Surah 48

The Revelation

1. We have revealed to you [the messenger] a clarifying revelation,
2. So that God forgive what is recent of your error and what is past, and that He complete His providence upon you and guide you to a straight path,
3. And God does make you triumph a great triumph,
4. It is He Who descended equanimity upon the hearts of those who are faithful so they may grow/increase their faithfulness by their faithfulness, and to God are the armies of the heavens and the earth, God is Omniscient Sovereign,
5. To usher the male and female believers into gardens, the days stream underneath them, eternal they are in them, and forgives He them their ills, and this is in God a great success,
6. And to make the male and female hypocrites suffer, and the male and female affixers, the thinkers of ill thoughts about God, upon them is the circle of ill, and God is wrathful of them and damned them He and set up for them the inferno, bad it is as a destiny,
7. And to God are the armies of the heavens and the earth, God is Exalted Sovereign,
8. We have sent you [the messenger] a witness, a bringer of glad tidings and a warner,
9. So you [all] may believe in God and His messenger, and that you honour him and revere him, and that you transcend in Him in the daybreaks and in the dusks,
[The word that we’ve translated to “revelation” is from the root of “ف ت ح”, which points to “to open”,
Hence the many derivatives of it and the many connotations,
How Islamic scholars were able narrow its essence in this instance to “conquest”: is not difficult to explain,
Yes, the Qur’an’s message has been, amongst its other aims, to correct the misinterpretations of the Gospels and the Torah, and to call to the abidance in the One God of all the worlds,
Whether the bearers of the new Book have lived up to the High Standard (ألمعروف) as it commanded them: is another question,
Historians have been divided on this issue, and to try to prove one theory or another will not do either the Middle East or the West any favour,
But this Page will insist on its proclamation when it was launched over ten years ago:
And that is:
Had the West made a serious effort to understand the new Book, it would’ve come to the conclusion that it’s none but the continuation of Christianity and Judaism, and it hence could’ve adopted it, albeit in the context of its own understanding of it,
And had the Muslims lived up to the High Standard of morality and rationality that is repeatedly and crystal-clearly conveyed in the Qur’an: they could’ve won the friendship, and indeed the support, of their Western neighbours,
Unfortunately, none of that has happened, and we are hence still trying to defuse the tensions between the two, and to falsify all the claims and the counter-claims on both sides,

The “opening” remains thus: a conquest, in the minds of Islamic scholars,
And the fight against the non-Christian invaders will hence remain as a major responsibility for Western rulers,

Alas, neither of them is interested in the Revelation,
That opens the corridors and windows of the mind,
Above error and right and wrong,
So equanimity befalls them and paves their way to the gardens of Existence above linear time,
The armies of the Law are ever vigilant,
Every image and its animation is guided by them,
So those who can witness bring the glad tidings to their fellow humans, and warn them of the suffering of hell, embellished by conquest that lasts short, and might that won’t last.]

10. Those who support you [the messenger]: that so, they support God, God’s hand is over their hands; so he who lets down, that so, he lets himself down, and he who makes good on what he covenanted God about; God will bring forth to them a great reward,
[Obviously, not only the Hebrew people or the Druze have “covenanted God”. The expression was repeated in every message, pointing to a spiritual covenant, rather than a contract written on paper,
And although verse 2:282 (al-baqarah) mentions the covenant being written by a writer of justice: the implication is that a ceremony of initiation is held, with two witnesses who don’t forget, regardless of their gender, as we’ve explained before …
And the “New Testament” was also none but a new covenant …]

11. Those who stay behind of the Arabs will say to you: “our money and our families have kept us busy, do forgive us”; they say by their tongues what is not in their hearts, say: “who reigns a thing from God for you? whether He wants harm for you or benefit for you”; nay, God is in what you do All Informed,
12. Nay, you thought that the messenger and the believers won’t turn back to their Family ever, and this has been embellished in your hearts, and you thought the ill thoughts, and you have been a brutish people,
13. And he who believes not in God and his messenger: We have set up a blaze for the disbelievers,
14. To God is the Kingdom of the heavens and the earth, forgives He whom He will and makes suffer whom He will, and God is Forgiving Compassionate,
[Parallels to such a call to strive on the Way of God can be found, I’m certain, in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts, which have become forgotten or totally lost,
Surahs which invite the people to abandon their daily activity and pursue a path of self-purification and enlightenment often use war and combat as symbolism,
The Dead Sea Scrolls are such an example,
But not unlike Islamic scholars, the scholars who studied those also couldn’t read in them except gang war strategy, and bodily cleansing techniques and rituals.]

