Read the Quran Chapter 14 English

14:1-2
Faith enables man to discover God as a Being who is all powerful and possessed of all the good attributes. Such a mental state is not merely a formal belief. It, in fact, signals the emergence of a man from the darkness of ignorance and his entering into the light of knowledge. It amounts to the observation and realization of the Hereafter, while actually remaining in this world. Faith in reality is a conscious attainment and not the spiritless repetition of certain combinations of words. The Book of God aims to lead man to this higher stage of consciousness. Receiving guidance at the command of God would appear to attribute the matter of guidance to God. But these words are, in fact, aimed at man himself. There is an immutable law of God, which He has established for the guidance or misguidance of man. According to this law, a man’s serious desire for guidance is the only condition which will take him towards it. When a man receives guidance in this world, it is not simply because of the efforts of the missionary, but because it is available to him by the law of God which lays down that only that person will receive the bounty of guidance who himself is desirous of receiving it. Nobody can receive guidance without his own personal desire to have it.
14:3
God has made the path of guidance extremely clear and well illumined; signs are spread all around on the earth and in the sky; the Book of God provides undeniable arguments in its favour; human nature bears testimony to its veracity; in other words, all the evidence in nature are in its favour. This being so, those who do not seek out guidance certainly refrain from doing so in consideration of their worldly interests and not for any real reason, though such people advance a number of ‘arguments’ in order to justify their behaviour. But the actual purpose of these ‘arguments’ is to find something wrong with a straightforward statement. They are intended purely to justify their rejection of divine guidance in the eyes of the people. In view of this, only that person will be deprived of guidance whose love of self-interest and worldly inducements have made him completely blind and deaf.
14:4
It was the way of God to raise prophets from among the addressees’ own community, fully taking into account their mentality, so that they might be able to call upon the people in their own understandable language to accept the truth. But it was very strange that the way adopted for the betterment of the people led to the very opposite effect. When they saw that the prophet was a man like themselves and talked in their own familiar language, they rejected him, considering him to be an ordinary man. The way adopted to make the process of guidance easier was turned by them into a source of misguidance. It is not the way of God to display magical feats in order to attract people towards Himself, for example, by sending to a community a prophet who speaks a strange language or making the people wonderstruck by discoursing in a magical style. God does not cater to the wonder-loving nature of human beings. God’s way is that of simplicity and realism. He has established His world on the basis of realities; therefore, He also carries into effect His scheme for the guidance of man on the basis of realities, not of magic.
14:5
Here, ‘Our Signs’ means those signs of the universe which prove the statements of God to be true. ‘God’s Days’ (ayyamullah) means those events of history when the decision of God was made manifest and, with the special help of God, truth was victorious over falsehood. But it is very strange that these things remain almost untraceable in our world. The signs of God have been masked by wrong interpretation and wrong explanation, and the Days of God were not considered worth mentioning, the utmost attention was given to writing instead about ‘the Days of the Human Being’ (ayyamul insan). In view of this, the only way for a subject of God to emerge from the darkness of falsehood is to exercise patience and remain grateful. Modesty is necessary to find the truth. In order to find the truth, one has to lose oneself and this cannot be attained by anybody without the exercise of patience. Then the realization of truth shows a man that the division of resources in this universe is a matter between the giver and the receiver. God is the Giver and man is the receiver. The proper feeling which develops in man after the discovery of this reality is known as gratefulness. That is to say that, in order to reach reality, man has to exercise patience and, in order to assimilate this reality within himself, he has to be grateful.

