The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 268
that they should observe Prayers and give the Zakāh and hold fast to God and that if they acted upon these commandments, God would help them and vouchsafe to them success and prosperity. Whereas the closing verses of the preceding Surah had held out to the believers a conditional promise of success, in the present Surah a sure guarantee is given that a community of believers will certainly be born who, because they will fulfil the above- mentioned conditions, will achieve success. Thus a thing which was only presumed to have existed is claimed in this Surah to have come into being as an actual fact. The subject matter of this Surah makes a little digression from that of the preceding few Surahs. Those Sūrahs contained a summary of the teaching of Christianity and rejected what was unacceptable in it and corrected and amended where corrections and amendments were found necessary. This Surah, too, embodies a repudiation of the false doctrines and teachings of Christianity, but at the same time makes a pointed and emphatic reference to the fact that the whole Christian system has been replaced by Islam, which by removing all interpolations and false ideas that had found their way into it, will now guide mankind to its destined goal. Subject Matter The Surah opens with the glad tidings to the true believers that the time of their success and prosperity has already arrived, and then proceeds to give a brief description of their characteristics and special marks, i. e. they worship their Lord with a humble heart; they refrain from all such actions as do no good to themselves or their community; they are ever ready to undergo all sorts of sacrifice for the sake of their country; they shut all those avenues through which evil thoughts find access to the human heart, particularly they guard their chastity; they faithfully discharge their responsibilities and fulfil their covenants and pledges with other peoples; they are specially regardful of congregational Prayers, i. e. they promote and foster national feelings among the members of their community and subordinate individual requirements to national needs. These are the people who will get the Paradise promised to them in this world and will enjoy God's eternal and everlasting favours in the life to come. This, in a nutshell, is the process of the spiritual growth and development of believers. It is followed by a brief but beautiful description of the growth of the human foetus and defines the different stages through which the child passes-from the stage of a drop of sperm to that of a fully developed human being. The Surah then proceeds to explain that just as every physical birth is followed by death and resurrection, similarly nations or communities among whom at one time a spiritual renaissance takes place, at 2182