Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān; Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad (1980)
Mary, all evidence of the truth, and strengthened him with holy inspiration.71 [Yet] is it not so that every time an apostle came unto you with something that was not to your liking, you gloried in your arrogance, and to some of them you gave the lie, while others you would slay?72
(88) But they say, “Our hearts are already full of knowledge.”73 Nay, but God has rejected them be cause of their refusal to acknowledge the truth: for, few are the things in which they believe.74
(89) And whenever there came unto them a [new] revelation from God, confirming the truth already in their possession – and [bear in mind that] aforetime they used to pray for victory over those who were bent on denying the truth –: whenever there came unto them something which they recognized [as the truth], they would deny it. And God’s rejection is the due of all who deny the truth.
(90) Vile is that [false pride] for which they have sold their own selves by denying the truth of what God has bestowed from on high, out of envy that God should bestow aught of His favour upon whomsoever He wills of His servants:75 and thus have they earned the burden of God’s condemnation, over and over. And for those who deny the truth there is shameful suffering in store.
(91) For when they are told, “Believe in what God has bestowed from on high,” they reply, “We believe [only] in what has been bestowed on us’’ – and they deny the truth of everything else, although it be a truth
the continuous succession of prophets among the Jews (see Ṭabarī, Zamakhsharī, Rāzī, Ibn Kathīr), which fact deprives them of any excuse of ignorance.
71 This rendering of rūḥ al-qudus (lit., “the spirit of holiness”) is based on the recurring use in the Qurʾān of the term rūḥ in the sense of “divine inspiration”. It is also recorded that the Prophet invoked the blessing of the rūḥ al-qudus on his Companion, the poet Ḥassān ibn Thābit (Bukhārī, Muslim, Abu Dāʾūd and Tirmidhī): just as the Qurʾān (58:22) speaks of all believers as being “strengthened by inspiration (rūḥ) from Him”.
72 Lit., “and some you are slaying”. The change from the past tense observed throughout this sentence to the present tense in the verb taqtulūn (“you are slaying”) is meant to express a conscious intent in this respect and, thus, a persistent, ever-recurring trait in Jewish history (Manār I, 377), to which also the New Testament refers (Matthew xxiii, 34–35, 37), and I Thessalonians ii, 15).
73 Lit., “our hearts are repositories [of knowledge]” – an allusion to the boast of the Jews that in view of the religious knowledge which they already possess, they are in no need of any further preaching (Ibn Kathīr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās; identical explanations are mentioned by Ṭabarī and Zamakhsharī).
74 I.e., all their beliefs are centred on themselves and their alleged “exceptional” status in the sight of God.
75 I.e., out of envy that God should bestow revelation upon anyone but a descendant of Israel - in this particular instance, upon the Arabian Prophet, Muḥammad.
