Translation
People of Faith: Be conscious of God, and be duty bound to God as it should be [and to the best of your ability], and do not allow death to come to you prior to your full submission and alignment to God. Altogether, hold firm to your [individual and collective] commitment to God, and do not move away from one another. Remember God’s grace on you all—you were enemies of one another, God brought your hearts together, and you became like brothers and sisters. You were on the edge of a fiery abyss, about to fall into it, and God saved you from it. This is how God makes His message comprehensible and relevant so that you might take guidance.197
Let there be among you a group dedicated to inviting all that is good, encouraging the doing of what is right, and discouraging what is wrong. These are they who will be successful [and will ensure success for all]! Do not be like those who draw apart from one another with disagreement and conflicting views after the message has been conveyed in a clear way—these people will suffer grievously on the Day of Judgment, a day that will make some faces shiny [with happiness] and other faces grim [with fear and grief]. As for those with grim faces, they will be asked, “Did you deny the truth after attaining faith?” What other fate can there be, then, other than suffering for such denial of truth? God will shower His Mercy on those with shiny faces, and they will dwell in His mercy. These are the messages from God, conveyed with truth, and God desires no injustice to His creation. To God belongs all that is in the universe and on the Earth; to God all matters return for resolution!198
Interpretation
197. Conscious awareness of God and having a deep sense of duty to God and to fellow human beings is the foundation of a lasting faith and is the cornerstone of human bonds and human society. Such consciousness and sense of duty, coupled with God’s mercy, bring people together. For Muslims of today, one can attest that we are seriously divided and are on the brink of an abyss that only true commitment to God’s guidance and a deep desire to restore love, respect, unity, freedom, and each other’s dignity will save us from our current condition. This malaise has affected people of all faiths, and our very survival as the human race rests on our collective willingness to restore our connection to God and to each other.
198. Having pointed out the conditions that cause chasm and serious dislocation among people, the Qur’an exhorts us to develop leaders in the community who are committed to do good and to work with people through democratic means (not coercion but inspiration) to bring about what is right and just and eliminate all that is evil, unjust, and immoral. This is a very simple but elegant message that our soul and human nature are already endowed with and are attuned to such potentiality, aspiration, and sense of what is right and wrong. Such messages and prescriptions should resonate well with us as human beings—that is the beauty of God’s message and nature of His exhortation to the human race. The questions that remain are, To what extent are we willing to take these messages to heart, to what extent are we willing to train and commit ourselves to such priorities, and to what extent are we willing to engage the society to bring about success for everyone on this planet and in our lives after death?
REFLECTION
These are some of the most powerful and profound messages contained in the Qur’an for the betterment of human society and our understanding of how to improve our human condition.
ACTION
The key ingredient missing is our own desire, commitment, and execution of such guidance in pragmatic and enduring ways that elevate everyone in society. Let us resolve to become such leaders and to follow such leaders when we find them as we move along our life journey on this planet and before we are brought face-to-face with death and our eventual return to God! This is a choice we have to make at individual and collective levels. Doing nothing is itself a serious failure and bad, not to mention doing wrong or being unjust to fellow humans, which is, of course, worse.