Surah Al-'Ankabut: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

Alif. Lam. Mim. Do you think that, after Allah has bestowed on you the abilities to read and write in words formed from letters and to speak and understand one another, endowed you with countless blessings, made known to you the reason for your creation, and invited you to live in keeping with it, you will be left to yourselves without being tested, merely for saying, “We believe; we have faith”?

Know well that We tested the peoples before you too... Now it is your turn... In this way Allah will bring to light who fulfills what his faith requires and who does not, leaving it as mere words.

Those who live with their backs turned on the truth that is the reason for their creation, despite saying, “We believe; we have faith,” will not escape Our punishment. Woe to those who behave so!

Let those who believe in Allah’s call strive heart and soul to do righteous deeds and fulfill their responsibilities.

Without doubt the Day of Reckoning, which Allah has decreed and appointed, will surely come. Allah hears every word and knows everything.

Whoever mobilizes all his strength and means to live Allah’s call does so for his own good.

Allah is most compassionate, merciful, and forgiving toward those who fulfill what their faith requires, and will gladden them with the finest rewards for what they have done.

We have commanded the human being to treat his mother and father well. But if they press you to associate with Me as partners beings about whom they have no knowledge or proof, never yield to them! In the end you will all return to Me, and I will tell you what you used to do.

Those who believe in His call and do righteous deeds, Allah will include among the virtuous, upright believers.

Among people there are those who say, “We take no lord and god but Allah,” but when they suffer persecution from their enemies while striving to live the life their faith requires, they look on it as though it were persecution coming from Allah rather than from people, and so reveal the insincerity of their faith. But, O Prophet, when victory reaches you and the believers with you from your Lord, they say, “We were with you too.” Yet Allah knows best what is in people’s hearts.

Without doubt Allah will bring to light both the true believers who are sincere in their faith and those who are two-faced.

Those who reject Allah’s call, thinking it does not suit their worldly interests, say to the believers: “Come, you too follow us; if doing so is a sin, let your sin be on our heads.”

Yet on the Day of Reckoning no one will bear another’s sin; do not fall into the traps of those liars. Without doubt, besides the burden of their own sins, their sins will increase on account of those they caused to go astray.

For the false gods they regard as partners in Allah’s rulings and for the lies they make up, they will be called to account and struck with the punishment they deserve.

Long ago We sent Noah too as a prophet to his people. Noah stayed among his people for a long time, nine hundred and fifty years (by the calendar of that day), inviting them to live by the system of life that pleases Allah. But his people would not accept the call Noah made in Allah’s name, and persisted in keeping up their systems of shirk, disbelief, and oppression. So We destroyed them with a dreadful flood for their stubbornness and rebellion. We saved Noah and those with him in the ship. And We made this event a lesson for people to learn from.

And We sent Abraham as a prophet to his people. He said to his people: “O my people! Know Allah as He deserves, take Him alone as God, obey and worship Him, and do not forget that you have responsibilities toward Him. Stop abandoning Allah, making statues of certain beings created like yourselves, and taking them as gods. They have no power either to create you or to provide for you. So reflect on what Allah has created for you, respond to His call, and give thanks to Him.”

In the end you will be returned to Him and called to account as to whom you lived your worldly lives for.

O Prophet! Say: “If you call this call I make in Allah’s name a lie, you will not have done me any harm. On the contrary, the harm of it will fall on you. The peoples who came and went before you also called their prophets liars. The prophets’ task is to convey Allah’s verses plainly.”

Do these people who associate partners with Allah never use their reason and consider that Allah, who brings the human being into being from nothing, can raise them again after they die? Surely this is very easy for Allah.

Say to them: “Travel through the land and reflect, using your reason, on what Allah has created and brought into being from nothing. Know well that just as Allah first created what you see and what you do not see, so He will create you again after your death. Allah’s knowledge and power suffice for everything.”

Though Allah invites people through prophets and Books to live in keeping with the reason for their creation, He punishes those who persistently reject this call with the punishment they deserve. And those who believe in His call and fulfill their responsibilities He rewards with His compassion, mercy, and grace. In the end you will all be returned to Him and meet what you deserve.

On earth or in heaven there is no one who can save one who deserves it from the punishment he has deserved. Do not forget that you have no true friend or helper but Allah.

Those who call Allah’s verses lies and do not believe that in the end they will be raised and brought into Allah’s presence to give account have no right to hope for Allah’s help; let them not hope in vain. A severe punishment awaits them in Hell.

Abraham too invited and warned his people with all his might to these truths, but his people set about burning him to death. But Allah protected him from being burned by the fire. There are lessons in this for those who believe.

