Surah Muhammad: Thematic English Translation (Mustafa Çevik)

Those who stubbornly turn away from living in keeping with the reason for their creation, and encourage others to do the same, have no value and no reward with Allah for whatever they do in the name of goodness, beauty, and charity. Allah will bring their deeds to nothing.

And those who believe in the order of life that is Allah’s call and strive heart and soul to live taking as their guide the Quran sent down to the Prophet Muhammad, for what they do in the name of goodness, beauty, and charity there is very great value and reward with Allah. Allah will forgive their past faults and make their life in this world and the Hereafter flourish.

Those who deny the truth are the ones who follow falsehood. As if they had been created for no reason and endowed with so many blessings for nothing, they are ungrateful to Allah and turn away from believing in His call.

O you who believe! In battle, strike the necks of those who associate partners with Allah and deny the truth whom you face, and break their strength completely; and set free those you take captive, either as a favor without return or for ransom. Act so that they are left in no state to fight you again and war comes to an end altogether.

Had Allah willed, He would have given them the penalty they deserve Himself. But He willed it so in order to bring to light the believers’ loyalty to their faith and to show what they can do with Allah’s help.

Those who die and are killed while struggling to live the order of life that is the reason for their creation, Allah will reward with the finest blessings in Gardens where they will remain forever, and bring them to peace and happiness.

O you who believe! If you strive heart and soul to live and keep alive the order of life that is Allah’s call, Allah too will help you, make your feet firm, and make you strong and steadfast.

As for those who persist in denial and stray into disbelief, what they deserve is ruin and destruction. Allah lets such people’s deeds go to waste. For they disliked what Allah sent down. For this reason Allah has brought to nothing the deeds they did in the name of good.

As they travel the land, let them reflect on what the end was of the nations before them that were steeped in rebellion and disbelief. Allah rained destructive calamities upon them. A similar end awaits all the deniers.

Allah is the friend, protector (wali), and helper of those who believe in His call and fulfill what their faith requires. But those who deny the truth have neither true friends nor helpers.

Surely Allah will admit those who believe and do righteous deeds into Gardens through which rivers flow. But those who deny the truth will enjoy the blessings of this world and eat and drink as animals do. Their final destination is the fire of Hell.

O Prophet! How many peoples of cities stronger and mightier than the people of the city that drove you from your home have We destroyed! And there was no one to help them.

Can those who rely on clear knowledge and proof from their Lord and do righteous deeds be like those who have no such firm support and follow their whims and desires?

The Paradise Allah has promised to those who guard against disobeying Him and do their utmost to live a life that will please Him is the home of happiness, in which flow rivers of clear, pure water, of milk whose delight never palls, and of strained honey, and where there is every kind of fruit and food.

Can the one who will be rewarded so by Allah’s grace and mercy ever be in the same state as those condemned to the punishment of the Fire in Hell, who deserve to drink boiling water that tears their bowels apart?

O Prophet! Among those who associate partners with Allah, those who deny the truth, and the hypocrites, there are some who appear to listen to what you say. When they leave you, they ask the believers they come across, in a mocking manner and speaking of you disparagingly, “We did not understand a thing of what he said; what was he really trying to say?” And because of this insolence and unruliness of theirs, Allah seals their hearts against the truth.

But those who wish to live the order of life that is right, Allah increases their desire and their ability to grasp the truth, and by His guidance brings them to the right path.

Those whose hearts have grown blind because they turned away from Allah’s call will see and understand the truth when the Final Hour comes and the Day of Resurrection breaks, but by then it will be far too late. Believing on that Day will be of no use to them.

O Prophet! Convey to people that there is no true Lord and God but Allah, and invite them, before the Final Hour comes, to grasp the reason for their creation and live by the order and morality that accords with it. At the same time, pray to your Lord and ask forgiveness for your own sins (mistakes) and for the sins of the believing men and women.

Allah knows what is in the hearts of those who say they have believed and of those who appear to have done so.

Those who believe say, “If only a surah giving permission to fight had been sent down!” But when a surah of clear ruling is sent down and fighting is mentioned in it, you see those among them with sickness in their hearts looking at you like someone in the swoon of death.

Yet their duty is to obey and to speak good words. When fighting was decided upon, it would have been better for them had they kept the word they gave to Allah.

O you hypocrites, who seem to want to fight but, when the command comes, are shown not to be sincere! So, then, if you with your two-faced, timid, and cowardly natures were to come to power in the land, you would spread corruption on the earth, corrupt the order and morality of Islam, and sever the ties of kinship too. Such people are the ones whom Allah has cursed and driven from His mercy, whose ears are deaf and eyes blind to the truth.

Ought they not to have reflected on what Allah makes known through the Quran, grasped the truth, and submitted to Allah’s call? Or was there something preventing them?

Those who, when Allah’s call reaches them, say with their tongues that they accept it, then turn their backs and act as if they had not heard, are led along by Satan and those who have become satanic and caught in their traps. The reason they fall into this state is that they say to those who dislike Allah’s call, “Our views are close to yours, so we can cooperate on some matters and follow you.”

Allah knows both the intentions they hide and what they do openly. At the moment of their death the angels will take their souls, striking them again and again on their backs and faces. They deserved this, because, chasing after what angers Allah, they acted two-facedly and distanced themselves from Allah’s call. Allah will show that what they did was of no use to them at all.

Or do these people, whose hearts are diseased by their hypocrisy, think that Allah will not expose their two-faced conduct? O Prophet! Had We wished, We would have shown them to you, and you would have known their true faces; even so, if you pay attention, you can recognize them by their failure to keep their word and their inconsistent conduct.

Indeed, We will surely test you until We bring to light those among you who strive (jihad) and those who are patient, and We will try the truth of your sincerity in faith and in striving.

Those who, though the reason for their creation has been made known to them, disregard this truth and turn away, who try to prevent others too from meeting the truth, and who oppose the Prophet and show him hostility do Allah no harm whatever. They harm only themselves and those who follow them. Allah will bring to nothing the traps they lay for the believers.

O you who believe! Obey Allah, obey the Prophet, and do not let your deeds go to waste.

Those who have conditioned themselves to deny the truth and call others to be like them, and then die on this path, Allah will never pardon.

O believers! While you are fighting to live and keep alive the order of life whose rules Allah has set, never let it slip from your minds that it is you who are in the right and superior, and that Allah is with you; show no cowardice, slackness, or loss of heart before your enemies, and do not be the ones to ask them for peace; you will surely win in the end.

For those who do not reflect on the reason for their creation, the life of this world is without doubt nothing but play and amusement.

The life of those who strive to live by the Islamic order of life that is Allah’s call, and who are aware of their responsibilities in this cause, is meaningful, of high quality, and precious in Allah’s sight.

Allah will reward those who live their worldly lives within the bounds of the order of Islam.

While Allah wants you to make lawful use of the blessings He has bestowed on you, He also expects you to spend of them in His way. Had He asked you to spend all your wealth in keeping with His good pleasure, and pressed and compelled you to do so, most of you would have been stingy and shrunk from it, and your weaknesses would have come to light.

In fact Allah is calling you to make selfless sacrifices on this path and to receive rewards many times greater in return, yet even so there are some among you who are stingy. Whoever is stingy in this matter, let him know well that he is being stingy only toward himself, for Allah’s riches have no limit and He needs no one’s help; on the contrary, it is you who are in need of Him.

If you turn away from living the way of life Allah has commanded, Allah will bring in your place another people who believe wholeheartedly in His call and consciously fulfill their responsibilities.