which they shall have left behind them: and everything have we set down (literally enumerated) in the clear Book of our decrees.' ¹

The verse is one which gives much trouble to those commentators who take pains to consider it carefully. They do not all do so. In the first place, the fact that the writing of men's deeds is mentioned as if taking place after the resurrection is a difficulty for which none of the expositors can find an explanation that to a critical and independent mind gives any satisfaction. Secondly, the word ahsaina (We have enumerated) is past tense and apparently refers to something already written, and is therefore explained as referring to the writing from all eternity of the divine decrees. Thirdly, the word imamin (prototype) is far from certain. Apart from those passages where it means Imam or Leader, it occurs in the Qur'an only here (xxxvi. 11) and once elsewhere (xv. 79). In xv. 79 it means 'rule' or 'example', and in the verse we are considering it may refer not to a prototype, but to a book, or rather to the lines of a book so clearly written that they may serve as an example or pattern of writing. The commentators all suggest that the meaning may be the Preserved Tablet, and many give this meaning as certain; but their conception of what this is, is far from clear, for the Preserved Tablet is strictly speaking the prototype of

the Qur'an alone. ¹ Tabari relates a tradition that the word meant simply 'a book'.

The meaning of the verse may be brought out by translating 'Verily, it is We who will quicken the dead, and We write down the works which they have sent on before them, and the traces which they have left behind them: and everything have We set down (as it has happened) in the clear book (of our record).'

The verbs nuhyi (we quicken) and naktubu (we write) do not particularly refer to the future, but to the fact that it is God and none other who will quicken and who writes the record of their deeds. There is in the original nothing to make it necessary to suppose that Muhammad referred to any writing after the resurrection. Further, the word ahsaina (we have set down, or enumerated) though past tense, does not necessarily refer to any past writing concerning events still to occur. ² 'Behold! how they lie against themselves — and the gods of their own inventing desert them.' In this verse both the verbs lie and desert are in the past tense, and the prophet is summoned to see how the infidels have lied and how they have been deserted by their false gods, events which have not yet happened, but which have been described as certain to take place on the day of judgement. ³

In another passage we have an expression which throws light on the use of the word ahsaina in the passage we are considering. 'For they looked not forward to their account; and they gave the lie to