Translation
Remind yourself of God’s (constant) favors and blessings on you and of the pledge with which He commits you when you said: “We hear and we commit.” (Therefore) Keep your duty to God (and to fellow human beings). God is ever aware of what you intend to do and what you keep in your heart. O People of Faith: Be constant in your devotion to God, and bear witness with justice and truth; Do not let hatred of a people incite you to acts of injustice and inequity. Be just—this is the closest to the observance of your responsibility (to God and to fellow human beings). Remain God Conscious and be true to your sense of duty—surely God is fully Aware of all that you do. 299
God has promised to those who believe and do good work that they will have forgiveness and a reward from Him that is grand, whereas, those who persistently deny, disbelieve, and reject God’s messages are destined for Hellfire. O People of Faith: Remind yourself of God’s favor when a group of people have tried to displace you but God restrained their hands (and helped you establish yourself as a community). Therefore, be conscious of God, and on God every person of faith should establish true reliance. 300
Interpretation
299 We need to be mindful of God’s blessings on us to sustain our lives, such as the simple act of breathing, the ability to ingest and digest food, the abundance of natural resources to sustain our lives on this planet, the gifts of having parents, children, friends, and neighbors at a physical level, and having a brain to think and calculate, a mind to analyze and form intent, and a soul to guide and persist on truth and justice—all examples of the innumerable gifts and blessings that God has given to us. In return God wants us to use our faculties, our physical strength, and our commitments to do good, to be just, and to be truthful in dealing with one another. God’s guidance to us and our innate desires and abilities are truly aligned—so how can we do wrong or be unjust? This is a question that we need to ask each one of us with true consciousness and humility.
300 God rewards and punishes on a very simple formula that we all can relate to: God will forgive the shortcomings and mistakes of those who believe in His grace and are committed to do good and justice on this earth, and He will make them inhabitants of Paradise. Those who deny His graces and rebel against His guidance to truth and justice and as a result cause harm and disharmony in this world will have to face the consequent punishment from fellow humans and ultimately from Hellfire, a place they will inhabit as a consequence of their own conduct.
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REFLECTION
In our world today where we are beset with acts of terrorism and then reactive counterterrorism that sometimes causes more harm; staggering income disparities; unprecedented environmental pollution; a prevalence of corrupt practices by government and special-interest groups; an enormous amount of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of nations, rebel groups, terrorists, and gangsters—while at the same time, we have seen the proliferation of knowledge and information across the globe; the rise of technology that brings unprecedented creature comfort and health treatment; the rise of instant communication among people across national and communal boundaries; and son on—one wonders why we have NOT been able to improve dialogue among nations and communities, why more than half of the world’s population has not seen the benefit of technology, why gender inequality continues to persist, why profitable companies fail to provide living wages to its employees, and why fewer people control increasingly more of the wealth of the planet. There are fundamental challenges we will continue to face until we bring a sense of fairness and justice into our day-to-day and strategic dialogues, until we recognize that our resources are gifts from God and that we need to share and distribute them in true proportion to effort and justified basis and not purely on entitlement or intellectual merit alone, until democratic institutions are driven by people and not by moneyed individuals or institutions, until we try to genuinely understand human concerns, especially those who are violated and oppressed. In this regard, paying real attention to the message from the Creator and His guidance can truly transform our societies and nations.
ACTION
As we read this Qur’an and other Books of Revelations, the people of faith have to put into practice the practical teachings and guidance found in these books and be true to our reality that we are a transient people on this planet for a fixed term and that the quality of our life on this planet and our life after death will all be determined by how we conduct ourselves, how we treat one another as human beings (beyond national and ethnic identities), and how we help one another grow and become true human beings as God intends.