15. Those who stay behind will say: “if you go forward for the spoils that you will take: let us follow you”, they want to alter God’s Word, say: “you won’t follow us, thus said God from before”, they will say: “nay, you [just] envy us”; nay, they were capable of comprehending only little,
[Capable of comprehending little indeed, despite the high academic qualifications in Qur’anic studies and Arabic language,
They analyse the Qur’an grammatically, from end to end,
They think this is proof of their understanding,
And it is proof only of their misunderstanding,

The verse is clearly attempting to put an end to looting after raiding, Islamic scholars today, contrarily, still believe that god legitimises the spoils of war, if they are divided justly!
Theft can be just only in the eye of brutish and primitive people,
And in the wars still raging between Muslims and Muslims in the Middle East, we’ve seen them sitting down and dividing their catch justly between each other, unashamedly, in front of journalists, and knowing that their party will be shown to the whole world,
Perhaps in their thinking this is an invitation to the world to join their religion, thinking that the world will envy them for such great shariah to have,
They can attract only thieves and bandits as they have done already,
But the problem is the imams and the scholars who have written doctorate theses on the shariah of looting, and who believe that this is god’s law that should be enforced upon the whole world!]

16. Say to those of the Arabs who stay behind: “you will be called to a people of extreme power, you fight them or you surrender [we read “تُسلمون"], hence if you obey, brings He you a good reward, and if you turn away like you turned away before: makes He you suffer a painful suffering,
[The immediate meaning of this verse is a call to self-defence …
And of course, self-defence is every individual’s and every nation’s natural right,
As we said many times on this Page, that all living beings including humans wield this natural right that is not bestowed upon them by religion or any other ideology, and that nothing can take away from them,

But there’s more to this verse than the right of self-defence,
If the call to “fight” is taken as the fight on the way of freedom from fallacious beliefs and subservience to the wants and the passions of the ego …: the warning will be about falling in the pitfalls of fallacious beliefs and the passions and wants of the ego:
This is conducive to the state of mind of religious people, who are victims of their own irrationality, that blinds them from discriminating between fact and fallacy, in their total reliance on a god who will support them if they offer certain rituals to him and abide by his mundane law …,
They hence become incapable of facing tough challenges from more intelligent nations and from the ever-changing circumstances of their lives generally …
Such a state of existence is the lowest that any individual or nation can get to, bringing upon themselves humility and endless suffering …]

17. No pressure is on the blind, no pressure is on the lame, and neither is pressure on the sick, and he who obeys God and His messenger: enters He them in gardens, the days stream underneath them, and whoever turns away: makes He them suffer a painful suffering,
[This is a reaffirmation of what came before in the Hebrew Books, that the sick and the lame should not enter the temple,
Which was also taken at its natural meaning only …
But in both cases, this is reassuring the people that if they don’t have the intellectual abilities that enables them to embark on such a long journey of study and inquisition, or if they have attachments to their worldly pleasures and pursuits: it’s OK, and they shouldn’t be pressured,
But the men of religious attires: who are supposed to be the bearers of the messages and the experts in the Books, who have dedicated their lives to studying and to the service of others, to guide them in their daily affairs and to help them to reign in their passions …: by God, those are totally expected to be up to this enormous responsibility,
No wonder the predicament of all religions, when their men of attires themselves: are blinded by irrationality, sunk in religious bigotry and nationalism …
The state of affairs of religious nations is indeed the outcome of their own making.]

18. God is Content with the believers as they support you [the messenger] under the Tree, so He knows what’s in their hearts, and descended He equanimity upon them, and rewarded them a close revelation,
19. And much more spoils they take, and God is Exalted Sovereign,
20. Has promised God you [all] a lot of spoils that you take, so He has hastened for you this one, and prevented He people’s hands from [reaching] you, and so that you may be a marvel for the believers, and may He guide you to a straight path,
21. And another [achievement] that you have not been capable of, God has surrounded it, and God is of everything Capable,
22. And if the disbelievers fight you, they would turn back, then they won’t find a master or a supporter,
23. [This is] God’s Law which was carried out before, and you [the messenger] won’t find for God’s Law an alteration,
[The mention of the “tree” has many connotations,
Let’s not forget the Akademia that Plato founded under the olive trees,
And in earlier cycles of time, also the believers gathered with their messenger under the huge tree of potentiality, to affirm their faith,
And it seems that a similar event took place between the messenger and the early Muslims,
As we’ve said a few times, the spirit of events re-eventuate to give the people a chance to reconsider their choices of action …
And those who keep telling their followers that god has recorded everything already and keeps playing the same video repeatedly: want to keep their followers in dormancy: there’s no point in doing anything, god has already determined our destiny,
But you see them very keen when it comes to making money and pursuing their worldly affairs …
How the people of religions reconcile their own contradictions: is beyond comprehension …

