Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of The Glorious Koran. An Explanatory Translation (1930)
SÛRAH LVII
Al-Ḥadîd, “Iron,” takes its name from a word in v. 25.
The reference in the word “victory” in v. 10, is undoubtedly to the conquest of Mecca, though Nöldeke 1 takes it to refer to the battle of Badr, and so would place the Sûrah in the fourth or fifth year of the Hijrah. The words of the verse are against such an assumption since no Muslims “spent and fought” before the battle at Badr, which was the beginning of their fighting.
The date of revelation must be the eighth or ninth year of the Hijrah.
Iron
1. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifieth Allah; and He is the Mighty, the Wise.
2. His is the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth; He quickeneth and He giveth death; and He is Able to do all things.
3. He is the First and the Last, and the Outward and the Inward; and He is Knower of all things.
4. He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days;2 then He mounted the Throne. He knoweth all that entereth the earth and all that emergeth therefrom and all that cometh down from the sky and all that ascendeth therein; and He is with you wheresoever ye may be. And Allah is Seer of what ye do.
1 Th. Nöldeke, Geschichte des Qorâns, 2nd Ed., Part I, Leipzig, 1909, p. 195.
2 XXII, 47; XXXII, 5; LXX, 4.
