The Holy Qur'an/Al-Ikhlas
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| ←Al-Masadd | The Holy Qur'an Al-Ikhlas (Sincerity) |
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In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
1 Say: He is Allah, the One and Only;
2 Allah, the Eternal, Absolute;
3 He begetteth not, nor is He begotten;
4 And there is none like unto Him.
[edit] Alternate translation
Alternative translation, with notes:
[edit] The Sincerity
In the name of God [2], the Most Merciful [3], the Ever Merciful [4]
1 Say: He is God, one [5]
2 God, eternal
3 He does not beget, nor is He begotten [6]
4 And there cannot be [7] anything[8] equivalent to [9] Him. [10]
[edit] Notes
- ↑ The Arabic here is "ikhlaas," meaning "sincerity" and "honesty" but having the connotation of faithfulness or constancy.
- ↑ The Arabic word "Allah" is a contraction of the direct article, "al", and the word for a deity, "ilah" (the same word that starts verse 114.003). Thus "Allah" is best translated as "the god," or more conventionally for English, "God" with a capital "G." This is the same word used in the first and second verses (112.001 and 112.002).
- ↑ The Arabic here is "al-raHmaan," which derives from r-H-m, the triconsonantal root for "mercy"---that is, compassion and forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm. The grammatical form raHmaan connotes a superlative, thus "most merciful." Note how this differs from the more common translations "most compassionate" and "most gracious," both of which lack the aspect of punishment. Insofar as mercy is a favor or blessing, it can be thought of as a form of grace, but mercy is more specific.
- ↑ The Arabic here is "al-raHeem," again derived from r-H-m, the root for "mercy." The grammatical form raHeem connotes time-permanence, thus "ever merciful."
- ↑ The Arabic here is "aHad," meaning "one." Absent comparators or modifiers, it connotes a superlative. Hence this is "one" in the sense of something "singular," "first," "unparalleled," "unequalled," or "unique;" a peerless unity. This verse can be read also as "Say: He is the one God," with the direct article "the" carrying over from "God" (see note (1)), but that loses the emphasis that the word "one" has by being at the end of the verse, and also the parallelism with the next verse. If one were to read it that way, parallelism would be maintained with, for example: 112.001 Say: He is the one God 112.002 The eternal God This same word ends the last verse, 112.004; see (7) and (9).
- ↑ The Arabic here is "yalid," meaning to beget or give birth to a person, and "yuulad," the passive form of the same verb. Both are in present continuous tense.
- ↑ The Arabic here is "lamm yakun," a negative particle followed by a form of the verb "to be." In Arabic the present tense "is" is usually implied. The presence of the word "yakun" connotes a broader time sense than just the present, thus, with the negative, "cannot be."
- ↑ The Arabic here is "aHad," the same word as in the first verse; see (4). The connotation is not limited to a person, thus "anything" instead of "one."
- ↑ The Arabic here is "kufwan," from "kufu',"meaning "equivalent," "equal," or "match." The construction is more literally "equivalent to Him."
- ↑ Because of differences in grammar between Arabic and English, the word order of the Arabic, and consequently the emphasis provided by the word order of the Arabic, is lost in the given English translation. According to word order, this verse could be translated (clumsily) as follows: 112.004 And there cannot be to Him an equivalent anything. A looser translation that maintains the emphasis of the word order might be: 112.004 And there cannot be, compared to Him, any equivalent at all. This preserves the emphasis on uniqueness that results from the word "aHad" being the last word in the verse, just as it was (without the negative) the last word in the first verse. See (4).