And verse 20 is saying that the journey of knowledge is long and joyful, and that there’s more to come, for those who are willing to tread it …
The simplistic understanding by religions: that once you’ve accepted so and so or once you’ve declared or done so and so: a god is happy with you: is a jail sentence that extends to all their lives,
The short respites they get from the suffering is thought to be the promised salvation and paradise …
This is the worst of all destinies …]

24. It is He Who prevented their [the disbelievers’] hands from [reaching] you, and your hands from [reaching] them, concealing [we read “يبطِنُ"] meagerness [we read "مكّةً”], after that He had you overcome them, and God is Seer of what you do,
[It seems that there were physical confrontations, as one would imagine, between the believers of the new Book and the practitioners of pagan rituals,
But the situation settled after the believers had the upper hand, while aware of their small numbers and capabilities …

And this verse must be the source of calling the city where the Cube was built: Makkah,

Islamic scholars and historians want the world to believe that that city was always called Makkah,
But there’s no mention of this name in any ancient document,
The name that is similar to it in the Qur’an and the Torah is Baka,
And Baka, COB has said, is the city of Baalbek in the valley between to two chains of mountains of Lebanon,
There is Solomon’s Temple, mentioned in the Qur’an as “God’s House” (بيت الله),

Unable to read the enigmatic early scripts of the Qur’an, Islamic scholars and imams hastened to say this is - where the Cube was: our holy city,
Although some of them were perhaps clever enough to realise that the new Book from God came to put an end to pagan rituals: they probably felt incapable of convincing the masses which had been circulating and bowing to that place for many centuries …
Hence perhaps the deliberately false reading,

And as we open those clear verses: many are till stubbornly clinging to their beliefs and practices: despite that they have been reduced by them to irrational and criminal beings … as this Grand Book has repeatedly and emphatically warned them …

The history of the Cube, however, goes a long way before the advent of Islam,
Abraham and some of his sons had a confrontation with the then pagan tribes of the Levant, who used to hold annual meetings there, where rituals and politics went hand in hand,
This is where they plotted to burn him, but his sons noticed the smoke and came to his rescue,
This is where he built his memorial, after his ideological and political victory over them, with his son Ismael, in defiance to the then dominant tribes …
This is where the original Ark of the Covenant that Tut Ankh Amon (Aaron) had made was placed, after it had a fairly long hiding in Elephantine, after that Moses (Tut Mose the sculptor) was angry at his half-brother for commissioning it, and after that a shower of meteors bombarded the city, remnants of whose shrapnel is the black stone sitting today on one of the corners of the Cube,

In the early sixties work was carried out at the site of the Cube,
The high screens which were put around it and on a way leading to it: kept the nature of the work and the purpose of it secret,
Is it possible that authorities knew that it was there, and wanted to take it out to find another hiding place for it?
No one would be interested in it now, not the Muslims and nor the Jews,
For the Muslims, it is a great embarrassment to say to the world that they have been bowing and circulating around the very statue of the bull that some Jews worshipped, as the Qur’an recounted,
For the Jews, it is a great embarrassment to show it to the Hebrew people, as a mere work of art from the ancientry that has no magical powers which guarantees success in everything, victory and infinite supplies of money …

The disappointments of all Abrahamic religions are very big and painful,
If they take them now it is better for them,
So they can progress to the rational beings that God has been guiding them, and leave the dark past behind them,
If they keep hiding their heads in the sand: the disappointment will be much bigger, and reversing the past will be impossible.

Further essays on this subject can be found in the story of Zimran and in the Book of David on our Website.]

25. It is them who darkened and deterred you from the forbidden bowing [place], and the guidance crooked not to reach its goal, and if it were not for believing men and women: you wouldn’t know them as you walk into them, and ailment would strike you from them without [your] knowledge; thus God ushers into His Compassion whom He will, if you [all] vanquished [we read “تزَّيَّلوا"] He would make suffer those who darkened of them a great suffering,
[The exhibitionist piety of religious people: turn the people of true faith away from religions …
And this has been always the case … in all religions,
Innately good people, endowed with reason and high moral and behavioural standards: steer away from the track of piety, that is used by religious people as a cover behind which an ugly and perhaps criminal life plays out …
People with a good nature and a wakeful mind are not drawn into religiousness,
They see that religiousness and piety are more like a dress-up for a bad character, and a green light to be cruel, irrational, greedy and lustful …
In the last few decades, when religiousness became so popular as a way of life in the Islamic world: reasonable people have been turned away completely from religions,
A similar instance is what is described in this verse (23) …

This is not to say that materialistic ideologies are automatically adopted, as an alternative,
Reasonable people believe all religions are good and are meant to teach people high moral standards, for them to live cooperatively and happily,

And this is indeed true faith, and people who adopt it are a lot closer to knowing the purpose of their lives and are more abiding by the Law than pious people …

And you see pious people wanting constantly to advertise their piety, by their orchestrated behaviour, by practising openly their rituals … hoping to attract more people to their darkness,
They are envious of free-thinking people, envious of happy people, hateful of compassionate people …
They are the prisoners of their own darkness, and by drawing others to it: they feel less abandoned,
But thankfully, there are always faithful people who can identify crooked religious beliefs and behavior and aren't afraid to deter the people from them.

