The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 502
CH. 16 AN-NAHL PT. 14 وَاَوْفُوْا بِعَهْدِ اللَّهِ اِذَا عُهَدْتُمْ وَلَا تَنْقُضُوا And fulfil the covenant of. 92 الْأَيْمَانَ بَعْدَ تَوْكِيْدِهَا وَقَدْ جَعَلْتُمُ اللهَ covenant; and break not the Allah when you have made a oaths after making them firm, عَلَيْكُمْ كَفِيلًا إِنَّ اللهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا while you have made Allah تَفْعَلُونَ your surety. Certainly, Allah knows what you do. 1892 "6:153; 13:21; 17:35. not infringe the rights of other people and harmful of them viz. * (wrongful but who suffer from moral indecencies whose harm is confined to their own selves, such as back- biting, jealousy and the harbouring of ill-will against others. The three brief words mentioned above embody all the different forms of vice to which man can fall a victim. Thus this short verse of the Quran has covered, by its three commands and three prohibitions, the whole field of virtue and vice and contains requisite guidance for men holding different motives at the different stages of their moral development. By an appropriate selection and arrangement of its words the verse has explained how a man can effectively eschew all vices and acquire all virtues. It mentions the three categories of virtues implying thereby that in acquiring them a man should first cultivate the quality of Juc (justice), then will he be able to cultivate the nobler and higher quality of (goodness), and lastly, after he has acquired these two moral qualities, will he succeed in the,ايتاء ذي القربى cultivating the quality of highest and noblest of all the moral qualities. But in eschewing vices he should begin with the most obvious 1710 transgression), and after he has been successful in conquering this vice he should try to master the less obvious vice of (manifest evil) and when he has mastered this evil also he should try to bring under control the more subtle vice of (indecency). The description of the good moral qualities and that of the corresponding vices together is intended to draw attention to the important fact that in the cultivation of good moral qualities one has to start from the lowest rung of the ladder, while in the renunciation of vices he has to begin with the most pronounced and harmful one. Thus for his moral perfection man has to traverse six stages of development and the gradation of these stages into six quite harmonizes with a well- known law of nature, viz. that everything has to go through six stages of evolution before it reaches perfection. The verse, as it were, embodies the complete course of moral and spiritual evolution and growth of man. 1892. Commentary: This verse further explains and repeats the theme of the previous