14:6-8
The speech of Moses referred to in these verses is perhaps the one which he had made in the Sinai desert to the Children of Israel, a few days before his death. This speech is recorded in detail in the present Bible. The sum and substance of this speech of Moses is that if they remained in this world as the people of God and made the affairs of God the subject of their discussion, then all the things of the world would support them; all communities would bear the stamp of their domination; God would subdue their enemies; so much so that if a river obstructed their way, God would give the command and the waters of the river would separate and give way to them, while their enemies would be drowned in that very river. He added that if they did not do as he said, they would be laid low in the eyes of God, that is, they would be deprived of God’s grace; the product of their labour would go to benefit others; they would fail in all their tasks and they would become intellectually and physically subordinate to other communities. This law of God is not only for Jews but for every community who is given the Book of God. This has been the way of God with every community bearing the Book irrespective of whether they were people of ancient times or whether they are people of the present day.
14:9
All of the prophets who came to various communities, had the same experience: everywhere efforts were made to silence them, for every community opposed its prophet. What was the reason for this? The reason for this was the people’s ‘doubt’. This doubt existed because the religion of their forefathers held sway and was widely believed in. By contrast, here was the divine religion being introduced by an apparently ordinary man. The arguments appeared to favour the religion of the Prophet. But historical glory and public popularity seemed to be on the side of their forefathers’ religion. The addressees of the Prophet were themselves in a dilemma: they did not have the power to reject the arguments and at the same time they could not understand how they could consider their leaders and great men to be on the wrong path. This double-edged puzzle pushed them further into a dilemma. Attached as they were to their ancestral religion, they could not accept the truth inspite of being convinced of the strong arguments.
14:10
This verse is related to ancient communities. However, a special characteristic of the Quran is that it presents God’s eternal teachings in such a way as to relate them to both the immediate addressees and to the later generations. The word ‘Originator’ as used here to translate the Arabic word, fatir, does not reflect the original, literal sense of ‘one who tears’. Literally translated, the question would read, ‘Is there any doubt about God who is the tearer of heaven and earth?’ It is important to understand this aspect of the Creator, for this provides a proof of the existence of God in terms of today’s laws of physics. Modern research shows that the matter constituting heaven and earth was initially in the shape of the solid ball known as the super atom. According to the known laws of nature, all its parts were attracted towards its centre with extreme intensity. The present extensive universe came into existence due to the explosion of this super atom. In this verse the word fatir (the Tearer) refers to this universal event—an absolute proof of the existence of a Creator, because the parts of the super atom which were completely attracted inside could not move in an outward direction by themselves. An intervention was required for this. If one accepts that the explosion did take place (that is, the Big Bang) then one must also accept the theory of external intervention. The other name for this intervening power is God.

14:11-12
When the people rejected each contemporary prophet in turn, saying ‘You are a human being like us,’ the real reason was not that they considered it necessary for the prophet to be superhuman. The real reason was the difference they observed between previous prophets and the contemporary prophet. The fact is that the past prophets were also, in their time, just like the contemporary prophet. But subsequently their followers weaved a halo of magical stories around them, so that their personalities were given a dramatic colour which they did not initially possess. Now the communities had before them on the one hand prophets, supposedly capable of performing certain tricks and feats and, on the other, a prophet of realistic calibre. In this comparison the previous prophets became perfect examples. When communities viewed the matter by these standards, they found the contemporary prophet a lesser man than the charismatic prophets of the past. So they rejected him with contempt. The prophets told their addressees that they could only exercise patience in answer to their objections, i.e. they wanted guidance at a superhuman level, while God had given them (the prophets) the capacity to give guidance only at a human level. The prophets said, ‘Under these circumstances, what can we do except tolerate your persecution and entrust the whole matter to God?’

14:13-14
The religion adopted by the various communities was severely shaken by the call of the prophets. Those treated as great men by their people were reduced in status by the analysis of the prophets, and this angered them. They could not rebut the prophets’ arguments. However, thanks to the system prevailing at that time, they had great powers in their hands. In their superior position they decided that the prophets should be made homeless and landless. What could not be countered by arguments was opposed by power. When man is in possession of land, this possession is by way of a test and not as a right. If a man realizes that all these things are from God, which has been given to him as a test, he will develop a modest mentality. He will be afraid that what has been given by God may be taken away from him. But those neglectful of religion consider it as a personal right and this feeling makes them tyrannical and proud. When the call of the prophet reaches its conclusive stage, it means that the period of respite given to the addressee community as a test has come to an end. Thereafter, the world is completely changed for them. The things in which they had reposed their hopes and on which basis they had made boastful plans suddenly leave them. So much so, that a time comes when the land is wrested from them and given to others who are more deserving.

14:15-17
In the eyes of God, man’s greatest crime is his adoption of an attitude of arrogance and obstinacy when he is called upon to submit to God. For such people there shall be disgrace in this world and in the Hereafter. Their punishment will be so severe that they will find themselves constantly on the verge of death and destruction. When a man becomes tyrannical and arrogant towards others, he does it with some backing. The opponents of Islam felt their position to be impregnable because they followed the religion of their ‘great men’. In comparison the Prophet and his Companions appeared to them to be lesser mortals. It was this mentality which prompted them to consider legitimate all types of persecution of the Prophet and his Companions. It was due to their linking themselves with their ‘great men’ that they became bold enough to take all sorts of punitive action against the so-called ‘small men’.

