The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 195
PT. 12 R. 10. HUD CH. 11 b وَلَقَدْ أَتَيْنَا مُوسَى الْكِتَبَ فَاخْتُلِفَ فِيهِ And We certainly gave. 111 وَلَوْلَا كَلِمَةٌ سَبَقَتْ مِنْ رَّبِّكَ لَقُضِيَ were created therein; and had it Moses the Book, but differences not been for a word already بَيْنَهُمْ وَإِنَّهُمْ لَفِي شَكٍّ مِّنْهُ مُرِيبٍ gone forth from thy Lord, surely the matter would have been decided between them long before; and now these people are in a disquieting doubt concerning it. 1491 a41:46. from his forefathers and to which he does not give his personal consideration. Taking the words in this sense, they will be understood to have been addressed to the people of the age and will be taken as speaking of the time when shirk (idol- worship) will have disappeared from the world and belief in the Unity of God will have prevailed everywhere. Thus the words contain a prophecy that a time will come when belief in the Unity of God will become so paramount that it will become difficult to believe that people were ever given to idolatry. would read somewhat like this: "Be not in doubt concerning (the punishment of) that which these people worship. " 1491. Commentary: Towards the end of the Surah the Quran reverts to the theme with which it began and declares that God continued to send down His word in the ages so that people might benefit by it but they always failed to do so. God gave a book to Moses and that book spoke of another book (i. e. the Quran) which was to be revealed later, but people raised doubts about it and did not pause to think that their attitude would produce grave results. (2) Or the verse may be taken to be addressed to every reader of the Quran, who is told here not to think that those people who are associating gods with Allah will escape punishment, for they are following in the footsteps of their predecessors and when the latter were punished for their guilt, there is no reason why their successors should escape punishment. In this case the clause they would have long been destroyed. The words, Surely the matter would have been decided between them long before, mean that so serious was their guilt that if there had not been a decree pre-ordained, that mankind had been created for spiritual progress by becoming the object of Divine mercy (7:157; 11:120; 51:57), 1403