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Sura 16
Aya 89
89
وَيَومَ نَبعَثُ في كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ شَهيدًا عَلَيهِم مِن أَنفُسِهِم ۖ وَجِئنا بِكَ شَهيدًا عَلىٰ هٰؤُلاءِ ۚ وَنَزَّلنا عَلَيكَ الكِتابَ تِبيانًا لِكُلِّ شَيءٍ وَهُدًى وَرَحمَةً وَبُشرىٰ لِلمُسلِمينَ

Muhammad Asad

for one Day We shall raise up within every community a witness against them from among themselves.1 And thee [too, O Prophet,] have We brought forth to bear witness regarding those [whom thy message may have reached],2 inasmuch as We have bestowed from on high upon thee, step by step, this divine writ, to make everything clear,3 and to provide guidance and grace and a glad tiding unto all who have surrendered themselves to God.
  • See note 100 above.
  • Although the Arabian contemporaries of the Prophet were, naturally, the first to whom his revelation was conveyed - a fact that gave a particular weight to the manner in which they responded to it - the Qur'anic message as such is addressed to all mankind (see in this connection, in particular, 7:158 and 21:107, as well as the corresponding notes).
  • I.e., everything that pertains to the knowledge of good and evil, in both the individual and social senses of these terms. - Regarding my rendering of nazzalna, it should be borne in mind that this particular grammatical form is often used in the Qur'an to bring out the fact that it was revealed gradually ("step by step") over a considerable period of time, and not in one piece.