Surah Ar-Rum (The Romans)

1. Alif. Lam. Mim. The letters of this word are to be read separately. Only Allah knows their meaning.

2. At the beginning of the Islamic era and before the migration of the first Muslims from Makkah to Medina, there was a war in Palestine between the Romans and the Persians; the latter triumphed in this war, with a crushing victory, and afterwards continued to pursue the Roman forces until they besieged Constantinople. The Muslims were saddened by the defeat of the Romans, because they were people of the Book, whereas the idolaters were gratified, and even rejoiced at the dismay of the Muslims, to whom they said: “You are people of the Book, like the Romans, whereas we are pagans. And behold, our brothers the Persians have triumphed over your brothers the Romans. Just so, if you fight against us, we will certainly triumph over you.” Then Allah sent this verse.

3. “The Romans were defeated in an area close to Arab lands (the war took place on the border between Jordan and Palestine) but the Romans will triumph over the Persians in a few years’ time.” (Among the Arabs, the phrase “a few years” means between three and nine years.) The Romans did indeed triumph over the Persians nine years later, as the Quran had predicted. Abu Bakr had made a wager of one hundred camels with Ubaiy bin Khalaf, one of the idolaters, that the Romans would triumph in nine years, as the Quran had said. Abu Bakr won the wager, which proves the truth of what Mohammad (peace be upon him) had communicated on his Lord’s behalf.

4. To Allah belongs the power both before and after the defeat of the Persians by the Romans. Thus, whoever triumphs does so by Allah’s commandment and through His will. The day when the Romans triumph over the Persians, the believers will rejoice in the victory of the people of the Book over the idolaters, and that will be a happy omen presaging the victory of the Muslims over the unbelievers.

5. The day when the Romans conquer the Persians, the believers will rejoice in Allah’s support of their brothers, the people of the Book, against the idolaters, the Mazdeans. Allah supports whomsoever He will, and He, the All-merciful towards His servants, does not hasten to punish them; on the contrary, he delays their punishment until the appointed hour, for they will perhaps repent and abandon their wrongdoing.

6. O Mohammad! What Allah told you about the victory of the Romans over the Persians was a true promise on His part,the Almighty, who never breaks His promise. For it is His will that He desires to succour those who are closest to the truth, and He prepares a good end for them. But most people do not know this, because of their ignorance and because they do not reflect on the laws which Allah has established in the universe.

7. Most people have no knowledge except of superficial worldly affairs: how to manage their possessions, develop their trade and tend their farms, whereas they pay utterly no attention to their religion and what will be beneficial to them in the hereafter, just as if they were imbeciles bereft of intelligence.

8. Those among you who treat the Resurrection as a lie, have you not reflected upon your creation from nothing and the care Allah showed you in making you well-formed and intelligent? He who does all that is capable of re-creating them after their death and then resuscitating them in order to repay them for their deeds. Allah is never unjust; he punishes no one for a sin he has not committed, and He created the heavens and the earth for the express purpose of establishing truth and justice, and for a fixed period of time. When the Hour comes, Allah will cause all His creatures to die, and the world will become quite different from what it is, and mankind will be assembled for the Final Judgement. But most people are unconcerned about the hereafter, about Judgement and Retribution, because they have not reflected upon it in their hearts; if they had pondered and contemplated the wonders of their creation, they would have believed in their ultimate meeting with Allah.

9. Those who doubt the existence of Allah, His uniqueness, and the message of His prophets, and who are unconcerned about the Hereafter, have they not travelled through the countries where they ply their trade, and seen the consequences of Allah’s punishment for those who lived before them: people who had treated all these truths as lies? What was the result of their aspersions and their disbelief? Despite the fact that they were more powerful and had worked the land and populated it more than the unbelieving people of Quraish have done, Allah destroyed them because of their disbelief and their accusations of mendacity. It was not in Allah’s nature to treat them unjustly; it was they who brought misery upon themselves through their disobedience towards Him.

