Qur’an...

Qur’an: He has only forbidden you what dies of itself, and blood, and flesh of swine, and that over which any other (name) than (that of) Allah has been invoked: Invoking any name other than Allah's, means slaughtering for any thing other than Allah, for example, sacrificing for idols. Qur’an: But whoever is forced (to it), not revolting, nor ex­ceeding the limit: That is, when he is not unjust, nor does he ex­ceed the limit; is driven to it because of emergency.

The meaning is therefore as follows: Whoever is forced to eat some of these forbidden things, because of some emergency, while he does not like at all to go against the law of Allah, nor does he exceed the limit, there shall be no blame on him. But if he was trapped into that emergency because of his own revolting behaviour or because he had exceeded the limit and was then driven to that necessity, then he is not allowed to eat from these things.

The sen­tence, “surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful,” shows that the above permission is just a concession given by Allah to the believers; otherwise, the basis of prohibition is present even in this case. Qur’an: Surely those who conceal what Allah has revealed of the Book: It is an allusion to the People of the Book.

There were many good and lawful things - in the rites of worship and other matters - which their elders and leaders had arbitrarily forbidden them - while they had got the Book and that Book contained no sanction against those good things. These people did not conceal what they did but only because they wanted to protect their high position and prestige in the community, and because they did not like to stem the flow of gifts, riches and properties which their power supposedly entitled them to.

This verse unambiguously proves that a man's deeds are embodied and assume the form of a body; and it is the deeds that finally emerge as their own results. In this verse, Allah first says that their action of taking a small price for the Divine Revel­ation is one and the same with their eating the fire into their bellies. Then the description of their concealing and price taking is changed to that of buying error for the guidance; then this gives way to bartering chastisement for forgiveness.

Then it ends on the words, “Oh! how (bold) they are to endure fire”. Thus, their misdeed itself is transformed into the fire, although what they had done was to conceal the revelation and to continue on that behaviour.