Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’ān; Translated and Explained by Muhammad Asad (1980)
Inviolable House of Worship; and wherever you all may be, turn your faces towards it, so that people should have no argument against you unless they are bent upon wrongdoing.124 And hold not them in awe, but stand in awe of Me, and [obey Me,] so that I might bestow upon you the full measure of My blessings, and that you might follow the right path.
(151) Even as We have sent unto you an apostle from among yourselves to convey unto you Our messages, and to cause you to grow in purity, and to impart unto you revelation and wisdom, and to teach you that which you knew not: (152) so remember Me, and I shall remember you; and be grateful unto Me, and deny Me not.
(153) O you who have attained to faith! Seek aid in steadfast patience and prayer: for, behold, God is with those who are patient in adversity.
(154) And say not of those who are slain in God’s cause, “They are dead”: nay, they are alive, but you perceive it not.
(155) And most certainly shall We try you by means 125 of danger, and hunger, and loss of worldly goods, of lives and of [labour’s] fruits. But give glad tidings unto those who are patient in adversity – (156) who, when calamity befalls them, say, “Verily, unto God do we belong and, verily, unto Him we shall return.” (157) It is they upon whom their Sustainer’s blessings and grace are bestowed, and it is they, they who are on the right path!
(158) [Hence,] behold, Aṣ-Ṣafā and Al-Marwah are among the symbols set up by God;126 and thus, no
124 Lit., “except such among them as are bent upon wrongdoing” (regarding the intent implied in the use of the past tense in expressions like alladhīna ẓalamū or alladhīna kafarū, see note 6 on verse 6 of this sūrah). The Qurʾān stresses repeatedly that the Muslims are true followers of Abraham. This claim, however, might have been open to objection so long as they prayed in a direction other than Abraham’s qiblah, the Kaʿbah. The establishment of the latter as the qiblah of the followers of the Qurʾān would invalidate any such argument and would leave it only to “those who are bent upon wrongdoing” (in this case, distorting the truth) to challenge the message of the Qurʾān on these grounds.
125 Lit., “with something”.
126 Lit., “God’s symbols”. The space between the two low outcrops of rock called Aṣ-Ṣafā and Al-Marwah, situated in Mecca in the immediate vicinity of the Kaʿbah, is said to have been the scene of Hagar’s suffering when Abraham, following God’s command, abandoned her and their infant son Ishmael in the desert (see note 102 above). Distraught with thirst and fearing for the life of her child, Hagar ran to and fro between the two rocks and fervently prayed to God for succour: and, finally’ her reliance on God and her patience were rewarded by the discovery of a spring – existing to this day and known as the Well of Zamzam – which saved the two from death through thirst. It was in remembrance of Hagar’s extreme trial, and of her trust in God, that Aṣ-Ṣafā and Al-Marwah had come to be regarded, even in pre-Islamic times, as symbols of faith and patience in adversity: and
