103- Surat Alasr

3 Verses Meccan (revealed in Mecca)

A'auzu Bellahi mena ash-shytani ar-rajim

I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan

Bismi Ellahi Ar-rhmani Ar-rahim

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Wa Alasr (1).

By Alasr.

Enna alinsana lafi khusr (2).

Surely, man is in loss.

Ella alladhina amano wa amelo as-salehati, wa tawasaw bilhaqq, wa tawasaw bis-sabr (3).

Except those who have believed and did righteous deeds, and exhort one another to the truth, and exhort one another to the patience.

Simplified interpretation:

 Surat Alasr comes to clarify the straight path for man in this worldly life, And when Allah, Almighty swears with an oath this means the importance of the issue that He will talk about. So when He swears in the first verse by Alasr, we must pay attention to the importance of something.

 Alasr here has many interpretations; there are those who said that Allah swears by the time in general, and those who said that it means night and day, while others said it means the era of our Prophet Muhammad as it was a decisive era for all mankind. 

 And there are some scholars who went behind these interpretations and said that Allah swears with time of Alasr prayer "afternoon prayer", for Allah says in Surat Albaqarah Aya (238): "Maintain with care the obligatory prayers, and in particular the middle prayer", and Our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said in Narration of Samurah Bin Jundub: "The middle prayer is the Asr prayer".

 Whether the interpretation of Alasr is means time in general or in a specific time e.g: night and day or our Prophet's era, or the time of afternoon prayer, but it remains that the time as a unit constitutes the human life in general, and reflects the movement of  man to do good or bad deeds. 

 After swearing by the time, Allah says that the son of Adam is in loss and destruction Aya (2), but for the believers it is different where Allah says in the third verse except the righteous people, and those people have four interrelated features, the first feature is that they believed in Allah, then the second one is they doing righteous deeds, and these two features (faith and righteous deeds) are related to the individual's own deeds. 

 While the following two features are related to the society around us, where the righteous people advice one another whether they receive the advice or preach it, and the third one is to exhort one another to the truth, and most commentators said that the truth means advising each other to act according to what Allah has revealed in the Holy Quran by following his commands and avoiding what He prohibited.      

 And in a similar Aya in Surat Aliemran (104) Allah, Almighty describes the successful people, and says that they inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong, and it was said also what is good and what is right refers to Islam and all that Islam orders, and what is wrong refers to all that Islam has forbidden.  

 Finally the fourth feature is to exhort one another to the patience, and this means that they advised each other to be patient to acquire the good deeds, and to refraining from evil. The patience was mentioned along with the prayer in Surat Albaqarah Aya (45) as the way for seeking help for reaching the obedience of Allah, and Allah says that it is difficult except for the submissive ones.

   

No one Knows its interpretation except Allah