Abraham called out to those who were hostile to him: “Instead of following Allah’s call, you have become idol-worshippers by taking as gods beings created like yourselves, made up by your forefathers or by yourselves, out of the excessive love you feel for them and for worldly life. But on the Day of Resurrection, whenever you see them and they see you, you will ignore one another and flee from one another, and rain curses on one another. You will all be cast into the Hell you have deserved, and you will find no one to help you.” Among those who listened to Abraham, his nephew Lot believed him and had faith in what he said.

After what his people had done, Abraham said: “I am now leaving this land of oppression and emigrating to where my Lord has commanded me. Surely He is supreme in knowledge and power, and in His every ruling there is wisdom and good.”

Then We granted Abraham his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. And We raised up prophets from among Abraham’s descendants, and so rewarded Abraham in this world. In the Hereafter too he will be among the virtuous, upright, righteous.

We also charged Lot as a prophet, and he said to the community that knew no moral bounds: “You are truly committing a vile, loathsome, shameful act that no one before you ever committed: you leave your women and have relations with men, trampling on the lawful way. Moreover, you gather together to boast of what you do and openly recount your indecencies.”

In response to these warnings of Lot’s, the people replied: “You keep saying that Allah’s punishment will come upon us for this. If what you say and what you invite us to are true, call down Allah’s punishment, and we shall see.” At this Lot prayed, “My Lord! Help me against this people, who have run utterly wild, gone astray, and know no bounds.”

After a while Our messenger angels came to Abraham and gave him both the good news that he would have a son and the news that they would destroy the people among whom Lot lived. At this Abraham said in alarm, “But Lot is there.”

The angels said to him, “We certainly know who is there. We will bring Lot and those of his family of faith out from among them and save them, except Lot’s wife. She will be among those left behind to be destroyed, for she too was one of those who associated partners with Allah.”

The angels left Abraham, came to the place where Lot lived, and were guests at Lot’s house. Lot, not knowing who they were, fearing that his people would harm them, became anxious and distressed. In his helplessness he was at his wits’ end. Seeing his state, the angels said to him: “Do not fear, and do not worry on our account either. We will bring you and those of your family of faith out from this community, which associates partners with Allah, denies the truth, and is morally corrupt, and save you, except your wife; she will be among those destroyed by the punishment. We will bring down punishment on them by raining stones upon them,” and so they made themselves known and explained their task.

Then We destroyed that people with the punishment they deserved, and left behind of them signs from which those who use their reason may take a lesson.

To the people of Midian We sent their kinsman Shuayb as a prophet. He said to his people, “O my people! Know Allah as He deserves and turn to living by the Allah-centered order and morality that accords with your innate nature. You will be raised after death and called to account; never take gods alongside Allah and spread corruption in the land.”

But the people of Midian too did not believe his message and rejected his call. So We laid them low with a dreadful quake and destroyed them with Our punishment.

We also struck the peoples of Ad and Thamud with punishment and destroyed them, because they turned away from Our call and stubbornly persisted in wanton rebellion.

Whoever wishes can see what is left of their lands and dwellings and learn lessons. Satan had made the systems of shirk, disbelief, and oppression seem fine to them, and they followed his whisperings and chose falsehood.

We also destroyed Korah, Pharaoh, and Haman and brought them to ruin. For Moses too had invited them with Allah’s verses and miracles to the right system of life, but they grew arrogant and boastful and called him a liar. In the end they could not escape the punishment they deserved.

Each of those communities We punished with Our punishment because they were ungrateful to Allah, rejected His call, and rebelled. On some We rained down stones; some We destroyed with a violent quake or a dreadful cry, some with a terrible gale, and some by drowning, and sank them into the depths of the earth.

The case of those who turn away from Allah’s call and take others than Him as friends and protectors is like that of the spider that builds itself a house. Yet the flimsiest, least sheltering, and least durable of houses is the house the spider builds. If only people could understand the truth set forth by this example.

Without doubt Allah knows full well that those accepted as gods besides Him are powerless and worthless.

Allah sets forth the truth plainly through the examples He gives. Only those who reflect on Allah’s verses grasp their importance.

The truth is that Allah did not create the heavens, the earth, and what is between them aimlessly, in vain, as play, but so that people would live by the system of life that is their Lord’s call, and worship and obey Him. Only those of pure understanding believe this truth.

So, O Prophet! Convey to people this truth revealed to you, and go on performing the prayer consciously and constantly. For the prayer protects a person from indecency, from turning to sin, and from every kind of evil. The prayer is a great act of worship that keeps Allah constantly in mind.

Allah knows best all that you do.

O believers! Except for those of the People of the Book who act with hostility toward you, oppress you, and attack you, talk and argue with them in a reasonable, fair, gracious way, the finest way, and invite them to take Allah alone as Lord and God and to live by an Allah-centered system of life. And say to them: “We believe in the prophets and Books sent from our Lord to us, to you, and to those before. We are people who have submitted to Allah, the one true Lord and God of us all.”

