Surah 25: The Criterion - Overview

Introduction

This Surah further develops the contrast between Light and Darkness, as symbolic of knowledge and ignorance, righteousness and sin, spiritual progress and degradation. It closes with a definition of the deeds by which the righteous are known in the environment of this world.

It is mainly an early Makkan Surah, but its date has no significance.

Summary

1- God's highest gift to man is that He has furnished a Criterion for judgment between right and wrong -- in His revelation, which teaches us the true significance of our eternal Future. (25:1-20)

Right Judgment [25:1-20] Among the highest and greatest of the gifts of God is His Revelation, which is the Criterion by which we may judge between right and wrong--between false and true worship, between the Message that comes from God and the forgeries of men, between the Real in our eternal Future and the Fancies by which we are misled. The Prophets of God come as men to live among men and guide them.

2- Those who do not use that Criterion will be full of woe when the Judgment comes, for God gave full warning at all times. (25:21-44)

Rejecting Signs [25:21-44] Woe to the misbelievers who arrogantly demand to see God, yet reject His Signs! The Judgment will come, and then they will see, too late, how evil casts nothing but treacherous snares for man. Slowly comes God's Revelation, in ways most conducive to man's enlightenment. Men in their folly reject the most obvious Signs of God. Let them mock! Soon will they know! Alas! men ruled by self-impulse are worse than brute beasts to guide or control!

3- In the contrasts of shade and sun, night and day, death and life, and the whole ordering of God's Creation, men may learn of God Most Gracious; and the virtues of the righteous respond to God's care for them. (25:45-77)

True Servants [25:45-77] But the Signs of God are everywhere in creation. The Sun and the Shadow, the Day and the Night, the Wind and the Rain--all things in nature are symbols, and point to the Law Divine, and the destiny, good or ill, of man. Will he not learn and put his trust in Him, the Merciful? His true servants ever adore Him in humility and fear of wrong, in faith and just moderation in life, in respect for duties owed to God and men and self, in avoidance of all that is false or futile, in strict and grateful attention to God's Message, and in the wish to put themselves and their families in the van of those who love and honor God.