10. The fate of these evil-doers was the most miserable imaginable here below and so will it be in the hereafter. This is because of their denial of Allah and their treatment of Allah’s signs and His messengers as lies and liars, and because of their mocking of His messengers, through arrogance and obstinacy.

11. Allah Almighty created all beings without any associate or assistance whatsoever, and He brought them into existence through His power when they were nothing; and He will repeat the creation once again after their death and annihilation; then He will assemble them together and lead them into His presence, in order to judge their deeds and repay them.

12. The day when that Hour arrives, the criminals will be summoned before Allah Almighty, and will stand before Him, saying nothing and overcome with despair and humility, because they will find nothing to say in their defence.

13. And among the divinities they worshipped and associated with Allah, they will find no divinity to intercede with Allah on their behalf and save them from His torture. On that day, these criminals will deny the associates and seek to exculpate themselves.

14. And the day when the Hour will sound, and the Judgement will take place, each man will be led to what he has deserved, either bliss or torture. Thus the believers will be separated from the unbelievers, and they will never meet again.

15. As for those who have believed in Allah, in His Books and His Messengers and did good deeds, they will find themselves in parks and gardens where they will be luxuriously housed and filled with joy.

16. As for those who have not believed in Allah and His signs, who have treated His messengers as liars and denied the Resurrection and the Day of Judgement, they will be obliged to submit to their punishment to which they will be damned eternally.

17. Here, Allah Almighty urges mankind to glorify Him, and to purify Him of all that which is unfitting to His majesty, day and night.

18. He merits the praise and thanks of all His creatures, whether in the heavens or on the earth. Praise Him, therefore, and purify Him, both at night and in the daytime.

19. For it is He, Allah Almighty, who is capable of creating all things and their contraries, to prove the perfection of His power and His might. Thus He brings forth living plants from dead seeds, and dead seeds from living plants, and restores life to earth hitherto dead, with the water of His rain which He sends down from the clouds, so that the earth herself brings forth fresh plants from what was beforehand arid earth. Just as Allah gives life to earth once dead and brings dead matter forth from living matter, so will He give life to dead men and will resuscitate them from their tombs on the Day of Resurrection, for Judgement and Retribution.

20. Among His signs which prove that He is the Creator and capable of giving life or death to whomsoever He wishes: the creation of your father Adam from lifeless dust, and the creation of his successors from sperm of base water, and their progress through various transformations in their mothers’ wombs until they emerge and become children, thereafter to develop and spread throughout the world, working and earning their living and peopling the earth.

21. Among His signs which prove His power to resuscitate: He created from you yourselves wives of the same species as you, so that they may live in your company, and He established between you and your spouses love and compassion so that conjugal life will last. The creation of man from dust and the creation of couples, as well as the love and compassion which govern their conjugal relations, are indeed all signs for intelligent men who reflect.

22. Among His signs which show His great power: the creation of the heavens in all their depth and breadth, the stars and the planets situated in the heavens, the world with its seas and waters, creatures, plants, and mountains, the diversity of men’s languages and colours, even though they resemble each other in general. These are indeed signs which prove the greatness of the Creator, for men who know and reflect upon Allah’s creation.

23. Among His signs which prove His capacity for creation: your sleep during the night when you rest after a day of working and seeking to earn your living. These are indeed signs for those men who listen to sermons and profit from them.

24. Among the signs of His might and His power: He shows you lightning and you fear His thunderbolts and you hope that rain will follow, so that life may be given to the earth and it will bring forth plants. These indeed are clear signs for men who see and contemplate the power of Allah to resuscitate His creatures, in the hereafter, and to revive them for Judgement and Retribution.

25. Among the signs which prove His power to do whatsoever He wills: the heavens and the earth are sustained without pillars and without cords to attach them, held up by the command and Will of Allah, according to a system which He has designed and brought into existence, and which will last until the end of the world. When Allah decides that the earth is to be transformed into something else, and the mountains become plains, on that day Allah will order the trumpet to sound. That is when men will come out of their tombs, hastening towards their Lord, and responding to His summons.