14:18-20
The people of Arabia who rejected the Prophet Muhammad were those very people who had already accepted God and religion. Then why did they reject him? The reason for this was that in his case Truth was revealed in its abstract form, while they used to consider as true only that which had reached them through their ‘ancestors’. They recognized the religion of their ‘National Heroes’, but failed to recognize the religion of ‘Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah’. Those who find religion under the influence of national traditions make a display of religiosity, but are, in fact, engaged in superficial activities in the name of religion. This has nothing to do with the spirit of the religion. What God requires is real religiousness and not just performance of certain rituals. God approves of a man who has discovered the truth by means of his own mental striving; who has made observations of God in the realm of the unseen; who has recognized truth in its absolute form and supported it; whose soul has bathed in God’s sea; who is restless in God’s love and whose eyes have shed tears with the fear of God. The religiousness of the first type of people is entirely superficial and outward, and of no value in the eyes of God. On the contrary, the religion of the second type of people is the real one. This is imbedded in the innermost recesses of human existence. A study of the universe reveals that its creation is based on realities; in such a universe only good deeds have value and not suppositions and wishful thinking.
14:21
In reality, man is always under the eye of God. But, in the present world, man does not realize that God is watching him. In the Hereafter this veil will fall. At that time man will realize that he was completely visible to God, and to such an extent that nothing about him was hidden from Him. Those who ignore the truth do so relying on their “great men.” Whatever the common man does is done at the instance of leaders. In the Hereafter, when these people find themselves completely helpless, they will turn for assistance to their ‘great men’ on whom they had relied for guidance in this life. But the ‘great men’ will confess that their misguided leadership ended with the previous world. This being the case, how can they be expected to extend any help to them? They will tell their erstwhile followers that they are all destined to face the consequences of going astray, just as they themselves shall have to do. They will add that, whether they like it or not, they shall have to face this fate.
14:22
The world of God is the world of reality and is not based on imagination. Here, relying on the promises of Satan amounts to building on an unrealistic basis. Suppose an individual ignores the caller of Truth and himself takes the credit for doing dawah work, but he indulges in other activities besides dawah. He takes no account of the Hereafter but, relying upon self-made suppositions, still builds up the hope of salvation. He does not live his life in accordance with the commandments of God, yet hopes that his name will be included in the list of God’s most favoured subjects. All these actions stem from relying on the false promises of Satan and, in the Hereafter, man will come to know that only God’s promise was the true one and all other promises were only false hopes, which were never likely to be fulfilled. In this world of God, placing hopes on anyone or anything other than God amounts to polytheism (shirk). It is those who ignore divine realities and want to construct their lives on other things will find that nothing except God can give them any support. But this realization will be of no avail to them on that day.
14:23
To say assalamu alaykum or ‘peace be with you’ at the time of meeting is not simply a formal social custom. This is in fact an outward symbol of a heartfelt connection. Those who have lived their lives in this world with feelings of benevolence towards others, who have known how to forget their grievances and love others wholeheartedly, who have always spoken of others with respect, who have chosen for others what they desired for themselves, who have always longed in their heart of hearts for the well-being of others and who have rejoiced in seeing others in a state of well-being—such will be the people who will be entitled to take up their abode in the splendid world of paradise. The greeting assalamu alaykum has always given expression to their feelings of love and well-wishing whenever they met their brothers; in the Hereafter, when they greet their heavenly neighbours, this salutation will assume a powerful and more aesthetic form.

14:24-26
In the present world Almighty God has appointed outward symbols for different realities. For example, a good tree is a symbolic representation of the believer. It is the special characteristic of a tree that it makes the whole world its ‘dining table’, and in this way develops from the stage of a seed to establish itself on the earth as a majestic tree. The tree absorbs from the earth water, minerals and salts in order to grow: at the same time it obtains nourishment from the air and light from the sun. It takes nourishment from below as well as from above. Using all these through the process of photosynthesis, the tree is able to make food throughout. This is what is meant by yields its fruit all the time. This is also true of the believer. While the common tree is materially a tree, the believer is a conscious tree. The believer observes in the world God’s creation and, looking to the system governing it, derives from it a proper lesson and guidance. Moreover, he continuously receives God’s blessing from ‘above’. Fruit ripens on the tree in the proper season. Similarly, a believer adopts such behaviour as is proper for every occasion. Whether it is under economic constraints or in economic prosperity; whether it is in a moment of happiness or sorrow; whether it is a matter for complaint or commendation, whether it is in a condition of strength or weakness, on every occasion his language and behaviour express the reverence which he is expected to show as a true subject of God. The opposite example is that of the evil tree, i.e. the wild bush. Its appearance suggests that it is provided with extremely unwholesome food, as a result of which it is covered with thorns, and bitter fruits with an unpleasant taste grow on its branches. It receives anyone who goes near it with a bad smell. Nobody likes such a tree. Wherever it grows, it is uprooted and thrown away. This is the case with the unbeliever, who from the beginning has always been persona non-grata on this earth. To him, the universe, despite its superlative features, has no argument in its favour and teaches no lesson. Though there is no end to the liberality of God’s blessings, he has no share in them; God’s magnanimity is not reflected in his character or his dealings.
14:27
Being steadfast in the world means persevering in righteousness and doing good deeds at every turn in one’s life. Being steadfast in the Hereafter means having been successful at the time of questions and answers in the grave. Man is at every moment in the position of being put to the test. He faces different types of favourable and unfavourable events. On these occasions, only those who have grown ‘the tree of faith’ inside themselves behave in a correct and godly way. In the prevailing circumstances, they manifest the most appropriate reaction expected of them according to the will of God. In contrast to this, the man whose personality has grown like a wild bush evinces bitterness at every event; on every occasion he proves to be a thorn and emits a bad smell. When these two types of person are tested finally at the stage of the grave, the one who proves himself to be the ‘good tree’ will be ushered into the Garden of Paradise. And the one who proves to be the ‘evil tree’ will receive the appropriate punishment of being uprooted from this world in order to be thrown as fuel into the fire of Hell. 

