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Sura 23
Aya 56
56
نُسارِعُ لَهُم فِي الخَيراتِ ۚ بَل لا يَشعُرونَ

Muhammad Asad

We [but want to] make them vie with one another in doing [what they consider] good works?1 Nay, but they do not perceive ftheir error]!
  • I.e., "Do they think that by bestowing on them worldly prosperity God but wants them to vie with one another in their race after material goods and comforts, which they mistakenly identify with 'doing good works'?" Another - linguistically permissible - rendering of the above two verses would be: "Do they think that by all the wealth and offspring with which We provide them We (but] hasten on [the coming] to them of all that is good?" Either of these two renderings implies, firstly, that worldly prosperity is not the ultimate good, and, secondly, that the breach of the unity spoken of in the preceding passage was, more often than not, an outcome of mere worldly greed and of factional striving after power.