26. All beings in the heavens or on earth humble themselves before their Lord and submit to Him, by choice or by force.

27. It is He who initiates the creation of the heavens and the earth, without following any earlier model. He has planned the end of His creation so that He can subsequently re-create it, and that is most easy for Him. Then Allah Almighty draws the attention of mankind to the fact that the repetition of creation and fabrication is easier than the original creation. Since it is Allah who initiated the creation from nothing, men should understand that the act of repeating the creation of beings is easier than creating them for the first time, and that this does not render Allah powerless, because resuscitating people on the Day of Resurrection is easier for Him than creating them for the first time. Allah has absolute transcendence in the heavens and on earth; He alone is Allah, there are no divinities other than Him, and nothing resembles Him. He is the All-powerful, the Invincible, and All-wise when He creates and governs, as well as when He creates nothing, for amusement and without a goal.

28. Allah Almighty relates this parable for the idolaters who ascribe associates to Him, worshipping divinities other than Him, while admitting that their idols are subject to Allah and belong to Him, so that they say, when they carry out the circumambulation of the Kaaba: “To You, without associate except for one which belongs to You, both him and everything that is his.” Allah Almighty therefore says to them: “Allah will tell you a parable related to your own milieu, to make you aware of how you stray from His path by worshipping idols and statues. The parable is as follows: ‘Do you accept that one of your slaves should be the associate of his master in matters of property, and that both should have equal property rights, so that the master must pay heed to his slave and dispose of nothing except with his permission, as is the case generally among free equal associates, so that he fears his slave just as, in principle, peers mutually fear one another? He thus fears that his associate should wrong him and he himself avoids wronging his associate because he is his equal. Does anything like this happen in your immediate circle or in your own affairs? If this kind of thing does not happen, how then can you envisage such a situation in the case of Allah, who has absolute transcendence?” Then Allah Almighty explains these verses in extraordinary detail, giving examples which clarify their meaning and render them accessible to the intelligence of those who use their minds to understand the example and extract its significance, in order to serve their desired goals.

29. But those who have been unjust towards themselves in denying Allah prefer to follow their own passions, through ignorance of Allah’s rights over them and of His greatness, just as they associate idols and statues with Him, without argument or proof. Who can return those who have strayed from Allah to the true path? No one will come to the help of those who have acted unjustly, against the will and preordination of Allah, just as no one will save them from His punishment.

30. Therefore, devote your entire being to the religion which Allah has prescribed for you, which is the religion of Abraham, towards which Allah has guided you, and in accordance with which Allah has created your nature as He has created the nature of mankind. Through this wholesome nature, men guide themselves towards a knowledge of their Lord and their Creator, the Almighty, who is their sole Allah, without any associate. Allah’s creatures are all gifted in the same way by this wholesome nature, with no distinctions, and it is for that reason that Ibn Abbas, with reference to the phrase ”No change in Allah’s creation,” says that this means no change in Allah’s religion. (In a Hadith reported by al-Bukhari and Muslim, the Prophet (peace be upon him) says: “Every newborn comes into the world with a wholesome nature so that his parents can make of him a Jew or a Christian or a Mazdean, just as, when one animal engenders another, it does not wish its offspring to be mutilated.”) Then Allah Almighty says: “Holding fast to the law and to wholesome nature is the true religion. But most men do not know this, and they stray from the path of righteousness.”

31. O Mohammad and all those who follow you, draw near to Allah, to the true religion, full of repentance and in all sincerity. Devoutly fear Him and take care not to disobey Him or commit forbidden acts, and be assiduous in performing your prayers at the appointed times, piously and sincerely! For the prayer is one of the pillars of religion. It reminds the believer of his Lord at every moment, and keeps him from committing sins and wrongdoing. Worship Allah alone and do not join those who ascribe associates to Him!

