Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān; Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad (1980)

constant in prayer, and spend in charity,34 and bow down in prayer with all who thus bow down.
(44) Do you bid other people to be pious, the while you forget your own selves – and yet you recite the divine writ? Will you not, then, use your reason?
(45) And seek aid in steadfast patience and prayer: and this, indeed, is a hard thing for all but the humble in spirit, (46) who know with certainty that they shall meet their Sustainer and that unto Him they shall return.
(47) O children of Israel! Remember those blessings of Mine with which I graced you, and how I favoured you above all other people; (48) and remain conscious of [the coming of] a Day when no human being shall in the least avail another, nor shall intercession be accepted from any of them, nor ransom taken from them,35 and none shall be succoured.
(49) And [remember the time] when We saved you from Pharaoh’s people, who afflicted you with cruel suffering, slaughtering your sons and sparing [only] your women 36 – which was an awesome trial from your Sustainer; (50) and when We cleft the sea before you, and thus saved you and caused Pharaoh’s people to drown before your very eyes; (51) and when We appointed for Moses forty nights [on Mount Sinai], and in his absence you took to worshipping the [golden] calf, and thus became evildoers: (52) yet, even after that, We blotted out this your sin, so that you might have cause to be grateful.37

18). The “brethren” of the children of Israel are obviously the Arabs, and particularly the mustaʿribah (“Arabianized”) group among them, which traces its descent to Ishmael and Abraham: and since it is to this group that the Arabian Prophet’s own tribe, the Quraysh, belonged, the above Biblical passages must be taken as referring to his advent.

34 In Islamic Law, zakāh denotes an obligatory tax, incumbent on Muslims, which is meant to purify a person’s capital and income from the taint of selfishness (hence the name). The proceeds of this tax are to be spent mainly, but not exclusively, on the poor. Whenever, therefore, this term bears the above legal implication, I translate it as “the purifying dues”. Since, however, in this verse it refers to the children of Israel and obviously implies only acts of charity towards the poor, it is more appropriate to translate it as “almsgiving” or “charity”. I have also adopted this latter rendering in all instances where the term zakāh, though relating to Muslims, does not apply specifically to the obligatory tax as such (e.g., in 73:20, where this term appears for the first time in the chronology of revelation).

35 The “taking of ransom (ʿadl)” is an obvious allusion to the Christian doctrine of vicarious redemption as well as to the Jewish idea that “the chosen people” – as the Jews considered themselves – would be exempt from punishment on the Day of Judgment. Both these ideas are categorically refuted in the Qurʾān.

36 See Exodus i, 15–16, 22.

37 The story of the golden calf is dealt with at greater length in 7:148 ff. and 20:85 ff. Regarding the crossing of the Red Sea, to which verse 50 above alludes, see 20:7778 and 26:6366, as well as the corresponding notes. The forty nights (and days) which Moses spent on Mount Sinai are mentioned again in 7:142.

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Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān; Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad, Dar Al-Andalus Limited, 3 Library Ramp, Gibraltar, Consulted online at “Quran Archive - Texts and Studies on the Quran” on 29 Mar. 2024: http://quran-archive.org/explorer/muhammad-asad/1980?page=30