37.132. Lo! he is one of our believing slaves. (Pickthall)
37.132. Er war ja einer von Unseren gläubigen Knechten, (Ahmad v. Denffer)
37.132. Er gehört ja zu Unseren gläubigen Dienern. (Bubenheim)
37.132. Elias gehört zu Unseren wahrhaft gläubigen Dienern. (Azhar)
37.132. Gewiß, er ist von Unseren iman-verinnerlichenden Dienern. (Zaidan)
37.132. Er ist (einer) von unseren gläubigen Dienern. (Paret)
37.132. Er gehörte zu Unseren gläubigen Dienern. (Rasul)
Tafsir von Maududi für die Ayaat 123 bis 132
And Elias also was one of the Messengers. ( 70 ) Remember when he said to his people, "Do you not fear ? Do you invoke Ba'al ( 71 ) and leave the Best of Creators, that Allah Who is your Lord and Lord of all your forefathers?" But they treated him as a liar, so they will certainly be presented for punishment, except for the true servants of God, ( 72 ) and We left good words for Elias among posterity. ( 73 ) Peace is upon Elias! ( 74 ) Thus do We reward the righteous. Indeed he was one of Our believing servants .
Desc No: 70 The Prophet Elias was from among the Israelite Prophets. He has been mentioned only twice in the Qur'an, here and in Surah AI-An'am: 85. The present-day scholars have determined his period between 875 and 850 B.C. He was an inhabitant of Gilead, which in ancient days was the territory now under the northern districts of the modern state of Jordan, to the south of the River Yarmuk. In the Bible he has been mentioned as Elijah the Tishbite. Here is briefly his lifestory: After the death of the Prophet Solomon the Israelite kingdom was broken up into two parts due mainly to the unworthiness of his son, Rehoboam. One part which consisted of Jerusalem and southern Palestine remained with the descendants of the Prophet David, while in the second, which comprised northern Palestine, an independent state by the name of Israel was established with Samaria as its capital. Although conditions in both the states were very bad, the state of Israel, from the very beginning, followed the path of depravity due to which the evils of polytheism and idol-worship and tyranny and wickedness went on increasing and multiplying in it endlessly; so much so that when Ahab, the king of Israel, married Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Sidon (mod., Lebanon), the mischief reached its extremity. Under the influence of this polytheistic princess Ahab himself became a polytheist. He built a temple and altar to Baal in Samaria, tried his very best to introduce and popularise Baal-worship instead of the worship of One God. and consequently, offerings began to be made publicly in the name of Baal in the Israelite towns and cities. This was the time when the Prophet Elijah (peace be upon him) appeared on the scene. He came from Gilead and gave Ahab a notice that in consequence of his sins, the land of Israel would go without rain, even without the dew. This word of the Prophet of Allah proved to be literally true and there fell no rain in Israel for thee and a half years. At last, Ahab came to his senses and he got the Prophet Elijah searched out But Elijah, before praying for the rain, thought it necessary to snake the distinction between Allah, Lord of the worlds, and Baal plain before the people of Israel. For this purpose, he commanded that the priests of Baal would make an offering in the name of their deity, and he also would make an offering in the name of Allah, Lord of the worlds, in front of the assembled people. Then the one whose offering would be consumed by a fire from heaven, without the agency of the human hand, the truth of his deity would be established beyond doubt. Ahab accepted this proposal. Thus, 850 of the priests of Baal assembled on Mt. Carmel to answer the challenge given by the Prophet Elijah. In this encounter the Ba'al worshippers were defeated, and the Prophet Elijah proved that Baal was 'a false god, and the real God is the One God alone who had appointed him as His Prophet. After this, Elijah got the priests of Baal slaughtered in front of the same assembly of the people; then he prayed for the rain, and his prayer was immediately answered and the whole land of Israel was saturated with water But, despite these miracles, Ahab could not shake off the influence of his polytheistic wife. Jezebel turned hostile to the Prophet Elijah and she swop that he would be put to death just as the Baal worshippers had been put to death. Under the circumstances the Prophet Elijah was compelled to leave the country and he remained lodged in a cave at the foot of Mt. Sinai for several years. The lamentation that he made to Allah, on this occasion, has been related in the Bible, in these words: 'The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away." (I Kings, 19: 10). About thesame time Jehoram, the ruler of the Jewish state of Jerusalem, married the daughter of Ahab, the king of Israel, and under her polytheistic influence the same evilsthat had spread in Israel also began to spread in Judah. The Prophet Elijah carried out his prophetic duty againand wrote a letter to Jehoram, the following words of which have been reported in the Bible: "Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father, Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah. But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring, like to the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and also hast slain thy brethren of thy father's house, which were better than thyself: Behold,with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, andthy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day." (2 Chronicles, 21: 12-15). Whatever the Prophet Elijah had prophesied in this letter proved true. First, the kingdom of Jehoram was destroyed by the external invaders, and the enemies even carried away his wives, then he himself died of the disease of the bowels. A few years later the Prophet Elijah again went to Israel and constantly tried hard to bring Ahab, and after him his son, Ahaziah, to the right path, but the evil that had taken root in the house of the royal family of Samaria could not be eradicated. At last, due to the curse of the Prophet the family of Ahab met its doom, and then Allah recalled his Prophet from the world. For details, see the following books of the Bible: I Kings, chs., 17, 18, 19, 21; 2 Kings, chs.; 1, 2; 2 Chronicles, ch. 21.
