The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 348
CH. 14 IBRAHİM PT. 13 Prayer, and my children too. Our Lord! 'bestow Thy grace on رَبِّ اجْعَلْنِي مُقِيمَ الصَّلوةِ وَمِنْ My Lord, make me observe. 41 ذُرِّيَّتِي رَبَّنَا وَتَقَبَّلْ دُعَاءِ رَبَّنَا اغْفِرْ لِي وَلِوَالِدَيَّ وَلِلْمُؤْمِنِينَ Our Lord, grant forgiveness. 42 يَوْمَ يَقُوْمُ الْحِسَابُ & me and accept my prayer. 1695 to me and to my parents and to the believers on the day when the reckoning will take place. '1696 &1 M a2:129. 2:128. 71:29. Abraham, in this verse, does not praise God for merely granting him two sons. The real reason why he praised God for giving him Ishmael and Isaac was that he was able in his old age to build the Ka'bah with the help of one of them, and that he was leaving behind him two sons who would glorify God and establish His worship on the earth. He was glad that through his offspring he was enabled to make arrangements for the continuance of Divine worship in the world. This was the supreme object of his life and this was what he had been praying for. The verse also hints that, like Ishmael, Isaac was dedicated to the service of God. Incidentally, the verse also throws interesting light on the sublimity of Abraham's character and the purity of his great soul. He had left his firstborn in the wilderness of the barren and bleak valley of Mecca, apparently to die of starvation, yet he was expressing his gratefulness to God for granting him Ishmael and Isaac, as if, by his settling the former near the Sacred House of God, the very object of the child's birth had been fulfilled. 1695. Commentary: In v. 38, Abraham said that the purpose for which he was leaving his son and wife near the Sacred Mosque was that they might observe Prayer. In the present verse he prays to God that that purpose might be fulfilled and that they might, in the truest sense of the word, become observant of Prayer. He included himself also in the prayer because his own example was to be helpful to them in the attainment of that object. Abraham prayed that in the matter of Divine worship he might serve as an example to his offspring, while his offspring, in their turn, might set an example to others, and so on. So Abraham's prayer embodied in this verse meant that, through his progeny, the worship of God might become permanently established in the world. constituted not only a prayer but also Thus this supplication of Abraham an implied prophecy about appearance of a Great Prophet in Mecca through whom Prayer was to be established as an institution in its completest and most enduring form. 1696. Important Words: the (grant forgiveness to me) is 1556