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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
Name
The Surah takes its name from the phrase wad-in-naml
which occurs in verse 18, implying that it is a Surah in which the story of An-Naml
(the Ant) has been related.
Period of Revelation
The subject matter and the style bear full resemblance with the Surahs of the
middle Makkan period and this is supported by traditions as well. According to
Ibn Abbas and Jabir bin Zaid, "First the Surah Ash-Shu`araa' was sent down, then
the Surah An Naml and then Al-Qasas."
Theme and Topics
The Surah consists of two discourses, the first from the beginning of the
Surah to the end of verse 58, and the second from verse 59 to the end of the
Surah.
The theme of the first discourse is that only those people can
benefit from the guidance of the Quran and become worthy of the good promises
made in it, who accept the realities which this Book presents as the basic
realities of the universe, and then follow up their belief with obedience and
submission in their practical lives as well. But the greatest hindrance for man
to follow this way is the denial of the Hereafter. For it makes him
irresponsible, selfish and given to worldly life, which in turn makes it
impossible for him to submit himself before God and to accept the moral
restrictions on his lusts and desires. After this introduction three types of
character have been presented.
The first type is characterized by Pharaoh
and the chiefs of Thamud and the rebels of the people of Lot, who were all
heedless of the accountability of the Hereafter and had consequently become the
slaves of the world. These people did not believe even after seeing the
miracles. Rather they turned against those who invited them to goodness and
piety. They persisted in their evil ways which are held in abhorrence by every
sensible person. They did not heed the admonition even until a moment before
they were overtaken by the scourge of Allah.
The second type of character
is of the Prophet Solomon (peace be upon him), who had been blessed by God with
wealth and kingdom and grandeur to an extent undreamed of by the chiefs of the
disbelievers of Makkah. But, since he regarded himself as answerable before God
and had the feeling that whatever he had was only due to Allah's bounty, he had
adopted the attitude of obedience before Him and there was no tinge of vanity in
his character.
The third type is of the queen of Sheba, who ruled over a
most wealthy and well known people in the history of Arabia. She possessed all
those means of life, which could cause a person to become vain and conceited.
Her wealth and possessions far exceeded the wealth and possessions of the
Quraish. Then she professed shirk, which was not only an ancestral way of life
with her, but she had to follow it in order to maintain her position as a ruler.
Therefore, it was much more difficult for her to give up shirk and adopt the way
of Tauhid than it could be for a common mushrik. But when the Truth became
evident to her, nothing could stop her from accepting it. Her deviation was, in
fact, due to her being born and brought up in a polytheistic environment and not
because of her being a slave to her lusts and desires. Her conscience was not
devoid of the sense of accountability before God.
In the second
discourse, at the outset, attention has been drawn to some of the most glaring
and visible realities of the universe, and the disbelievers of Makkah have been
asked one question after the other to the effect : "Do these realities testify
to the creed of shirk which you are following, or to the truth of Tauhid to
which the Qur'an invites you?" After this the real malady of the disbelievers
has been pointed out, saying, "The thing which has blinded them and made them
insensitive to every glaring reality is their denial of the Hereafter. This same
thing has rendered every matter and affair of life non-serious for them. For,
when according to them, everything has to become dust ultimately, and the whole
struggle of life is purposeless and without an object before it, the truth and
falsehood are equal and alike. Therefore, the question whether one's system of
life is based on the right or wrong foundations, becomes meaningless for him."
But the discourse, as outlined above, is not meant to dissuade the Prophet
and the Muslims from calling the obdurate and heedless people to the way of
Tauhid; it is, in fact, intended to arouse them from their slumber. That is why
in vv. 67-93 certain things have been said repeatedly in order to produce in the
people a sense of the Hereafter, to warn them of the consequences of being
heedless of it, and to convince them of its coining, like an eye witness of
something, who convinces the other person of it, who has not seen it.
In
conclusion, the real invitation of the Quran that is, the invitation to serve
One Allah alone, has been presented in a concise but forceful manner, and the
people warned that accepting it would be to their own advantage and rejecting it
to their own disadvantage. For if they deferred their faith until they saw those
Signs of God after the appearance of which they would be left with no choice but
to believe and submit, they should bear in mind the fact that that would be the
time of judgment and believing then would be of no avail.
1Kitab-i-mubin has three meanings: (1) This book presents its teachings and
instructions and injunctions plainly; (2) it distinguishes between the Truth and
falsehood clearly; and (3) its being a Divine Book is obvious: whoever studies
it with open eyes will realize that it has not been composed and forged by the
Holy Prophet himself.
2That is, the verses themselves are a "guidance"
and "good news", because they give guidance and convey good news in a most
excellent manner.