14:28-30
These verses are primarily addressed to the chiefs of the Quraysh. But they apply generally to all those leaders who wage campaigns for the rejection of truth. Only those who enjoy special benefits and opportunities become the great men of a community. The best use of these benefits and opportunities is that when the call of truth makes its impact upon them, they should stand up for it and, drawing upon all their resources, they should support it in every way. God has greater rights over the things which are given by Him than anybody else has. But in most cases, the position is the opposite. Such people not only reject the truth, but even lead movements against it. The reason for this is that accepting the truth arising from outside themselves amounts to belittling themselves in comparison. And people who have, for whatever the reason, attained high status, very rarely agree to do so. Human beings want a God—a Being who can be given the greatest position in their lives. But whenever their attention is diverted from the one and only God, they become inclined towards some non-God. Leaving God is always at the cost of setting up some non-God as God. Furthermore, those who divert people from God invest some non-God with those high qualities which are found in God, otherwise people would not be inclined towards it. That is why, when a man gives up worshipping the one God, he necessarily becomes superstitious. In this world the only alternative to believing in God is superstition.
14:31
When a man confronts troubles, he tries his utmost to save himself from them; if he has friends, he uses their strength; if he has wealth, he spends it in that connection. A man’s anxiety to save himself compels him to rush towards both these solutions. Prayer (salat) and spending (infaq) are, in fact, the worldly manifestations of man’s feelings about the problem of the Hereafter. Prayer (salat) is running towards God’s protection so that one may thereby save himself from God’s wrath in the Hereafter. In the same way, openly and secretly spending in this world is like donating one’s earnings for the cause of God, so that it may become the means of obtaining relief from the rigours of the Hereafter. In the Hereafter, one may wish to spend, but one will have nothing with which one could ransom oneself from the suffering there.

14:32-34
To the most wonderful extent, the present world bears testimony to God’s existence. The rotation of stars and planets in the vastness of space; the provision and sustenance for life on the earth, the abundance of water; man’s ability to run his vehicles on land, sail on water and fly in space; the earth’s being favourable to man with the help of rivers and mountains; the regularity of the seasons and the occurrence of day and night with the help of the sun and the moon—all these are phenomena too great to be adequately expressed in words. There is such perfect co-ordination between man and the universe that every imaginable, or unimaginable necessity of man has already been provided for here in abundance. All these things are so wonderful that they should shake a man and should overwhelm him with feelings of submission to God. In spite of this, why, on seeing the universe, is he not filled with wonder and why does he not tremble at the concept of the Creator of the universe? The reason for this is that man sees the universe as soon as he is born. By seeing it again and again he takes it to be an ordinary thing; he does not find any uniqueness in it, and takes it for granted. Moreover, when a man receives anything in this world, it appears to be available to him through the ‘cause-and-effect’ process. On this basis, he thinks that whatever he attains is due to his own diligence and talents. That is why the feeling of gratitude to God, the Giver, does not develop in him.

