Topic: Have they not travelled through the land...?


ifthikar.saifudeen    -- 13-01-2005 @ 12:31 AM
 
quote:

Allah (subhana wa ta?alaa) says,

?Have they not travelled through the land, and have they hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind. ? (Surah Al-Hajj 22:46)

From Tafsir Ibn Kathir:

?Have they not travelled through the land,?

Means, have they not travelled in the physical sense and also used their minds to ponder?  That is sufficient, as Ibn Abi Ad-Dunyaa said in his book, At-Tafakkur wal-I?tibaar, ?Some of the wise people said, ?Give life to your heart with lessons, illuminate it with thought, kill it with asceticism, strenghthen it with certain faith, remind it of it?s mortality, make it aware of the calamities of this world, warn it of the disasters that life may bring, show it how things may suddenly change with the passing of days, tell it the stories of the people of the past, and remind it what happened to those who came before.??  Walk through their ruins, see what they did and what became of them, meaning, look at the punishments and divine wrath that struck the nations of the past who belied,

?and have they hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear??

Meaning, let them learn a lesson from that.

?Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind.?

Means, the blind person is not the one whose eyes cannot see, but rather the one who has no insight.  Even if the physical eyes are sound, they still cannot learn the lesson.

[Tafsir ibn Kathir, Vol. 6, pages 592, abridged English Translation, by a group o under the supervision of Shaykh Safiur-Rahman Al-Mubarakpuri, Published by Darussalaam]




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