The term banun (lit., "children" or "sons") is often used in the Qur'an metonymically, denoting "popular support" or "many adherents"; in conjunction with the term mal ("worldly goods") it is meant to illustrate a certain mentality which attributes a pseudo-religious significance to wealth and influence, and regards these visible signs of worldly success as a post-factum evidence of the "righteousness" of the person concerned and, hence, of his not being in need of further guidance.

Lit., "We shall brand him on the snout" (khurtum). All commentators point out that this, idiomatic phrase has a strictly metaphorical meaning, namely, "We shall stigmatize him with indelible disgrace" (cf. Lane II, 724, quoting both Raghib and Taj al-'Arus).

I.e., by bestowing on them affluence out of all proportion to their moral deserts.

I.e., they resolved upon their objective without the reservation, "if God so wills"; which points to the first lesson to be derived from this parable, as well as to its connection with the rhetorical question in verses 14-15 above.

Ever since Biblical times it has been understood that the poor have a right to a share in the harvest of the fields and gardens owned by their more fortunate fellow-men (cf. 6:141 - "give [unto the poor] their due on harvest-day"). The determination of the "owners of the garden" to deprive the poor of this right is the second type of sin to which the above parable points: and inasmuch as it is a social sin, it connects with verses 10-13.

'Branding the snout' alludes to bringing to visible disgrace to a person who chooses to live at the subhuman level

18:32-44