Desc No: 71 Lexically, ba al means master, chief and possessor. This word was also used for husband, and has been used in this sense at several places in the Qur'an itself, e.g. in Surah AI-Baqarah: 228, An-Nisa': 127, Hud: 72 and An-Nur: 31. However; in the ancient times the Semetic nations used it in the meaning of deity or lord; they had even given the name of Baal to a special god. The chief male god of the Phoenicians, in particular, was Baal and their chief goddess was Ashtoreth, his wife. The scholars differ as to whether Baal meant the sun or Jupiter, and Ashtoreth the moon or Venus. In any case, historically it is certain that Baal worship was prevalent from Babylon to Egypt throughout the Middle East, and the polytheistic communities of the Lebanon and Syria and Palestine, in particular, had become its devotees. When the Israelites settled in Palestine and Jordan after they came out from Egypt, they started contracting marriage and other social relations with the polytheistic nations round about them, in violation of the strict prohibitive injunctions of the Torah, the disease of idol-worship began to spread among them, too. According to the Bible, this moral and religious decline had started appearing among the Israelites soon after the death of Joshua, son of Nun, who was the first caliph of the Prophet Moses: 'And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim ...... And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtoreth." (Judges, 2: 11-13). And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites and Hivites, and Jebusites. And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.' (Judges, 3: 5-6). At that time worship of Baal had so deeply affected the Israelites that, according to the Bible, in one of their habitations a public altar had been built at which offerings were made to Baal. A God-worshipping Israelite could not bear the sight; so he pulled down the altar one night. Next morning a great multitude of the people gathered together and demanded that the man who had cast down the altar he put to death. (Judges, 6:25-32). This evil, at last, was put to an end by . Samuel, Saul and the Prophets David and Solomon (peace be upon them); they not only reformed the Israelites generally but also eradicated polytheism and idolworship from their kingdom. But after the death of the Prophet Solomon the mischief was again revived and the Israelite state of northern Palestine was swept away in the Hood of Baal-worship.
Desc No: 72 That is "Only those people will be made an exception from the punishment, who did not belie the Prophet Elijah, and whom Allah chose from among the nation for His worship. "
Desc No: 73 The treatment that the Israelites meted out to the Prophet Elijah in his life has been referred to above, but after his death they became so enamoured of him that they held him in the highest esteem and reverence after the Prophet Moses. They formed the belief that Elijah (peace be upon him) had been taken up alive into heaven by a whirlwind (2 Kings, ch. 2), and that he will come back to the world again. Thus, in Malachi (O.T.) it is written: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." (4: 5). At the tune the Prophets John and Jesus (peace be upon them) appeared, the Jews were awaiting the advent of these three men: the Prophet Elias, the Christ and "that Prophet" (i.e. the Holy Prophet Muhammad). When the ministry of the Prophet John began and he slatted baptizing the people, the Jews sent priests to him to ask, "Are you the Christ ?" And he said that he was not the Christ. Then they asked, "Are you Elijah ?" And he answered that he was not Elias; then they asked, "Are you 'that Prophet'?" And he answered that he was not "that Prophet" either. Thereupon they said, "If you arc neither the Christ, nor Elias, nor that Prophet, why do you then baptize ?" (John, 1: 19-2G; j. Afterwards when the name of the Prophet Jesus spread among the people, the Jews thought that perhaps the Prophet Elias had come. (Mark, 6: 14-15). Even among the disciples of Jesus themselves the idea was common that Elias the Prophet would come, but Jesus removed their misunderstanding, saying, 'Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatever they listed." Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of John the Baptist and not of Elias who had appeared tight hundred years earlier. (Matthew. 11: 14; and 17: 10-131.)
Desc No: 74 The words in the original are: Salam-un 'ala El-ya-sin. Some commentators say that EI ya-sin is the other name of the Prophet Elias, just as Abraham is the other name of the Prophet Ibrahim; some others say that different versions of the Hebrew names were prevalent among the Arabs, e.g. one and the same angel was called Michal and Micha'il and Micha'in. The same has been the case with the name of the Prophet Elias also. In the Qur'an itself the same mountain has been called Tur Sina' and Tur Sinin. "
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