32. Do not join those who ascribe associates to Him, and who change their religion, or modify it, and thus believe in one part of it but not in another. Consequently, they have become sects and parties, each of them believing that they are on the true path, valuing only what they have retained.

33. And when disaster befalls these idolaters, like famine, sickness, and difficulties, they invoke their Lord, as sincere believers, purifying their religion and their forms of worship for Him, returning to Him alone, full of repentance and praying Him to relieve them of their difficulties. But when He has put an end to their difficulties, some of them again begin to ascribe associates to Him.

34. They become ungrateful for everything that Allah has graciously granted to them, and deny His benevolence towards them, when He has granted them well-being. They will soon learn how Allah seizes upon idolaters and sinners, and how He will punish them for having disbelieved and for having sown discord on earth.

35. Allah Almighty questions these idolaters and their worship of other divinities beside Him, saying to them: “Have We caused a book to descend to you, which guides you towards what you believe in? Allah Almighty did not send down a book to this effect, nor messengers calling you to your beliefs. But these are beliefs which you have invented in order to follow your own desires.”

36. Exultation, exuberance, and despair are all part of the nature of man. He rejoices and surpasses his own limitations when he leads a life of well-being, comfort, and security, but when misfortunes or tribulations befall him because of his sinful acts and his evil views, then he despairs of Allah’s mercy and of the possibility of escape.

37. Have such people not realized that the presiding judge in these two cases — comfort and difficulty — is Allah Almighty? He performs this role with justice and wisdom. Why do they not therefore thank Allah for a life of comfort and happiness and bear misfortunes patiently, as sincere believers do? If they realized that both comfort and discomfort issue from Allah, they would not clamour or despair but would give thanks to Allah for either state, for Allah Almighty maintains discipline over His servants through His mercy and His gifts as well as through difficulties and misfortunes.

38. O prophet and all those who follow you, since it is Allah who dispenses His gifts or refuses them to whomsoever He wills, give whatever money you can to the poor, to the needy among your close relations, to the unfortunate who lack money, and to travellers who have no provisions and who are far from their families and their homeland, so that they may return to their own country! Then Allah Almighty says that giving money to the needy is beneficial to the giver in Allah’s eyes, since it is He who accepts good deeds and rewards those who perform them. These givers have themselves gained, because they have exchanged the ephemeral for the eternal. (It is said that the meaning of the phrase “It is better for those who seek the face of Allah” is: it is better for those who seek to see the face of Allah on the Day of Resurrection.)

39. Ibn Abbas said: “There are two kinds of interest: improper interest, which is the profit accruing from a sale, and acceptable interest, which is a present from a man who means to profit by it and multiply it tenfold,” and then recited this verse. Also, ’Akramah has said: “Whoever gives a donation or offers a gift in the hope that the receivers will respond with something more valuable than his gift, will not be rewarded for his act, although his deed is not a sin, despite Allah’s prohibition to His prophet when He said: “And do not give in the hope of receiving even more” (see chapter 74- Al-Muddathir (One Wrapped Up), 6). As for those who give alms as a way of seeking the Allah’s pleasure, Allah will double the reward for such people and repay them. (In an authentic Hadith, the Prophet (peace be upon him) says: “Each time that a man gives alms to the value of a good-sized date from his licit earning, Allah takes it in His right hand and increases its size, just as one of you might fatten his filly or his weanling (young weaned camel), until the date grows as huge as Mount Ohod.” )

40. It is indeed Allah Almighty who created you from nothing, and who causes the child to be born in his mother’s womb and provides him with ears and eyes, as well as with strength and clothing, knowledge and money, and all the necessities of life, and who will later cause him to die, in order to resuscitate him on the Day of Resurrection so that He may judge all his deeds. Allah questions the idolaters, reprimanding and condemning them: “Can any of your idols do anything of this kind?” These idols and so-called divinities possess in themselves neither good nor evil, as the unbelievers of Quraish themselves know and admit. Allah Almighty says: “The purity and greatness of Allah! He is far above those beings ascribed to Him as partners, equals or sons.”

