Fala iqtahama alAAaqaba (surah Al Balad: 11)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(90:11) But he did not venture to scale the difficult steep. *11

Falaq tahamal-`aqabah

*11) The words in the original are: fa-lagtaham-al- aqabah. Iqtiham means to apply oneself to a hard and toilsome task, and 'aqabah is the steep path that passes through mountains for ascending heights. Thus, the verse means: "One of the two paths that We have shown him, leads to heights but is toilsome and steep; man has to tread it against the desires of his self and the temptations of Satan. The other path is easy which descends into chasms, but does not require any toil from man; one only needs to give free reins to oneself, then one automatically goes on rolling down the abyss. Now, the tnan to whom We had shown both the paths, adopted the easy down-hill path and abandoned the toilsome path, which leads to the heights."