The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5) — Page 209
PT. 27 AL-HADID CH. 57 يَاأَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللهَ وَامِنُوا O ye who believe! fear Allah. 29 and believe in His Messenger; بِرَسُولِهِ يُؤْتِكُمْ كِفْلَيْنِ مِنْ رَّحْمَتِهِ He will give you a double portion of His mercy, and will وَيَجْعَل لَّكُمْ نُورًا تَمْشُونَ بِهِ provide for you a light wherein وَيَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ وَاللهُ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمُن you will walk, and will grant you forgiveness and verily Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful—4169 In v. 26, it was stated that God had sent down(Balance) in order that people may act with equity and justice, i. e. by avoiding extremes they should adopt the golden mean or the middle course in all their affairs and actions because that was the best and the safest course. In the present verse the example of a people the Christians has been cited to show that the adoption of an extreme course by them, with howsoever good intentions, led them away from the goal they had sought to attain. They invented the institution of monkery in order, as they thought, to seek the pleasure of God, and in conformity with, according to them, Jesus's own teaching and practice. The adage that the road to Heaven is paved with good intentions was never better illustrated than in the case of Christians for whom monkery proved a source of many evils. They started with monasticism and ended with giving themselves up to the worship of Mammon. By implication the Muslims were told that because a great Prophet had been raised for them, by following whom they would be given great worldly power and wealth, they should not go to the other extreme and give themselves up 3105 to the pursuit of material gains and physical pleasures. While monasticism has been decried and deplored as repugnant to human nature, the Holy Prophet also is reported to have said: ¿o i. e. there is no monasticism in Islam (Ibn Athīr). Islam is not a religion for dreamers and visionaries who live in a world of their own conception, entirely divorced from the hard realities of life, but it is a practical system which gives effective and full guidance in mundane as well as spiritual affairs. It has not left any aspect of crowded human life for which it has not laid down practical guidance. There is no place in Islam for such an impracticable teaching as "take no thought for the morrow" (Matt. 6:34). It emphatically enjoins a Muslim "to look to what he sends forth for the morrow" (59:19). According to Islam a true Muslim is one who discharges fully and completely the obligations he owes to his fellow beings () as he discharges those he owes to his Creator (au). 4169. Commentary: As in the preceding verse the Christians were admonished for