The Quran

Preface

وَلَقَد أَرسَلنا موسىٰ بِآياتِنا أَن أَخرِج قَومَكَ مِنَ الظُّلُماتِ إِلَى النّورِ وَذَكِّرهُم بِأَيّامِ اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ في ذٰلِكَ لَآياتٍ لِكُلِّ صَبّارٍ شَكورٍ

Yusuf Ali

We sent Moses with Our signs (and the command). “Bring out thy people from the depths of darkness into light, and teach them to remember the Days of God.”¹ Verily in this there are Signs for such as are firmly patient and constant,- grateful and appreciative.²

“The Days of God”: the days when God’s mercy was specially shown to them. Every day and every hour and minute, God’s Grace flows to us abundantly, but there are special events in personal or national history which may be commemorated as Red-letter Days. Those to the Israelites were set out in great detail in 2:30-61 and in other places.
Sabbaris the intensive form, and includes all the ideas implied in Sabr (2:45 and n. 61 and 2:153 n. 157) in an intensive degree. Shakur a nd Shakir have in them the idea of appreciation, recognition, gratitude as shown in deeds of goodness and righteousness. Both terms are applied to God as well as to men. A slight distinction in shades of meaning may be noted. Shakur implies that the appreciation is even for the smallest favours and response on the other side: it is mental attitude independent of specific facts. Shakir implies bigger and more specific things. (Cf. 35:30).