God is Eternally Living

20. Sura Taha, Mecca 45

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:



وَعَنَتِ الْوُجُوهُ لِلْحَيِّ الْقَيُّومِ...   

20: 111. (All) faces shall be humbled before (Him) -- the Living, the Self-Subsisting, Eternal:

...وَقَدْ خَابَ مَنْ حَمَلَ ظُلْمًا ﴿١١١﴾

hopeless indeed will be the man that carries iniquity (on his back).

C2636. The metaphor of the burden of sin which the unjust carry on their backs is referred to in 20:100-101 (see n. 2626), in 6:31, and in other passages.

Note that all faces, those of the just as well as of the unjust, will be humble before Allah: the best of us can claim no merit equal to Allah's Grace. But the just will have Hope: while the unjust, now that the curtain of Reality has risen, will be in absolute Despair!

Other Versions:


20:111

WaAAanati alwujoohu lilhayyi alqayyoomi waqad khaba man hamala thulman

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Generally Accepted Translations of the Meaning

Muhammad Asad

 

And [on that Day] all faces will be humbled before the Ever-Living, the Self-Subsistent Fount of All Being; and undone shall be he who bears [a burden of] evildoing

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M. M. Pickthall

 

And faces humble themselves before the Living, the Eternal. And he who beareth (a burden of) wrongdoing is indeed a failure (on that day).

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Shakir

 

And the faces shall be humbled before the Living, the Self-subsistent Allah, and he who bears iniquity is indeed a failure.

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Yusuf Ali

 

(All) faces shall be humbled before (Him) - the Living, the Self-Subsisting, Eternal: hopeless indeed will be the man that carries iniquity (on his back).

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[Al-Muntakhab]

 

All countenances shall express humility before Him, the Eternal, the Omnipotent Who preserves existence. But defeated and miserably disappointed of their expectations shall be those who bear the burden of iniquity and wrongful actions.

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[Progressive Muslims]

 

And the faces shall be humbled for the Eternal, the Living. And whoever carried wickedness with him has failed.