TRANSLATION
Had God been not graceful to you and showered you with His Mercy, some of these people would have led you away from guidance. But they only ruin themselves. They can do no harm to you; God has revealed the Book to you, grown you in wisdom, and taught you matters that you did not know [or appreciate] before. Indeed, God’s grace on you is beyond measure!272
No amount of goodness ever comes out of most of their secret dealings, except when one does charity, equitable dealings in goodness, and bringing people and communities together. Whoever acts in this manner, seeking God’s pleasure, We will give him or her in time a grand reward!273
[On the contrary] whoever acts in opposition to the Messenger after guidance has come to him or her and he or she chooses a path different from that of a believer, We will let that person pursue what he or she had opted for that will lead him or her to hellfire, an evil resort.274
INTERPRETATION
272. Despite enormous effort by hypocrites and other adversaries of the Prophet and his followers, the Prophet made continued progress in bringing people together and setting a new paradigm of human conduct, mutual interactions, and social and political governance. All these were possible from the gift of the Qur’an, the wisdom it imparted, and the enormous grace of God to the Prophet and to humankind that caused people to grow spiritually and intellectually and learn of things and concepts that were not known or understood in those days. This phenomenon of human development will continue to be pervasive if we pay attention to divine revelations, grow in genuine wisdom about our world, and continue to question our conduct and knowledge to gain better knowledge and understanding about ourselves, our world, and our purpose. This is contrary to what some of the imams, religious scholars, and sheikhs would like us to believe—that all has been learned and articulated about the Qur’an and Islam. Nothing is farther from the truth. Humanity will continue to learn and evolve and find deeper meaning and guidance from God’s revelations and human intellect. People who have deep faith and a sense of responsibility to God and to fellow humans (i.e., Muttaquin, 2:2) will strive to draw deeper inspiration and newer, contemporary, and contextual meaning and wisdom from the Qur’an to better their lives and the society they live in, while those who claim only faith (Mu’men) will confine themselves to rituals and preoccupation about hellfire, and some Muslims (lacking taqwa and/or faith) will claim entitlement to God’s grace without proving that they really earned it.
273. Discourse continues on the behavior of those who on the surface professed faith and goodness but in reality were in opposition to the Prophet and to the guidance that came from God. All their secret dealings, consultations to ruin the Prophet, and the new community of believers have been condemned. On the contrary, dealings to bring about help to people, social justice, and reconciliation for people is encouraged, whether done privately or publicly.
274. Making appropriate choices in light of knowledge, revelations, and awareness of our obligations to God and to humanity is fundamentally important. The Qur’an, in this verse, relates to a fundamental law of human condition whereby the choices we make will define who we are and the consequence we will endure in the long run. Our natural propensity and deliberate actions to pursue goodness, justice, and human equality will lead to a just society, and our negligence of such values and active encouragement of evils will lead to an evil society. It is as simple as that.
REFLECTION
The Qur’an is the living source of God’s connection to us and His guidance to help us grow in wisdom, which continues to empower us with newer knowledge, consciousness, and meanings to our existence. Such a gift has to be nurtured and sustained by all of us, especially those who are fortunate enough to inherit it through faith and conscious effort—a blessing from God that has an enormous consequence for our individual and collective future on this planet and in the hereafter.
ACTION
Having full confidence in the message of the Qur’an, God’s enormous grace to those who wish to grow in faith and goodness, and the importance of continued learning about God, ourselves, our societies, and our universe is a challenge that we all need to undertake with determination and a sense of priority.