90.

Sura Balad (or The City)

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

The Sura opens with a series of oaths. Allah Almighty has sworn by the
city of Mecca, with which the holy Prophet has mystic relations, and by the
mystic ties of parent and child. The Prophet’s own City persecuted him. It
sought to slay him. Yet he loved it and purged it of all that was wrong. What
toil and struggle did it not involve? After taking the oaths, Allah attested that
the man was born in hardships. His life from embryo to death meant a
struggle. He had always to strive to meet various situations. But if he remains
patient and commits his affairs to Allah that would fortify him to overcome his
difficulties.

The Sura goes on to reproach man for the arrogance and to remind him
that Allah has given him faculties of sight and speech and a mind. Man should
distinguish between the two highways of life. The steep and difficult path of
virtue while the other is the easy path of vice and the rejection of Allah. Let
him use his faculties and tread the difficult path. The difficult path of viture is
defined as the path of charity or unselfish love. Three specific instances are
given for our understanding: viz (1) freeing the bondman, (2) feeding the
orphan, and (3) feeding the indigent down in the dust (i.e. destitude, captive or
in famine). The sura concludes by saying the such a person will receive on the
Day of Judgement his scroll of deeds in his right hand, and he would be placed
on the right hand-side of the Judgement seat of Allah, signifying thereby that
he is approved by Allah and therefore entitled to admission in Paradise. On the
other hand those persons, who rejected the commandments of Allah, and
lacked the above virtues, they would be delivered their scroll of performance
in their left hand and shall stand on the left, with Hell-fire close above them.