41. Corruption appeared in this world as a result of wars, conflicts, and uprisings…. And these happened because men committed injustices and forbidden acts, denied religion, and forgot the Day of Judgement; in like wise, souls liberated themselves from all constraint and set about sowing disorder on earth, without any moral restraint or conscience, and without ascribing any importance to religion. Allah has therefore made them taste a portion of their sins and misdeeds; perhaps they will return to the true path, cease to stray, and remember the day of the Last Judgement.

42. Because the appearance of corruption was caused by those things which people had acquired with their own hands, by the wrongs that they had done to themselves and their Lord, and by their neglect of divine law, Allah Almighty draws the attention of His servants to what happened to former generations, and how He caused them to perish without leaving a single survivor. Then He says: “O Mohammad, tell those idolaters among your people: ‘Go throughout the earth and contemplate the former dwellings of those who refused to believe in Allah and treated His messengers as liars, and how Allah caused them to perish through His punishment, thus making them an example to mankind, for the majority of them were people who ascribed an associate to Allah.’”

43. Almighty Allah commands His servants to submit themselves to obeying Him and following the straight path, before the Day of Resurrection comes, when none will escape the retribution ordained by Allah. That day will inevitably come when men will be scattered and separated according to their deeds, one group entering into Paradise and revelling in a happy life, and another group entering into Hell where they will be burned, humiliated and beaten.

44. Whoever has disbelieved in Almighty Allah and committed evil deeds, his disbelief and his ingratitude for Allah’s gifts will be turned against him. And whosoever has believed in Allah, performed good deeds, and obeyed Allah and refrained from forbidden acts … for him a wonderful resting place has been prepared so that he will be free from pain and will reap a fine harvest on the Day of Resurrection.

45. On the Day of Resurrection, Allah Almighty will assemble all His creatures in order to judge them according to their deeds. Then He will group them according to their behaviour. As for those who have believed and performed good deeds, He will repay them through His grace and will double their rewards, and as for the unbelievers, they will receive their due equitably, without injustice or prevarication; for although Allah has no love for unbelievers, He will repay them with absolute justice.

46. And among the graces of Allah to His creatures is the sending of winds to announce the rain which follows upon the appearance of clouds, to irrigate the earth so that plants and vegetation can grow as well as the fruits and grains which men and animals eat (“so that you can taste His mercy”). Also, ships travel on the seas and rivers, driven by the winds, to transport men from one country to another, together with provisions and all kinds of merchandise, so that men can make use of them for trade. Allah wishes to remind His creatures of His favours and His blessings so that they will be grateful to Him.

47. Before you, Mohammad, We sent messengers to their peoples with clear proofs of their prophecy, proving that they were truly messengers to them from Allah, sent to invite them to worship Allah without any associate, and they treated them as liars. We revenged Ourselves therefore on the unbelievers who committed the crime of denial, and We saved those who believed in Allah and responded to the invitation of His messengers, and We took it upon Us to champion the believers, and thus We do. Do not grieve, therefore, O Mohammad, at what you witness among your people! We will most certainly defend you against them and make you victorious.

48. Allah Almighty sends winds which raise the clouds. He spreads them over the skies, gathers them together or scatters them, and you see the raindrops issuing from their depths. When the rain attains those creatures chosen by Allah, they rejoice and welcome the glad tidings and fertility.

49. Before the rain came, they were in despair; then when the rain came, they rejoiced in the good news and their hopes revived.

50. Consider the effects of the rain, therefore, Mohammad, how it makes the earth revive and causes plants and fruits to grow. He who gives life to earth formerly dead is certainly capable of giving life to the dead on the Day of Resurrection. Allah is capable of everything, since from nothing He brought into existence the universe and everything it contains.

