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Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem
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Translators: Ahmed Ali ● Amatul Rahman Omar ● Daryabadi ● Faridul Haque ● Hamid S. Aziz ● Maulana Mohammad Ali ● Pickthall ● Sarwar ● Shakir ● Yusuf Ali
Recitation by Mishary Al-Alfasy
The Surah takes its name from verse 41 in which the word Ankabut (Spider) has
occurred.
Period of Revelation
Verses 56 to 60
clearly show that this Surah was sent down a little before the migration to
Habash, and this is supported by the internal evidence of the subject matter as
well. Some commentators have opined that since it mentions the hypocrites, and
hypocrisy appeared in Madinah, the first ten verses of this Surah were revealed
at Madinah and the rest of it at Makkah; whereas the people whose hypocrisy has
been mentioned here are those who had adopted a hypocritical way of life because
they were afraid of the oppression and extreme physical torture to which the
Muslims were being subjected by the disbelievers. Evidently, this kind of
hypocrisy could be there only at Makkah and not at Madinah. Similarly, some
other commentators, seeing that in this Surah the Muslims have been exhorted to
migrate, have regarded it as the last Surah to be revealed at Makkah, whereas
the Muslims had migrated to Habash even before their migration to Madinah. These
opinions are not based on any tradition but on the internal evidence of the
subject matter, and this internal evidence, when considered against the subject
matter of the Surah as a whole, points to the conditions prevailing in the time
of the migration to Habash and not to the last stage at Makkah.
Theme and Subject matter
A perusal of the Surah shows that the
period of its revelation was the period of extreme persecution of the Muslims at
Makkah. The disbelievers were opposing and fighting Islam tooth and nail and the
new converts were being subjected to the severest oppression. Such were the
conditions when Allah sent down this Surah to strengthen and encourage the
sincere Muslims as well as to put to shame those who were showing weakness of
the faith. Besides, the disbelievers of Makkah have been threatened and warned
not to invite for themselves the fate that the antagonists of the Truth have
been experiencing in every age.
In this connection, the questions that
some young men answered. For instance, their parents were urging them to abandon
Muhammad (may Allah's peace be upon him), and return to their ancestral
religion, for they argued: "The Qur'an in which you have put your faith, regards
the rights of the parents as the uppermost; therefore, listen to what we say;
otherwise you will be working against the dictates of your own Faith." This has
been answered in verse 8.
Similarly, the people of some clans said to the
new converts to Islam, "Leave the question of punishments, etc., to us. Listen
to us and abandon this man. If God seizes you in the Hereafter, we will come
forward and say, 'Lord, these people are innocent: we had forced them to give up
the Faith; therefore, seize us'." This has been dealt with, in vv. 12-13.
The stories mentioned in this Surah also impress the same point mostly, as
if to say, "Look at the Prophets of the past: they were made to suffer great
hardships and were treated cruelly for long periods. Then, at last they were
helped by Allah. Therefore, take heart: Allah's succor will certainly come. But
a period of trial and tribulation has to be undergone." Besides teaching this
lesson to the Muslims, the disbelievers also have been warned, as if to say, "If
you are not being immediately seized by Allah, you should not form the wrong
impression that you will never be seized. The signs of the doomed nations of the
past are before you. Just see how they met their doom and how Allah succored the
Prophets."
Then the Muslims have been instructed to the effect: "If you
feel that the persecution has become unbearable for you, you should give up your
homes, instead of giving up your Faith: Allah's earth is vast: seek a new place
where you can worship Allah with the full peace of mind." Besides all this, the
disbelievers also have been urged to understand Islam. The realities of Tauhid
and the Hereafter have been impressed with rational arguments, shirk have been
refuted, and drawing their attention towards the signs in the universe, they
have been told that all these Signs confirm the teachings that the Prophet is
presenting before them.