus 281 الكامل بر verse would mean i. e. "perfectly righteous or very righteous," and the clause would be translated as "perfectly righteous or very righteous is he who believes in Allah. . . " The pronoun in the expression (love of Him) may refer either to the word "Allah" in the previous clause, and in that case, the clause as a judi ET would mean, "spends his money for love of God". Or it may refer to the word J. (money). In this case, the clause would mean, "spends his money notwithstanding his love for money". Lastly, it may also refer to the noun implied in the verb 3) i. e. the act of spending. In this case the clause would mean "spends his money for the love of spending it". All these meanings are correct and may be applied. Indeed, it is one of the inimitable beauties of the Quranic diction that it chooses words and constructions that go to convey a variety of meanings in the shortest of expressions. The verse affords another example of this kind in the expression col (son of the road). As explained under