يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِذَا جَاءكَ الْمُؤْمِنَاتُ يُبَايِعْنَكَ عَلَى أَن لَّا يُشْرِكْنَ بِاللَّهِ شَيْئًا وَلَا يَسْرِقْنَ وَلَا يَزْنِينَ وَلَا يَقْتُلْنَ أَوْلَادَهُنَّ وَلَا يَأْتِينَ بِبُهْتَانٍ يَفْتَرِينَهُ بَيْنَ أَيْدِيهِنَّ وَأَرْجُلِهِنَّ وَلَا يَعْصِينَكَ فِي مَعْرُوفٍ فَبَايِعْهُنَّ وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لَهُنَّ اللَّهَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
My interpretive translation. I am well aware of the assumptions I am making about how I read revelation and what I understand revelation to be “revealing” in the signs it rehearses to me. I am aware of all that I am (not so) implicitly rejecting in saying what i say below. If you find greater satisfaction and meaning in reading these signs in other ways, you should carry on with your way and ignore all this. As for me, this is what I understand for now. If i did not understand it this way, I would have nothing revealed to me whose truth I could confirm and from whose meaning I could benefit.
“O Caller unto God, When those looking to be safe [from all afflictions] want to be with you [i.e. walk the path you are on..the signs/requirements of being with you so that they too find me forgiving and merciful as you do, are this: that] they pledge they would not assign divine qualities to any created being [and do you know what that means?..it means that they] would not steal [a divine quality like Life or Beauty or Love and hand it over to a created being [which in reality does not own that quality and is just showing my divine qualities] and [this means that] they would not partake in pleasure, fulfillment and love by coming together with another being in the name of that person [but instead will enjoy intimacy and exchange of love/compassion in my name [i.e. in a way that brings them to recognize Me as their Loving and Compassionate Lord..i.e. the love/compassion calls them to me as you, the caller unto God, teach and experience], and [you know what this would mean…it would mean that] they would not kill their children [i.e. whatever issues forth from them and whoever is their beloved will NOT, in their own eyes, get destroyed and become nothing but instead would be alive/existing with the Living/Compassionate One] and [this would mean that they] would not indulge in slander, falsely devising it out of nothingness [i.e. they would not make up the lie that things were the sources of their own life and existence and qualities and all that they display of life and beauty and wisdom all dies when they die..they would not condemn created beings to nothingness and annihilation] and [in so doing] they would not be disobeying you in what they, as human beings along with you, would see to be what is best/right for them. [They would be choosing an option that is better than what they would have without listening to your call unto Me as the Only One who owns all that is praiseworthy and desired by them]…such are the one’s whose pledge is accepted by the caller unto God [because otherwise they would have rejected the call of the caller unto God and there would be no pledge to accept!]…..to be with the caller unto God and to thus find God, which they had previously not found because they had given his divine qualities to created beings and had thus seen those qualities die and perish with those beings, is to ask the caller unto God to erase their self-inflicted wounds with which they deprived themselves of the Merciful One….their wounds are erased because now they find God much-forgiving [their finding their good with Him and finding their wrong in depriving themselves of Him IS God’s forgiveness itself]..and such a Forgiver is for them as for the caller unto God, is all-merciful…the owner of all the beauties and goods – Life, Love, Beauty – all the qualities that they want.”
This verse apparently reports an address from the speaker to a caller, telling the caller what he should do when those that the text calls “the one’s who are secure or safe” pledge allegiance to the caller unto God. To read this as a sign and a guidance is to listen to whether, and how, the verse describes my reality – it makes a claim about what it means to be loyal to the caller unto God and what the consequences of this loyalty would be for human beings (represented by women in the verse). If i can resist the temptation to take on fabricated and imagined identities and dont put faith in unseen historical events and transmitted stories, whose veracity is beyond my capacity to experience or witness, and try to read the verse as claims from my maker that are directed at apprising me of what I do not know but can confirm upon reflection and can benefit from, then I can begin to understand what is revelatory about this piece or revelation.
lets see what is sent my way as i continue to think about this and other such signs in the Quran….
The Quran as Revelation 