The forbidden house is a forbidden house. It is not a holy house,
You would turn the meaning of forbidden to holy: only if you’ve turned “upside-down”, as this very Book has said it,

A place where bowing to stones used to take place: is not holy,
And the verses of the Qur’an or any other Book for that matter: engraved on stone to decorate it: do not make the stones holy and worthy of a bow …
People aren’t required to bow to the Book itself, so why would they have to bow to stones?

“Bowing” happens spontaneously inside one’s mind, when one is awed by the marvels of God,
If people choose to bow physically to express their reverence … they can do it for their own satisfaction; there’s no god who requires it to reward them for it,
Rituals which buy favours from god are the “losing trade”, as they are called repeatedly in the Grand Book.]

26. As those who darkened made the enthusiasm in their hearts the enthusiasm of heathenry, so God descended His equanimity upon His messenger and upon the believers, and bound He them by the word of refuge, they were more rightful to it and receptive of it, and God is of everything The Knower,
[Indeed, and as we witness today: all the wars, especially those of the Middle East, are none but the enthusiasm of heathenry,
When young men flare up upon hearing their political and religious leaders' speeches, and are driven to fight futile and senseless wars,
And exactly as it is commanded in this very Book: the best answer to this is to stay equanimous, unagitated and unresponding to provocation …]

27. God has verified His messenger’s vision by the Law: that you enter the forbidden bowing [place], God willing, safely, flying/raising your heads, unfulfilling [the ritual], unafraid, so God knew what you didn’t know, and made He subsequent to this: a close revelation,
[This is highlighting two points:
That the forbidden house was a source of fright to then Arabs of all religions,
They perhaps believed that it had the power to curse those who didn’t bow to it and circulated around it …,
This was indeed the purpose of making the statue of a bull with two horns and wings of shining gold standing on a sarcophagus …!

And that a degree of “covertness” (تقية) should be exercised, in order to ward off the harm of enthusiastic heathen people,
And this has been the case for many centuries …
But the ideological fight should never have subsided,

Although the religious authorities have mustered all their forces to fight everyone who disagrees with them, and many were murdered for speaking out in condemnation of pagan beliefs and traditions: time has to take its natural course by the Law,
They are now the primary receivers of their own ill deeds.]

28. It is He Who sent His messenger with guidance and the Religion of the Law, so He manifests/elevates it above all religion[s], and suffices God as a Witness,
[The multi-layered structure of existing things: is thoroughly expounded in the Book of “The Quintessence” of the Hikmah,
Our reading of it is on our Website,
It is unfortunate that the bearers of it didn’t take much notice of it,
And the reason for this is very simple,
If it is read from the perspective of the existing things, as the Book clearly points out at its outset: then every statement of it will precipitate in existing things:
These are the religions: the ideologies, the beliefs and perspectives,

It takes a leap into Existence: in order to have a real vision …
This is what this verse is saying,
The Qur’an, the Gospel and the Torah, in their esoteric layer: is indeed in the Law: that is Existence, however different the expressions …

The prostration mentioned in the next verse is the stage of elevation that exhibits subtle signs that can be noticed by like people,
As for the black mark on the forehead that the physical prostration, and the deliberate rubbing of the forehead on the ground or a stone: this is none but the smack that is mentioned in verse 15 and 16 of Surah 96, which we shall come to soon, God willing,
Verse 29 is clearly and unequivocally saying that faithful people can go by any Book, and that prostration is not a ritual of physical movements, and that the road to knowledge is long, and that people progress on it, and that they increase in wonder and admiration, and that the non-believers are envious of their content and happy faces free from fake smiles or the frown of hatred, and that this is forgiveness …]

29. Mohammad, God’s messenger and those with him are tough on the darkened ones, compassionate among them/themselves, you see them prostrating and bowing, seeking elevation from God and contentment, their signs are in their faces from the effect of prostration, their model is in the Torah, and their model is in the Gospel, like a plantation that brought out its sprout, so He strengthened it, so it fattened, so it straightened on its stems, it marvels the planter; so He upsets by them the darkened ones, has promised God those who believed and did good of them: forgiveness and a great reward