51. And if Allah sends a cold wind, or a hot one which burns and ravages man’s plants and fruits, so that they turn from green to yellow and wilt after their freshness, the joy of men will be transformed into sadness and their hope into despair and they become forgetful of their earlier gifts, because their faith is unstable and weakened by doubt. The believer must have confidence in Allah at all times and must always be grateful to Allah.

52. O Mohammad! Just as you cannot make yourself heard by the dead in their graves nor by the deaf, neither can you oblige those who refuse to understand the verses, to listen and understand, nor can you guide those whom Allah has led astray. Allah alone is capable of that. It is He who guides whomsoever He will and leads astray whomsoever He will. Do not therefore sadden yourself on their account, and do not be cast down by their obstinacy in wishing to persist in their errant ways.

53. These obstinate people are like blind men, since they have closed their hearts to guidance. You cannot guide them nor lead them back from disbelief to belief, for you cannot make somebody understand something which is in his interest unless his heart is ready to believe in Allah’s signs, for it is only the believer who, on hearing the word of Allah, understands it, grasps it, and follows it, his heart humbled before Allah and obedient to His orders.

54. Almighty Allah replies to the idolaters who deny the idea of the Resurrection, saying that He created man from a sperm of base water, then caused him to pass through various stages until he becomes a feeble and naked newborn baby, then grows and becomes strong, and then gradually begins to lose his power until he becomes old and feeble. Allah Almighty creates whatever He wishes — weakness, strength, youth, and old age — and He is All-knowing about the state of His creatures, and is capable of everything, for nothing is impossible to Him. He who can do all of that will not find it difficult to re-create His creatures and resuscitate them from their graves on the Day of Resurrection.

55. And the day when the Hour will sound and when Allah resuscitates those who lie in their tombs, criminals who have disbelieved in Allah and committed evil deeds in their lives here below will swear that they have not stayed for more than one hour (or that they have not been buried in their graves for more than an hour). It is for this reason that they have not had enough time to get to know their Creator and understand what His messengers communicated to them. They will say that in an effort to defend themselves and refute the arguments against them. Just as they knew the truth during their lives here below but strayed from it towards the false, called the prophets liars, and blasphemed, so they will stray from the truth on Judgement Day and will lie, saying that they only stayed for an hour, and they will swear that their lies are true.

56. Those among the prophets and angels and believers to whom knowledge of Allah’s Book and faith in Allah were given will speak to the unbelievers who swear that they only stayed for an hour, saying: “You stayed in your graves from the time of your death to the Day of Resurrection. Here now is the Day of Resurrection which you denied on earth and in your ignorance asserted would never happen.”

57. On the Day of Resurrection, the excuses offered by those who prevaricated and did themselves harm by their disbelief and their denial of the Resurrection (such as saying, “We did not know that this day would take place”) will therefore not be useful, and they will not return to earth, either, in order to repent and do good deeds, for return is impossible and repentance unacceptable, for it will be too late. They will not be asked to seek to please Allah Almighty, nor will they be forgiven!

58. Allah Almighty says that He has given clear parables of all kinds to prove His existence, His uniqueness, His power, and His creation of the world and everything it contains, so that men can discern the truth and follow it and they turned away out of arrogance and obstinance. Allah Almighty says to His Messenger (peace be upon him): “And if you announce to them every sign to prove the truth of what you say, they will not believe you and they will say that it is magic or old wives’ tales, and that what you have revealed to them is false.”

59- Thus, Allah will seal the hearts of those who do not know the truth of the signs and arguments you brought to them. Therefore, they cannot understand the Quran which is recited to them, nor discern the truth of faith.

60- So bear patiently, O Mohammad, the harm of the idolaters and take no heed of their contradictions and stubborness. Communicate to them the message of Allah who promised you triumph: He will keep His promises. Do not allow those who do not believe in the hereafter to shake your firmness and thus turn you from Allah’s command to you to convey His message to men.