3That is, "These verses of the Qur'an give guidance
and convey the good news of a good end only to those people who possess these
two qualities: (1) They should affirm faith, that is, accept the invitation of
the Qur'an and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be Allah's peace and
blessings), believe In one God as their only Deity and Lord, accept the Qur'an'
as the Book of Allah, acknowledge the Holy Prophet as a true Prophet and their
Leader, and also adopt the belief that after this life there is another life, in
which man has to render his full account of deeds and be rewarded or punished
accordingly. (2) They should not only profess faith verbally, but should also be
inclined to follow and obey the Divine Commands practically, and the first
indication of this inclination is that they should establish the Salat and pay
the Zakat. The verses of the Qur'an will show the right way of life only to
those people who fulfill these two conditions; they will explain to them the
difference between the right and the wrong at every stage on the way, protect
them against the wrong ways at every turn of the way, and bless them with the
satisfaction that whatever be the consequences of following the Right Way in the
world, in the Hereafter they will certainly attain the eternal and everlasting
success and the good will of Allah only through it. For in order to derive full
benefit from the teaching of a teacher, one has first to have faith in him, then
accept to be his student, and then work according to his instructions.
Similarly, a patient who wants to be benefited by a doctor has first to accept
him as a physician, and then follow his instructions with regard to medical
dosage, prevention, etc. Then only he can assure the patient of the desired
results.
Some people have interpreted the words yu'tun-az-zakat in this
verse to mean that they should adopt moral purity. But, wherever in the Qur'an
the word ita-i-zakat has occurred along with the word iqamat-i-salat, it means
payment of the Zakat, which is the second pillar of Islam after the Salat.
Moreover, the Qur'an has used the word tazakka for adopting piety and purity and
not ita' which is specifically used for the payment of the Zakat. In fact, what
is meant to be impressed here is this: In order to benefit fully by the guidance
of the Qur'an, it is imperative that one should adopt the attitude of submission
and obedience in practical life as well after the affirmation of the Faith, and
the establishment of the Salat and the payment of the Zakat is the first
indication that one has actually adopted such an attitude. If there is no such
indication, it will become obvious that one is rebellious: he might have
acknowledged a ruler as such, but he is not inclined to carry out his commands.
4Although belief in the Hereafter is an article of the Faith, and a believer
will also believe in it along with believing in Tauhid and the Prophethood, here
it has been specially mentioned separately in order to bring out its unique
importance. The object is to impress that for those people who do not believe in
the Hereafter, it is impossible to follow, even tread, the way taught by the
Qur'an. For the people of this way of thinking naturally determine their
criterion of good and evil by the results that appear, in this world. For them
it is not possible to accept any admonition or guidance which seeks to determine
the good and evil by the criterion of the gain and loss in the Hereafter. Such
people in the first instance do not at all heed the teachings of the Prophets,
but if for some reason, they also get included among the believers, they find it
difficult to take even the initial steps on the way of the Faith and Islam
because of the lack of faith in the Hereafter. For as soon as they will
encounter the first situation where the demands of the worldly gains and the
losses of the Hereafter will pull them in opposite directions, they will freely
allow themselves to be pulled towards the worldly gains without caring in the
least for the losses of the Hereafter, even though they may be making all sons
of claims to be the believers.
5That is. "This is God's Law of Nature
and the natural logic of human psychology that when man thinks that the results
of his life's struggle are confined to this world only when he does not believe
in the existence of any court where his life's work has to be scrutinized and
judged finally for good and evil, and when he does not believe in any life
hereafter when he will be requited strictly in accordance with the real worth of
his life's deeds, he will inevitably develop in himself a material outlook on
life, and every kind of conflict between the Truth and falsehood, good and evil,
morality and immorality, will appear utterly meaningless to him. Then, whatever
earns him pleasure and enjoyment, material progress and prosperity, power and
authority, will be the good for him, no matter it be any philosophy of life, any
way of life and any system of morality. He will have no concern for truth and
reality. His real ambition will be to win successes and earn adornments only of
this worldly life, and their pursuit will lead him astray into every valley.
Then, whatever he does with this object in view. will be a thing of beauty for
him, and he will regard all those others as foolish, who are not absorbed like
him in seeking the world, and doing anything and everything without any moral
qualm and inhibition.
6Nothing definite has been said about the form,
time and place of this "evil chastisement." For it is imposed in this world also
on different persons and groups and' nations in countless different ways; a part
of it is also experienced by the wicked when they are about to leave the world;
man experiences it also in the intermediary state between death and
Resurrection; and then after Resurrection it will become endless and
everlasting.
7That is, the things being mentioned in the Qur'an are not
imaginary nor are they based on the presumptions and opinions of a man, but they
are being revealed by the One Who is All-Wise and All-Knowing, Who is perfect in
Wisdom and Knowledge, Who has full knowledge of the affairs of His creation and
of its past and present and future, and Whose Wisdom devises the best schemes
for the reform and guidance of His servants.
