Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Surah Al-Ma'idah
Surah 5 · Al-Ma'idah · verse 88 of 120

Quran 5:88 · Al-Ma'idah

وَكُلُواْ مِمَّا رَزَقَكُمُ ٱللَّهُ حَلَٰلٗا طَيِّبٗاۚ وَٱتَّقُواْ ٱللَّهَ ٱلَّذِيٓ أَنتُم بِهِۦ مُؤۡمِنُونَ

And eat of what Allah has provided for you [which is] lawful and good. And fear Allah, in whom you are believers

Translation: Sahih International
Maulana’s commentary · Tazkirul Quran

The connection between man and God is a live relationship which is established on a psychological level. It is internal in nature. But when religion is on the decline, and this internal relationship becomes weakened, then the mentality develops that one must try to build up such a relationship from external sources. One of these is giving up worldly pleasures—in effect, renunciation or monasticism. It is assumed that staying away from material things will cause a man to come nearer to God. Some of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions were influenced by such monastic thoughts. They intended to give up eating meats and sleeping at nights, to castrate themselves and leave their homes to lead the life of hermits. Some of them went to the extent of taking a vow or oath to this effect. But people were prohibited from doing this and were told that one could not attain nearness to God just by treating permitted things (halal) as forbidden things (haram). Whatever a man achieves, is done by his remaining within natural limits, and not by his inventing stricter limits.

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Tazkirul Quran

In the lectures

Maulana does not cite this verse in the lectures indexed so far. The verses of this surah Maulana does cite →