Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi translation for Surah An-Naml

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Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi translation for Surah An-Naml — Ayah 18

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27:18

حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَتَوۡاْ عَلَىٰ وَادِ ٱلنَّمۡلِ قَالَتۡ نَمۡلَةٞ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّمۡلُ ٱدۡخُلُواْ مَسَٰكِنَكُمۡ لَا يَحۡطِمَنَّكُمۡ سُلَيۡمَٰنُ وَجُنُودُهُۥ وَهُمۡ لَا يَشۡعُرُونَ ١٨

(Solomon was once on the move with them) until when they reached a valley of ants one of the ants said: "O ants, get into your holes, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under their feet) without even knowing."¹

Footnotes

[1] Literally ‘blame’.
[2] This verse also has been greatly misconstrued by some commentators of the present day. They say that wad-in naml does not mean “valley of the ants”, but it is the name of a valley that was in Syria, and namlah does not mean an ant but it is the name of a tribe. Thus, according to them, the verse means this: “When the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him) reached the valley of the ants, a Namilite said, O people of the Naml tribe ......” But this also is an interpretation which is not supported by the words of the Quran. Even if we took wad-in-naml to be the name of a valley and supposed that it was inhabited by the tribe of Bani an-Naml, it would be against the Arabic idiom and usage to speak of a member of the tribe as namlah. Although there are many Arab tribes which have been named after the animals, e.g. Kalb (dog), Asad (lion), etc. Yet no Arab would ever say in respect of a member of the Kalb or the Asad tribe: “A dog said, or a lion said, etc.” Therefore, it would be against the Arabic idiom to say in respect of a member of the Naml tribe: “An ant (namlah) said this.” Then a member of the Naml tribe’s warning the people of his tribe, saying, “O Namilites, get into your houses lest Solomon’s hosts should trample you down without even knowing it,” becomes meaningless, It has never happened that an army of men should have trampled down a group of men without knowing it. If the army has come with the intention of an attack, it would be useless for the other side to get into their houses, for in that case the invaders would follow them into their houses, and trample them more ruthlessly. And if the army is only on the routine march, it is just enough to clear off the way for it. Human beings may be harmed by the marching columns, but it can never happen that the soldiers on the march would trample down other men without knowing it. Therefore, if Bani an-Naml were a tribe of human beings, and one of its members were to warn his people, then in case of an attack, he would have said, “O Namilites, flee your houses and take refuge in the mountains lest Solomon’s armies should destroy you.” And in case there was no danger of an attack, he would have said, “O Namilites, clear off the way lest one of you should be harmed by the marching columns of Solomon’s armies.”

Translations are available in both JSON and SQLite database formats. Some translation has footnotes as well, footnotes are embedded in the translation text using sup HTML tag. To support a wide range of applications, including websites, mobile apps, and desktop tools, we provide multiple export formats for translations.

Available export formats:

1. Nested Array Structure

Translations are grouped by Surah. Each Surah is an array containing translations for each Ayah in order. This format export translations as simple text, no formatting, no footnotes.

[
  ["translation of 1:1", "translation of 1:2"], ...
  ["translation of 2:1", "translation of 2:2"]
]

2. Key-Value Structure

Each translation is stored with the Ayah reference (e.g. 1:1) as the key and the translated text as the value. This format also exports translations as simple text, no formatting, no footnotes etc.

{
  "1:1": "translation of 1:1",
  "1:2": "translation of 1:2",
  ...
  "114:6": "translation of 114:6"
}

Translations with Footnotes

Translations with footnotes are available in three more formats:

1. Footnotes as Tags Format

Footnotes are embedded using a <sup> tag with a foot_note attribute. Footnote contents are stored separately under f key.

{
  "88:17": {
    "t": "Do the disbelievers not see how rain clouds are formed <sup foot_note=\"77646\">1</sup>",
    "f": {
      "77646": "The word ibl can mean 'camel' as well as 'rain cloud'..."
    }
  }
}

2. Inline Footnote Format

Footnotes are inserted directly using double square brackets e.g([[this is footnote]])

{
  "88:17": "Do the disbelievers not see how rain clouds are formed [[The word ibl can mean 'camel' as well as 'rain cloud'...]]"
}

3. Text Chunks Format

In chunks export format, text is divided into chunks. Each chunk could be a simple text or an object. Object can be either footnote or a formatting tag. This format is useful for applications can't directly render the HTML tags. Here is an example of Bridges` translation for Surah An-Nas , Ayah 6:

Above translation will be exported in chunks as:

<i class="s">(from the whisperers)</i>among the race of unseen beings<sup foot_note="81506">1</sup>and mankind.”


      [
      {"type":"i","text":"(from the whisperers)"}, // first chunk, should be formatted as italic
      "among the race of unseen beings", //second chunk in simple text
      {"type":"f","f":"81506","text":"1"}, // third chunk is a footnote,
      "and mankind.”"
      ]