Translation and Explanation of Surah Sharh [94] Verses 4-5
بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
4- “And raised high your fame?”
According to the scholars the raising here can be literal as well as metaphorical. With regards to the literal meaning, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not mentioned in any acts of worship except that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is mentioned as well. This is the raising of the Messenger ﷺ with regards to his connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. For example the shahadah: “I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, the One and Only, without any partner. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger.”
Also if someone believed in Allah and the prophets from Adam AS to Isa AS, Paradise, Hellfire, angels, and everything else except the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, then he would not enter into Paradise. This is a form of raising the status of the Prophet ﷺ evidencing that from the conditions of being a Muslim, of entering into Paradise, is to believe that Muhammad ﷺ was the last prophet and messenger.
Similarly in other acts of worship like the call to prayer, the iqamah, and the tashahud during salah, if the Messenger ﷺ is not mentioned in the salah the salah is null and void. This shows how Allah has raised the reputation of the Prophet ﷺ. Moreover, the scholars have said that there’s no moment in the day or the year in which at one point or another someone somewhere in the world is not reciting the name of the Prophet ﷺ.
There is love in the heart of the believer for the Prophet ﷺ unlike for anyone else. Nobody else comes close to this sort of love, even when we have never seen him, and this is a miracle from the miracles of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Moreover, the Messenger ﷺ was the best of the prophets and messengers, there are many evidences to prove this, one of the evidences in the night journey, when he led all of the messengers and prophets in Salah. Similarly on the day of Judgement the Prophet ﷺ will be the first person to enter Paradise, and his ummah will be the first ummah to enter into Jannah.
The last two or three verses are an example of an arabic saying that basically means that a person should cleanse himself of sins and evil without filling it with someone good, proper and pure. Focusing on this verse, we see that the sins were removed before addition of the good. The scholars give examples of this, the most important one is the kalima. That first a person cleanses himself from denying the existence of God, from worshipping anything that is not worthy of worship. Once the person has cleansed his heart from these ideas then he makes exception with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There is no God worthy of worship except Allah.
Similarly when a person repents from a sin, first he has to accept that he committed the sin, and then he asks for forgiveness.
5- “So verily, with the hardship, there is relief,”
6- “Verily, with the hardship, there is relief (i.e. there is one hardship with two reliefs, so one hardship cannot overcome two reliefs).”
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions the same words twice, “verily, with hardship, there is relief,” for emphasis. That no matter what sort of hardship, there will be ease, whether personal or generally in the world.
When Allah talks about usr, hardship, it’s written as al-usr, with an alif and laam. But there is no alif or laam in front of yusr, relief. This shows that the relief is open, and the hardship is specific, one. The alif and laam before a word makes it specific, as ‘the’ but the absence of it suggests a general term, plural, showing that when a person goes through a specific hardship, there is going to be general ease. The relief is wider, vast, and more than the hardship they are going to go through. Here scholars say that every hardship has ease attached to it. No matter what happens in a person’s life, whatever the person goes through, there’s always going to be ease attached to it.
When someone goes through hardship he is given strength by Allah to persevere through the hardship. Sometimes things happen in our life that make us feel like we won’t be able to make it through, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allows us to persevere, and when we look back at the hardship we have a hard time believing how we made it through. So when a person has tawakul in Allah and remains patient and makes effort, Allah will give him strength and perseverance to deal with the hardship.
Similarly, some scholars have said that the hardships mentioned in these verses refer to the hardships in this world, while the relief mentioned is the relief in the afterlife.
Some have also pointed out that there is one hardship, while there are two eases mentioned. This may suggest that even when we are going through the hardship, we are receiving some sort of ease or good. For example any pain or sadness that a believer will go through in this life will be a source of expiation of his sins, even the pricking of a thorn. On top of that sometimes a person receives more good from a hardship then he was receiving during his time of ease, it makes you experienced, stronger and wiser. The prophets of Allah too had to always struggle before they were accepted by the people who came after them.
This ease after hardship is based on cleansing ourselves off our sins through patience and preservance.
*
Comments
Post a Comment