8This happened at the foot
of Mount Tur when the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) was traveling along with
his family in search of a suitable place for settlement, after passing eight to
ten years in Madyan (Midian). From Madyan, whose territory lay on both sides of
the Gulf of `Aqabah, on the sea-shores of Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula, he
reached the place called Mt. Sinai and Jabal Musa in the southern part of the
Peninsula, which at the time of the revelation of the Qur'an was well known as
Tur. (See also The Meaning of Qur'an, Vol. VIII Ash-Shu'araa', E.N. 115). The
details of this story have already been given in Surah Ta Ha: 9-24 above and
will, follow in Surah Al-Qasas: 29-36 below.
9The context shows that it
was a cold wintry night and the Prophet Moses was passing through unfamiliar
land. Therefore, he said to his family, "Let me go and find out what habitation
it is where a fire is alight, and get some information about the traveling
routes and the nearby habitations. I shall at least bring a few embers for you
to light a fire and warm yourselves."
The place where the Prophet Moses
had seen a burning bush is situated at about 5,000 ft. above sea level at the
foot of Mt. Tur. Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire,
had a church built in about 365 A.D. right at the spot where this event had
occurred. Two hundred years later Emperor Justinian had a monastery built which
included the church built by Constantine as well. Both the monastery and the
church stand even today and are under the control of the monks of the Greek
Orthodox Church.
10According to AI-Qasas: 30, the voice was calling out
from a tree. What one understands from this is this: A sort of a fire was alight
on the ground on the edge of the valley, but neither was anything burning nor
any smoke arising. In the midst of the fire there stood a lush green tree from
which a voice started calling out this all of a sudden.
This is a strange
thing which the Prophets of Allah have been experiencing. When the Holy Prophet
Muhammad (may Allah's peace be upon him) was first blessed with Prophethood, an
Angel appeared before him in the solitude of the Gave of Hira' and started
delivering Allah's Message. A similar thing happened with the Prophet Moses
also. A journeying person has halted at a place, sees a fire at a distance,
approaches it in order to get some information abort the route, or to pick a
burning ember, and suddenly Allah, Lord of the Worlds, the Infinite, the
Inconceivable Being, starts speaking to him. On such occasions, there exists
externally as well as within the Prophets' own selves an extraordinary state
which fills them with the assurance that it is not a jinn or a satan or an
illusion of their own mind, nor are their senses being deceived, but it is the
Lord of the universe, or His Angel, who is speaking to them. (For further
explanation, see E.N. 10 of An-Najm).
11Here the use of the words Subhan
Allah (glorified is Allah) is meant to warn the Prophet Moses to this effect:
"You should never think that Allah, Lord of the universe, is sitting in the
tree, or has entered into it, or that His absolute Light has concentrated itself
into the limited sphere of your sight, or some tongue is functioning in some
mouth to produce speech, but it is Allah, Who is Pure and Free from all such
limitations, Who is Himself speaking to you."
12In Surahs Al-A`raf and
Ash-Shu`araa', the snake has been called thu`ban (a large serpent) but here
jaann, a small snake. The reason is that in physical size it was a serpent but
in movement it was swift like a small snake. The same thing has been expressed
by hayyatun tas `a (a running snake) in Ta Ha: 20.
13That is, "In My
Presence there is no danger of any harm to the Messenger. When I call someone
into My Presence to appoint him to the high office of Prophethood, I Myself
become responsible for his safety. Therefore, the Messenger should remain
fearless and confident in every kind of unusual situation: it will never harm or
hurt him in any way. "
14This exception can be contiguous as well as
remote. In the first case it will imply that there can be a genuine cause of
fear if the Messenger has committed an offense; in the second case it will mean:
"None should have any cause of fear in My Presence, unless, of course, someone
has committed an offense."
15That is, "If even an offender repents and
reforms himself and does good instead of evil, I will pardon him. ¦ This implied
both a warning and a good news. The Prophet Moses had killed a Copt
inadvertently and fled from Egypt. This was an offense to which a subtle
reference was made. When this offense was committed un-intentionally by the
Prophet Moses, he had immediately offered repentance to Allah, saying, "O my
Lord! I have sinned against myself, so forgive me." So, "Allah forgave him"
there and then. (Al-Qasas: 16). Here the good news of the same forgiveness has
been given him, as if to say, "O Moses, there could be a genuine cause for you
to feel afraid in My Presence, because you had committed an offense, but when
you have changed the evil into good, I have nothing but forgiveness and mercy
for you. I have not called you here at this time to punish you, but I am going
to send you on a great mission with wonderful miracles."