O Prophet! Just as there will be those not of the People of the Book who believe in and follow the call you make with the Book We have sent you, so too there will be those of the People of the Book who believe and submit. Those who have made ingratitude, shirk, and disbelief toward Our verses their nature do not believe.

O Prophet! Before We revealed this divine Book to you, you had not read any book. Nor could you ever have made up the Quran and written it. Had that been so, those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth would have found many deficiencies in it and rendered it ineffective.

Yet the Quran is made up of verses which those who sincerely seek the truth and use their ability to tell right from wrong can easily understand to be Allah’s words.

Only those who have made denial their character deny Our verses.

They say, “If Muhammad is a prophet, should he not have come to us with a miracle from Allah that we too could see, and appeared before us just like that?”

Say to them: “Whether or not to bring forth a miracle is Allah’s business. I am only a messenger whom Allah has charged with conveying His call.”

O Prophet! Is it not enough for them, as a miracle, that We have sent you the Quran, which is being recited to them?

Without doubt this Quran is a counsel and a warning for those who wish to grasp the purpose of their creation and live happily, with honor and dignity, in this world and the Hereafter.

Say to the ingrates who pay no heed to so much counsel and so many warnings and stubbornly persist in remaining in shirk and disbelief: “Allah suffices as witness between me and you. He knows what is in the heavens and on the earth, and what will be.”

Those who take other gods alongside Allah and follow them will surely suffer ruin in the end.

O Prophet! Say to those who mockingly demand of you that the punishment they have been warned of come upon them at once: “Had it not been for a term Allah has set beforehand, that punishment would long since have come upon you; but know well that the hour of that punishment will come upon you suddenly.”

Indeed the punishment of Hell is already closing in on those who persist in shirk and disbelief. On that day the punishment will envelop them from head to foot, and Allah will say to them: “Suffer the penalty for your ingratitude, your wanton rebellion, and your insolence.”

O My servants who believe in My call and strive (jihad) to live in keeping with the reason for your creation! The earth I have created is wide. When, because of the oppression inflicted on you where you are, you are left no way to live, emigrate to other places and work there to fulfill what your faith requires.

Do not forget that every living soul will taste death; then it will be raised and meet what it deserves.

Those who have done good works, striving heart and soul to live in keeping with His call, Allah will settle in mansions in Paradise through which rivers flow, reward them there with the finest blessings, and let them live there forever.

Such will be the reward of those who believe in Allah’s call and, trusting in Him, bear hardships: a life full of such beauties.

O believers! Or are you holding back from emigrating out of worry about your livelihood?

Yet how many creatures We have created do not carry their provision on their backs and feel no worry about it! It is We who provide, and will provide, for them and for you.

Allah knows best your worries and what you think and feel. He is All-Knowing, aware of everything, and has power over everything.

O Prophet! If you ask those who associate partners with Allah, “Who created the earth and the sky, and placed the sun and the moon at your service?” they will say, “Allah, of course.” Then how is it that they turn away from the truth? Allah gives some provision in abundance, and to others provision limited to what sustains their lives, in order to test them and bring their true faces to light. Allah knows the one truth of everything, and what to give to whom, and how much.

And if you turn and ask them, “Who sends down rain from the sky and gives life to dead earth and revives it?” they say, “Allah, of course.” Then should you not trust in Allah and give thanks? But most people do not use their reason rightly.

Those who use their reason rightly understand that this worldly life is not merely play and amusement, that they were not created for that, and grasp that what truly matters and endures is the life of the Hereafter. But sadly most people do not wish to know and understand this truth.

Those who choose to live covering up Allah’s lordship and godhood, when caught in a ship at sea by raging waves and face to face with death, at once forget those they took as gods alongside Allah, turn to Him alone, and plead and implore. But when Allah saves them and brings them to land, lo, they return to those they took as gods alongside Allah and go on living associating partners with Him and denying the truth.

So they are ungrateful for every kind of blessing and help We have bestowed on them, and forget the Hereafter for the allure of the brief worldly life; but when the day comes they will face the truth and bitterly regret it.

Do those who associate partners with Allah not see how, while those around them live in fear and unease, We have made Mecca a safe, protected town because of the Kaaba? Will they still go on clinging to false beliefs and systems of life and turn their backs on Allah’s call?

Who could be more unjust than one who ascribes to Allah the lies he makes up himself, who calls the revelation (the truth) that comes from Allah a lie, and who works to keep the divine order and morality from prevailing on the earth? Surely the place of such people will be Hell.

Those who strive with their lives and their wealth to live and keep alive the way of life that is the reason for their creation, We will help and show Our ways that lead to success. Allah is with those who strive (jihad) to fulfill what their faith requires.