The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 319
PT. 13 IBRAHİM CH. 14 وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَا مِنْ رَّسُولٍ إِلَّا بِلِسَانِ And We have not sent any. 5 Messenger except with the قَوْمِهِ لِيُبَيِّنَ لَهُمْ فَيُضِلُّ اللهُ مَنْ language of his people in order تَشَاءُ وَيَهْدِي مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَهُوَ to them. Then Allah lets go الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ. that he might make things clear astray whom He wills, and guides whom He wills. And He is the Mighty, the Wise. 1659 "13:28; 74:32. sayi. e. the wood was or became crooked, curved, bent or distorted. means, the affair was or or became difficult, arduous troublesome. (iwajun) means, crookedness or curvity; unevenness; corruption or deviation from rectitude; evilness of natural disposition (Lane & Aqrab). Commentary: The verse means that those who forsake the way of the Mighty and Praiseworthy God can never hope to attain power and praise. Such people become lost in error and not only deprive themselves of divine favours but also seek to deprive others by preventing them from accepting truth. The words, seek to make it crooked, mean that, whereas outwardly they profess to seek true guidance, inwardly they are bent upon crookedness and refuse to give up the evil ways of their forefathers. The inevitable result of such an attitude is that, in order to satisfy their uneasy conscience, they call their self- devised practices the religion of God. This false satisfaction deprives them and their followers of true guidance. 1659. Commentary: The verse does not mean that a Divine Messenger should receive his revelation only in the language of his people. What it means is that the major and fundamental part of his revelation must be in the tongue of his people, otherwise the conveying of his Message to those who are its first recipients would become difficult. Occasionally, however, a Prophet may receive a revelation in a foreign tongue. In fact, such exceptional revelation would serve as a divine sign or miracle. 1527 It is wrong to infer from this verse, as the Rev. Mr. Wherry and other Christian writers have done, that the Message of the Holy Prophet was confined to the Arabs. Such an assumption is forcefully belied by other verses of the Quran in which the Prophet is clearly and unequivocally declared to be a Prophet sent for the whole world (7:159; 34:29). Not only does the Quran claim a universal mission for the Holy Prophet, but the Prophet himself also claimed to be a Messenger for all mankind. For