Salaam and welcome to another episode of our weekly series titled “Path towards Enlightenment” which is an endeavour to make you and us familiar with an easy and fluent explanation of God’s Final Scripture to all mankind, the holy Qur’an that was revealed to the Last and Greatest of all Messengers, Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny).

As you know, we have currently taken up explanation of “Surah Qamar” which was revealed in Mecca and deals mainly with the punishment of disbelievers of the past generations, as a warning to the pagans of Mecca and also to the disbelievers of all times – with the refrain “is there anyone who will be admonished?” running throughout the Surah. The miserable fate of the disbelievers on the Day of Judgement is contrasted to the everlasting bliss the believers will enjoy in paradise. An interesting feature of this Surah is that all 55 of its Ayahs end with the letter R.

We continue from where we left you last week and here are Ayahs 33, 34, and 35, which read:

“The people of (Prophet) Lot denied the warnings.

“Indeed We unleashed a rain of stones upon them, excepting the family of Lot, whom We delivered at dawn, as a blessing from Us.

“Thus do We reward those who give thanks.”

If you remember, in our explanation of the previous Ayahs of Surah Qamar last Friday, we dwelt on the fate of the rebellious nation of Thamoud for whose guidance God Almighty raised Prophet Saleh, but except for a few the majority stuck to idol-worship and sins. We said a nation whose members are comrades in crimes against humanity is liable to be struck by Divine Wrath, since none can stand against God’s Will, which prevails over all and everything. We also said that the Holy Qur’an is not a book of history, but it gives an accurate narration of selective events of the past in order to wake up human conscience to help discover the truth. 

The Ayahs that we recited to you now refer to the miserable fate of the nation to whom Prophet Lot was sent in order to dissuade them from the abominable crime of sodomy, but they scorned him and continued their sordid sin of homosexuality, even threatening to kill him. As a result God rescued the Prophet and his children, except for his wife who was complicit with the sinners, and then inflicted a terrible punishment in the form of a harsh gale that lifted and hurled rocks and sand to bury the whole towns along with houses and inhabitants.

These Ayahs teach us the following points:

1. The Prophets were guides who saved people from error, but when disbelievers and sinners ignored their warnings and conspired against them, they were punished.
2. It is the principle of Divine Justice to save the true believers before inflicting punishment upon the intransigent sinners after having granted them an ample period of respite to repent and reform.
3. Those who are grateful to God and His Prophets for being delivered from darkness receive Divine rewards, both in the transient life of the mortal world and the Hereafter where the eternal bliss of paradise awaits them.

Now let us listen to Ayahs 36, 37, 38, and 39 the same Surah:

“He had certainly warned them of Our punishment, but they disputed the warnings.

“And certainly they even solicited of him his guests, whereat We blotted out their eyes, [saying], ‘So taste My punishment and My warnings!’

“And certainly early at dawn there visited them an abiding punishment:

“So taste My punishment and My warnings!’

Prophet Lot strove to guide the people towards the shores of salvation through his words of wisdom coupled with warnings of Divine torment, but the intransigent disbelieves and sinners allowed themselves to be misled by the ever-deceptive devil by doubting his mission of guidance and persisted in committing their vicious deeds until they were afflicted by Divine Torment.

As Ayah 37 means to say, the sodomizers or the gays – to use the modern western word for the despicable homosexuals – went to the extreme in transgressing bounds by demanding that Prophet Lot hand over to them his handsome guests, who were actually angels in human form which God had sent to seal argumentation against the abominable sinners. The wise counsels of the Prophet were of no avail to them, and when they shattered the gate of his house and tried to enter his home to indulge in their evil designs, Divine wrath struck the trespassers who became blind with no traces left of their eyes.

As is clear by the wording of the next two Ayahs, at dawn the whole township was afflicted with a relentless punishment as a result of which the sinners were all perished and sent to Hellfire – before they could carry out their plan to kill Prophet Lot, who in the night had left the place in accordance with God’s command to save him and the few believers. They were thus made to taste Divine Torment regarding which Prophet Lot had warned and they had belied him.

From these Ayahs we learn that:

1. God first seals the argumentation through His prophets and then punishes the intransigent disbelievers and sinners, after having given them ample respite to repent and reform.
2. Homosexuality is an unnatural act and an abominable sin, whose consequences, sooner or later, entail terrible punishment.
3. The righteous people always strive to guide the society and save it from corruption and oppression, which when it exceeds all bonds brings about Divine Wrath.

In conclusion of this week’s episode of Path towards Enlightenment, we present you Ayah 40 Surah Qamar, which reads:

“And certainly We have made the Qur’an simple for admonishment. So is there anyone who will be admonished?”

This Ayah, which was also mentioned previously in this Surah following the accounts of the rebellious nations of Aad and Thamoud, reiterates the meaningful and awakening statement. It means to say: We have made the Holy Qur’an facile to understand; is there anyone who will receive admonition and reform themselves by reflecting on the fate of the sinners, such as the nation of homosexuals to whom Prophet Lot had been sent?

From this Ayah we learn that:

The Holy Qur’an is not a history book, but it presents glimpses of guidance from the fate of the past nations in order to admonish people and enlighten the seekers of truth and virtue.

RM/AS/SS