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wa-ḥīla baynahum wa-bayna mā yashtahūna ka-mā fuʿila bi-ʾashyāʿihim min qablu ʾinnahum kānū fī shakkin murībin
and a barrier is set between them and what they desire, as was done aforetime with their likes, who had remained in grave doubt?
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah As-Saba- Verses 53-54
53. “And indeed they did disbelieve in it before, and aim their conjectures about the unseen from a distant place.”
54. “And a barrier shall be set between them and that which they desire, as was done unto the likes of them afore-time; for they have been in a disquieting doubt.”
Those who were denigrating the Prophet (S) and the Qur’an yesterday, today that they have encountered a straiten circumstance, they believe, but what is its benefit? In these verses, which are the last verses of Surah Saba, the Qur’an implicitly says: now that every thing has ended, how can they compensate their faults and believe? While before that when they were in the utmost freedom and authority, they disbelieved. The verse says:
They not only disbelieved, but forged kinds of accusations to the Prophet of Islam (S) and his teachings. The verse continues sayings:
As we said before, the Arabic word /qaŏf/ means ‘to throw something’, and the Qur’anic word /qayb/ means the world of beyond sense, and the Arabic phrase /makanin ba‘id/ means ‘a distant place’, and totally is a tender allusion of a person who judges about the world of supper-nature without having any knowledge, in the same manner that throwing something from a distant place rarely strikes to the target. This conjecture and judgment of their does not strike the aim either.
Sometimes they called the Prophet (S) ‘sorcerer’, sometimes ‘mad’, and sometimes ‘a liar’. Sometimes they considered the Qur’an as the production of the thought of a man, and sometimes they entirely denied the Paradise, the Hell, and Hereafter. All of these were a kind of ‘stoning to unseen’, ‘throwing an arrow in darkness’, and ‘throwing something from a distant place’. Then it adds that finally death separated them from what they desired:
In a painful moment, they see that all their wealth and properties, all their castles and positions, and their desires are separated from them. Those who had clasped to even a penny and could not leave the least material possibilities, how will they be at the moment when they must suddenly say farewell to all of them and shut their eyes and go toward a dark and terrible future? How beautiful says Amir-ul-Mu’mineen Ali (as) when he illustrates the moments of death and separation from the bounties of the world through his delightful words in the clearest form. He (as) says:
“…Pangs of death and grief for losing (this world) have surrounded them. Consequently their limbs become languid and their complexion changes. Then death increases its struggle over them.
In one of them, it stands in between him and his power of speaking although he lies among his people, looking with eyes, hearing with his ears, with full wits and intelligence. He then thinks over how he wasted his life and in what (activities) he passed his time.
He recalls the wealth he collected when he had blinded himself in seeking it, and acquired it from fair and foul sources. Now the consequences of collecting it have overtaken him. He gets ready to leave it. It would remain for those who are behind him. They would enjoy it and benefit by it.
It would be an easy acquisition for others but a burden on his back, and the man cannot get rid of it. He would thereupon bite his hands with teeth out of shame for what was disclosed to him about his affairs at the time of his death.
He would dislike what he coveted during the days of his life and would wish that he who envied him on account of it and felt jealous over him for it should have amassed it instead of he himself.”
Finally, in the last sentence of the verse under discussion, it implies that the reason of all these things is that they always spent their life in doubt and, naturally, such fate was waiting for them. The verse says:
O’ Lord! Set us among those believers who before losing opportunities awaken and try to compensate whatever they had missed.
O’ Lord! Appoint us of those who at the time of affluence begin thanksgiving and do not become proud and neglectful, and that at the time of afflictions they do not complain but they take a lesson.