Surah 96

Surah 96

The Clay

1. Read, by The Summum of your Lord’s, Who created.

2. Man created of [sticky] clay [“man” is the subject of the verb “created” in our reading, not an object];

[Man can only create in matter, man thus creates specifics.

As for The Creation: open-ended: it is The Lord’s, transcends He.

So the first verse is of an Existential Stadium, and the second is of specifics.

But those who have mingled The Creator with His Creation have not been able to let those grand verses point them to the high horizons, they will not be guided, even as we walk them step by step, those are affixers, no matter how many times per day they utter that they are not.]

3. Read, and your Lord is Loftiest [and Most Bountiful],

[Even a word like kareem and akram: they read them with their common meaning in their minds: of being a generous giver of material things.

If they bothered to check their Arabic dictionaries, the word akram is of the root of karama: to be lofty and bountiful.

Hence they do not see loftiness in god, but only a giver of material help, in the low world and the hereafter.]

4. Who taught by The Pencil [the straight line, the first form of Existence, the ray of The Truth; The Lord rounds it in a Circle in His Might beyond man’s comprehension, and in His Records more ancient than eternity; thus He says, transcends He: “Noon (i.e. the circle) and the Pencil and what they transcribe (Noon wa al-qalam wa maa yastturoon)”];

5. He taught man what man could not have known.

6. Nay, man does tyrannize.

6. When one sees one, one is self-sufficient.

7. To your Lord is the return.

8. Have you seen the one who dissuades?

9. An abider when he prays?

10. Have you seen if he is on guidance?

11. Or if taking refuge [in God] he prescribed?

12. Have you seen if he has lied and away he turned?

13. Does he not know that God sees?

14. Nay, if he refrains not, We shall slap his forehead;

15. A forehead sinful and dishonest.