The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 633
PT. 15 AL-KAHF CH. 18 فَلَعَلَّكَ بَاخِعٌ نَفْسَكَ عَلَى آثَارِهِمْ So haply thou wilt grieve. 7 اِنْ لَّمْ يُؤْمِنُوا بِهَذَا الْحَدِيثِ أَسَفًا thyself to death for sorrow after them if they believe not in this discourse. 2047 اِنَّا جَعَلْنَا مَا عَلَى الْأَرْضِ زِينَةً لَّهَا Verily, We have made all that. 8 is on the earth as an ornament for it, that We may try them as to which of them is best in conduct. 2048 لِنَبْلُوَهُمْ أَيُّهُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا "26:4. 5:49; 6:166; 11:8; 67:3. 2047. Important Words: (grieve thyself to death). is active participle from. They say sai. e. he slaughtered the lamb with extraordinary effectiveness so that the knife reached the back of the neck; the verb & is used to denote the doing of anything to a great extent or with extraordinary effectiveness or he gave him ,means بخع له نصحه. energy بخع نفسه. his advice most sincerely means, he killed himself with wrath or grief. The Quranic expression means, And maybe thou wilt kill thyself with grief being beyond measure eager for their becoming Muslims (Lane). Commentary: It is clear from the context that the people spoken of in these verses are the western Christian nations. God had blessed them with material comforts and wealth and had bestowed upon them power, prestige and dominion. But they fell into the grievous error of taking a frail human being as the son of God. The Holy Prophet's solicitude and concern for the spiritual well-being of these 1841 people and his deep grief over their opposition to truth had almost killed him. But such is human ingratitude that from the very people for whom he felt and grieved so much he received nothing but abuse, invective and ridicule. Never, indeed, were selfless love and kindness so ill requited! The words, if they believe not in this discourse, allude to the reason of the Prophet's grief. They mean to say that the Quran contains the solution of all those difficult problems that Christian nations had to face in this life, yet these people who have made so much progress in material sciences are so backward in the spiritual science that they are inviting death and destruction by refusing to accept true guidance. 2048. Commentary: The words, We have made all that is on the earth as an ornament for it, point to the great moral lesson that nothing in this world has been created in vain. Of all the innumerable things that God has created there is not one which has not its particular use or is