Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi

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Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi translation for Surah Al-Ahzab — Ayah 69

33:69
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ لَا تَكُونُواْ كَٱلَّذِينَ ءَاذَوۡاْ مُوسَىٰ فَبَرَّأَهُ ٱللَّهُ مِمَّا قَالُواْۚ وَكَانَ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ وَجِيهٗا ٦٩
Believers,1 do not be like those who distressed Moses and then Allah declared him quit of the ill they spoke about him; and he had a high standing with Allah.2
Footnotes
  • [1] This sentence is left open-ended; according Az-Zamakhshari its predicate is sign 31.
  • [2] A grammatical shift to present tense, which serves to create a vivid portrait of future events.
  • [3] One should note that the Quran has at some places addressed the true Muslims with: “O you who have believed,” and at others places the Muslim community as a whole, which includes the believers as well as the hypocrites and the Muslims of the weak faith, and at still others places only the hypocrites. When the hypocrites and the Muslims of the weak faith are addressed with: “O you who have believed,” it is meant to put them to shame, as if to say, “You claim to have affirmed faith, but your acts and deeds do not support your claim.” A little study of the context can easily show which class of the people has been addressed at a particular place. Here, obviously, the common Muslims are being addressed.
  • [4] In other words, it means: “O Muslims, do not behave like the Jews. You should not behave towards your Prophet (peace be upon him) as the children of Israel behaved towards the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him).” The Israelites themselves admit that the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) was their greatest benefactor. Whatever they achieved as a nation was only due to him: otherwise in Egypt they would have been doomed to a worse fate than that of the Shudras in India. But how the Israelites treated the greatest benefactor of theirs can be judged by a cursory glance at the following places of the Bible: Exodus, 5: 20-21, 14: 12, 16: 2-3, 17: 3-4. Numbers, 11:1-15, 14:1-10, 16 (the whole chapter), 20: 1-5.