14:35-36
Prior to the advent of the period of Abraham, the condition of countries and communities had become such that polytheism (ascribing partners to God—shirk) had become the order of the day. The sun, the moon and other natural phenomena had become objects of worship. In ancient times, polytheism became so dominant over all activities of life that it thrived from one generation to the next. It seemed impossible that people could be taken away from the atmosphere of polytheism and brought into the sphere of belief in the unity of God—monotheism (tawhid). At that time, at the especial behest of God, Abraham left Iraq and entered the Arabian desert, which was a desolate place, far away from civilization. In this isolated atmosphere, he settled his wife, Hagar (Hajrah), and his son, Ishmael (Isma‘il), so that a new generation would grow up, which would be cut off from the polytheistic trend prevalent at the time, and which, having been brought up in a free atmosphere, would follow its true nature in its formation. Abraham’s statement reveals this particular fact in prayer-like style. This was God’s plan in settling the children of Ishmael in a dry and deserted place. Now, the people who made the unity of God (tawhid) the voice of their hearts, were, so to say, the true fruits of the Garden of Abraham. By contrast, the people of this place who reverted to the way of polytheism (shirk) would be treated as the poisonous weeds of this Garden.
14:37
The hilly and desert world of ancient Makkah was a natural training ground for the realization of God; the entire panorama of nature was an encouragement to man to remember Him. The only sign of human construction here, which claimed man’s attention, was the stone mosque, the Ka‘bah, built by Abraham and Ishmael. Here man could enter and engage in the remembrance of God. In this atmosphere, the children of Ishmael were miraculously provided with water from the Zamzam spring. Moreover, it was so arranged that they received sustenance (rizq) from produce which was not grown there. This was, in fact, a special arrangement to make them grateful. With the provision of extraordinary bounties, extraordinary feelings of gratefulness arise in man. This was the wisdom which was hidden in Abraham’s prayer that in the desert they should be provided with sustenance in the shape of fruits.

14:38-41
In this prayer of Abraham, one sees glimpses of all those emotions which emerge in the heart of a true subject of God while addressing a prayer to Him. His submissive attitude compels him to admit his humility before God; whatever he requests is on the basis of his being needy and not on the basis of any entitlement; on the one hand, he admits to the bounties already available to him and, on the other, presents his request with all due respect. He admits that God is the Giver and man the beneficiary. He prays to God to make him live in the world as His worshipper. He makes this request for himself, for his family members and for all believers also. At the time of prayer, the greatest problem before him should not be that of the world but that of the Hereafter, where a man has to live forever. The prayer then made is prophetic in nature, and if such a prayer comes from a true heart, it will necessarily be accepted by God.
14:42
When the Truth presents itself to a man, he sets himself against it. He shows such fearlessness in the face of it, as if there were nobody else in the world more courageous than he. But this very Truth which is made manifest by a preacher of God’s word in the present world, will become evident in the Hereafter at the level of God; the opponents of Truth will then lose all their bravado. After seeing the horrible scenes of the Hereafter, their condition will be such that their eyes will leap from their heads; they will not even be able to wink. Tilting their heads back, they will rush towards the ground where all will be gathered and their hearts will be terror-struck.

14:43-46
Man’s behaviour is such that he does not realize his fate right to the very end. If he attains some power or status, he becomes boastful and conceited as if these things were never going to be snatched away from him. He rejects the call of God and forgets that the things on the strength of which he rejects the call were all given to him by God Himself. Arguments are presented to him, but he pays no attention to them. The ultimate fate of the arrogant people of the past is well known to him, but he thinks that whatever happened was meant for others and that this will never happen in his case. Those who have been given opportunities for betterment in the present world feel proud of ignoring the Truth. But after death, when they see the result of their arrogance, they will be so ashamed of their past that they will want to return to the past, so that they can contradict themselves and accept that very truth which they had earlier proudly rejected. Opposition of Truth amounts to opposition of God. Opponents of the Truth which is supported by God, are always unsuccessful, even if they come with preparation of Himalayan proportions.

14:47-52
A prophet bears testimony to the religion of God to the fullest possible extent. So, God gives him His perfect support. Subsequent followers of the prophet will also go on becoming entitled to the help of God to the extent that they live up to the example set by the prophet. Today, on the earth, man feels that he is the lord of land and sea; he is able to control spaces and vacuums; he has the power to use or not to use the resources available here. But, all this is possible only because God has subjected heaven and earth to man for as long as the period of testing lasts. The moment the period of testing is over, these conditions will completely change. Thereafter, the earth will be a different earth and heaven also will be a different heaven. Man will suddenly find himself in a whole different world. Where man saw himself as a ruler, now God will hold sway. Where everything was subservient to his orders, all men and all things will now disobey him. Those who had become great men in the present world, will all appear to be helpless criminals on that day. Bodily adornments will now be like tar smeared all over the body. Glorious faces will be ravaged. All this will happen to those who were not ready to live as subjects of God in the world and who ignored the declarations made on His behalf. The fact being a fact is not enough for man to accept it. For the acceptance of a fact, it is necessary for man to be willing to accept it. Only one who is serious about fact finding, who hears things with an open mind, will be successful in coming to grips with reality.