Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān; Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad (1980)
God has bidden to be joined, and spread corruption on earth: these it is that shall be the losers.
(28) How can you refuse to acknowledge God, seeing that you were lifeless and He gave you life, and that He will cause you to die and then will bring you again to life, whereupon unto Him you will be brought back?
(29) He it is who has created for you all that is on earth, and has applied His design to the heavens and fashioned them into seven heavens;20 and He alone has full knowledge of everything.
(30) And lo!21 Thy Sustainer said unto the angels: “Behold, I am about to establish upon earth one who shall inherit it.”22
They said: “Wilt Thou place on it such as will spread corruption thereon and shed blood - whereas it is we who extol Thy limitless glory, and praise Thee, and hallow Thy name?”
[God] answered: “Verily, I know that which you do not know.”
intended for them by God. The “establishment” of this bond arises from the faculty of reason which, if properly used, must lead man to a realization of his own weakness and dependence on a causative power and, thus, to a gradual cognition of God’s will with reference to his own behaviour. This interpretation of the “bond with God” seems to be indicated by the fact that there is no mention of any specific “covenant” in either the preceding or the subsequent verses of the passage under consideration. The deliberate omission of any explanatory reference in this connection suggests that the expression “bond with God” stands for something that is rooted in the human situation as such, and can, therefore, be perceived instinctively as well as through conscious experience: namely, that innate relationship with God which makes Him “closer to man than his neck-vein” (50:16). For an explanation of the subsequent reference to “what God has bidden to be joined”, see sūrah 13, note 43.
20 The term samāʾ (“heaven” or “sky”) is applied to anything that is spread like a canopy above any other thing. Thus, the visible skies which stretch like a vault above the earth and form, as it were, its canopy, are called samāʾ: and this is the primary meaning of this term in the Qurʾān; in a wider sense, it has the connotation of “cosmic system”. As regards the “seven heavens”, it is to be borne in mind that in Arabic usage – and apparently in other Semitic languages as well – the number “seven” is often synonymous with “several” (see Lisān al-ʿArab), just as “seventy” or “seven hundred” often means “many” or “very many” (Tāj al-ʿArūs). This, taken together with the accepted linguistic definition that “every samāʾ is a samāʾ with regard to what is below it” (Rāghib), may explain the “seven heavens” as denoting the multiplicity of cosmic systems. – For my rendering of thumma, at the beginning of this sentence, as “and”, see sūrah 7, first part of note 43.
21 The interjection “lo” seems to be the only adequate rendering, in this context, of the particle idh, which is usually – and without sufficient attention to its varying uses in Arabic construction – translated as “when”. Although the latter rendering is often justified, idh is also used to indicate “the sudden, or unexpected, occurrence of a thing” (cf. Lane I, 39), or a sudden turn in the discourse. The subsequent allegory, relating as it does to the faculty of reason implanted in man, is logically connected with the preceding passages.
22 Lit., “establish on earth a successor” or a “vice-gerent”. The term khalīfah – derived from the verb khalafa, “he succeeded [another]” – is used in this allegory to denote man’s rightful supremacy on earth, which is most suitably rendered by the expression “he shall inherit the earth” (in the sense of being given possession of it). See also 6:165, 27:62 and 35:39, where all human beings are spoken of as khalāʾif al-arḍ.
