Saba (Sheba)

6. “And those who have been given the knowledge see that what has been sent down to you from your Lord is the truth, and guides to the path of the Mighty, the Praised.”

Knowledge gives man insight and awareness.

The sign of a real knowledge is to find out the legitimacy of the Qur’an and accepting it. Without knowledge and gnosis gratitude is impossible.

In former verses the words were about the unaware blind-hearted persons who decisively denied the Resurrection with those clear evidences, and they tried to belie the Divine verses and to make others astray.

In this connection, the verse under discussion refers to the scholars and knowledgeable men who pay to acknowledgement of the Divine verses and encourage others to accept them.

It says:

“And those who have been given the knowledge see that what has been sent down to you from your Lord is the truth, and guides to the path of the Mighty, the Praised.”

Some of the commentators have rendered the Qur’anic sentence:

“Those to whom the knowledge has been given”

mentioned in this verse, into those scholars of the People of the Book who, by seeing the signs of legitimacy of the Holy Qur’an, became humble before it and confessed its rightfulness.

It does not matter that ‘the scholars of the people of the Book’ may be one of the expansions of the above verse, but confining its meaning to them alone has no evidence, but, on the contrary regarding to the Arabic verb /yara/ (see), which is in present tense, and also with regard to the vast concept of the sentence which says:

“Those who have been given the knowledge”

it envelops all the scholars and knowledgeable ones in any age and in any place.

And if we see that in the commentary of Ali-ibn-’Ibrahim this sentence has been rendered into Amir-ul-Mu’mineen Ali (as), it is, in fact, the statement of complete and perfect expansion of it.

Yes, any scholar, who contemplates on the content of this heavenly Book with no bigotry, consisting of its meaningful gnosis, good ordinances, wise advices, and abundant shaking admonitions, as well as its wonderful histories, and scientific miraculous discussions, knows that all of them attest to the legitimacy of these verses.

Nowadays, there have been published different books about Islam and the Qur’an by the eastern and western scholars in which there can be found some very clear and expressive confessions upon the greatness of Islam and the truthfulness of the abovementioned verse.

The application of the Qur’anic phrase /huwal-haqq/ (it is the truth) in the verse is an inclusive expression which adapts to the whole content of the Qur’an, because ‘truth’ is the very concrete reality and the external existence, viz., the content of the Qur’an is consistent with the laws of creation the realities of the world of existence, and the world of humanity.

And since it is such, it leads man toward the path of Allah, Who is both the Mighty and the Praised; that is, in the meantime that He is Mighty and has no failure, He is worthy of any kind of praise. He is not like the powerful men who when they sit on the throne of force, they take the path of cruelty, oppression, and monopolistic manner.

Similar to this meaning is recited in Surah ’Ibrahim, No. 14, verse one which says:

“…(This is) a Book which We have sent down to you so that, by their Lord’s permission, you lead out the people from the darkness (of ignorance) into the light (of faith), into the way of the Mighty, the Praised (One).”

It is clear that the One Who is both Mighty, and worthy of praise, and Aware, and kind, His way is the most secure ways and the straightest ones, and those who pave His path approach themselves to the source of power and all sorts of praised attributes.