This verse implicitly criticizes the clerics who prohibited gold and silk for men.

The last word could also be read la ya'lamun (they do not know). See 6:31; 16:25. For examples of different readings, see 2:54.

If the word jamal is read as jummal (rope), then it changes the meaning of the phrase to "until the rope passes through the eye of a needle." The Bible uses the same metaphor. "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25). Ironically, despite these Biblical verses, many modern evangelical Christians, who worship the fictional Jesus, have become avid proponents of wild capitalism and big corporations.

By declaring that all good and beautiful things of life-i.e., those which are not expressly prohibited-are lawful to the believers, the Qur'an condemns, by implication, all forms of life-denying asceticism, world-renunciation and self-mortification. While, in the life of this world, those good things are shared by believers and unbelievers alike, they will be denied to the latter in the hereafter (cf. verses 51 of this surah).

Lit., "for every community (ummah) there is a term": i.e., all people have a life-term decreed by God, during which they are at liberty to accept or to reject the guidance offered them through revelation. The word ummah often denotes "living beings" -in this context, "people".

In Arabic usage, the term sa'ah (lit., "hour") signifies not merely the astronomical hour-i.e., the twenty-fourth part of a mean solar day -but also "time" in an absolute sense, or any fraction of it, whether large or small. In the above context, it has obviously been used in the sense of "a least fraction of time" or "a single moment".

Lit., "their share of the [divine] decree (al-kitab) will reach them": i.e., they will have in their lifetime, like all other people, all the good or bad fortune envisaged for them in God's eternal decree. The "messengers" (rusul) referred to in the next clause are, apparently, the angels of death.

The terms "first" and "last" refer here either to a sequence in time ("those who came earlier" and "those who came later") or in status ("leaders" and "followers"); and in both cases they relate, as the next sentence indicates, to the evil influence which the former exerted on the latter during their lifetime-either directly, as leaders of thought and persons of distinction, or indirectly, as forerunners in.time, whose example was followed by later generations.

Lit., "to everyone a double [suffering]": i.e., for having gone astray and for having, by his example, led others astray. Cf. 16:25 - "on Resurrection Day they shall bear the full weight of their own burdens, as well as some of the burdens of those ignorant ones whom they have led astray".

I.e., "You went the wrong way, as we did, out of your own free will, and you bear the same responsibility as we do." Another possible interpretation is: "You are not superior to us because you have learnt nothing from our mistakes."

According to Ibn `Abbas (as quoted by Razi), this metaphor signifies that God will not accept any of the good deeds of such sinners, nor their subsequent supplications.

Lit., "until (hatta) a twisted rope passes through a needle's eye"; since this phrase is meant to express an impossibility, the rendering of hatta as "any more than" seems to be appropriate here. As for the word jamal occurring in this sentence, there is hardly any doubt that its translation, in this context, as "camel" is erroneous. As pointed out by Zamakhshari' (and confirmed by other classical commentators, including Razi), Ibn `Abbas used to read the word in the spelling jummal, which signifies "a thick rope" or "a twisted cable"; and the same reading is attributed to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (Taj al-'Arus ). It is to be noted that there are also several other dialectical spellings of this word, namely, jumal, juml, jumul and, finally, jamal (as in the generally-accepted version of the Qur'an) - all of them signifying "a thick, twisted rope" (Jawhari, and all of them used in this sense by some of the Prophet's Companions or their immediate successors (tabi'un). Ibn `Abbas is also quoted by Zamakhshari as having said that God could not have coined so inappropriate a metaphor as "a camel passing through a needle's eye"-meaning that there is no relationship whatsoever between a camel and a needle's eye whereas, on the other hand, there is a definite relationship between the latter and a rope (which, after all, is but an extremely thick thread). On all accounts, therefore, the rendering of jamal as "a twisted rope" is, in this context, infinitely preferable to that of "a camel". The fact that the latter rendering occurs in a somewhat similar phrase in the Greek version of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew xix, 24, Mark x, 25 and Luke xviii, 25) does not affect this contention. One should remember that the Gospels were originally composed in Aramaic, the language of Palestine at the time of Jesus, and that those Aramaic texts are now lost. It is more than probable that, owing to the customary absence of vowel signs in Aramaic writing, the Greek translator misunderstood the consonant spelling g-m-l (corresponding to the Arabic j-m-l), and took it to mean "a camel": a mistake repeated since, with regard to the above Qur'an-verse, by many Muslims and all, non-Muslim orientalists as well.

Lit., "for them there will be a resting-place of [the fires of] hell and, from above them, coverings [thereof]".

17:18-20, 20:117-123

The first group violated the laws and misled others, and the second group was guilty of blind following and misleading their successors

Likewise nations that ignore the Divine laws in nature will utterly fail to establish a Paradise on earth. The parable of the camel and the needle conveys a perception, the impossibility of attaining success in defiance of these laws

Nations that fail to build their own Paradise on earth only lurk on hellish ground. They have a ceiling of chaos above, keeping them from rising in the community of nations