16According to
Surah Bani Isra'il:101, the Prophet Moses had been granted nine clearly visible
Signs, which according to the details given in AI-A`raf were the following: (1)
The staff's turning into a serpent, (2) the shining hand when it was drawn out
of the armpit, (3) public triumph over the magicians, (4) occurrence of a
widespread famine in the land as foretold by the Prophet Moses, (5) the storm,
(6) the locusts, (7) the incidence of weevils in the grain stores and of lice
among human beings and animals, (8) the frogs, and (9) the rain of blood. (Far
explanation, see E.N. 43 of Az Zukhruf).
17As mentioned at other places
in the Qur'an, whenever a plague befell Egypt as foretold by the Prophet Moses,
Pharaoh would say, "O Moses, pray to your Lord to remove this plague; then we
shall submit to what you say." But as soon as the plague was removed, Pharaoh
would break his promise. (Al-A'raf: 134, Az-Zukhruf: 49-50). The Bible also has
mentioned it (Exodus. 8 to 10), and otherwise also it could not be imagined that
the occurrence of a famine throughout the country and the coming of a violent
storm and the incidence of the locusts and the frogs and the weevils in such
abundance could be due to any trick of magic. The miracles were so manifest that
even a stupid person could not help realizing that the occurrence of the plagues
on such a large scale and their removal at the Prophet's prayer could be only
due to Allah, Lord of all Creation's power and authority. That is why the
Prophet Moses had told Pharaoh plainly: "You know it full well that none but the
Lord of the heavens and the earth has sent down these Signs." (Bani
lsra'il:102). But the reason why Pharaoh and his chiefs rejected Moses knowingly
was: "What! should we believe in these two men who are human beings like
ourselves and whose people are our bondsmen'?" (Al Mu'minun: 47)
18That
is, the knowledge of the Reality, the knowledge that whatever they have is not
theirs but the gift of Allah and whatever rights they have been granted over
those things should be used strictly according to Allah's will, for they will be
held answerable before Allah, the real Owner, for the right and wrong use of
those rights. This knowledge is the opposite of the ignorance in which Pharaoh
was involved. The type of character built on the ignorance has been presented in
the preceding verses. Now, in the following verses, the model of the character
built on the knowledge is being presented. The sort of kingdom, wealth, power
and grandeur were common on both the sides. The Pharaoh had been given these as
well as the Prophets David and Solomon. But the distinction of the ignorance and
the knowledge built and molded them into entirely different personalities.
19That is, "There were other believing, servants as well, who could be
blessed with vicegerency. But it is only Allah's favor, not due to any special
quality in ourselves, that He has chosen us to be rulers over this kingdom."
20Succession here does not mean inheritance of wealth and properties, but
the succession to the Prophet David in the Prophethood and vicegerency. For the
wealth and possessions, if at all transferred, could not be transferred to the
Prophet Solomon only, because Prophet David had other children also. Therefore,
this verse cannot be cited to refute the Hadith reported from the Holy Prophet,
saying, "The inheritance left by us, the Prophets, is not divided as such.
whatever we leave behind is charity." (Bukhari) And: "There is no heir to a
Prophet. Whatever he leaves behind, is divided among the needy and the indigent
of the Muslims." (Musnad Ahmad. Traditions from Abu Bakr, Ahadith No. 60 and
78).
The Prophet Solomon was the youngest son of the Prophet David. His
Hebrew name Solomon is a synonym of Salim (right-minded, affable). He succeeded
the Prophet David in 965 B.C. and ruled his kingdom for forty years, till
926B.C. For other details of his life and works, see E. N.'s 74-75 of Al Anbiyaa
in The Meaning of the Qur'an, Vol. VII). Our commentators have greatly
exaggerated' the vastness of his kingdom, and have held that he ruled over a
large part of the world. The fact, however. is that his kingdom comprised only
the present Palestine and Transjordan and a part of Syria. (See Map: Kingdom of
the Prophets David and Solomon, The Meaning of the Qur'an, Vol. II, Bani Israel
E. N. 7).
21There is no mention in the Bible that the Prophet Solomon
had been taught speech of the birds and animals, though the Israelite traditions
contain a reference to it. (Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. Xl.p. 598)
22That
is, "Allah has bestowed on us all sorts of things." This, however, should not be
understood literally; it only means the abundance of the wealth and the means of
life granted by Allah. This was not said proudly by Prophet Solomon but only to
express his gratitude to Allah for His grace and bounty and favors.
23The
Bible does not either make any mention that there were jinns also in the Prophet
Solomon's armies, and he took service from them; but the Talmud and the
rabbinical traditions contain details of this. (Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. XI, p.
440). Some of the present-day writers have strained every nerve to prove that
the words jinn and fair do not refer to the jinns and birds but to men who
performed different duties in the Prophet Solomon's army. They say that the Jinn
haply the people of the mountain tribes whom Prophet Solomon had subdued and who
performed teats of great strength and skill under him; and fair implies cavalry
which could move much faster than the infantry. But these are indeed the worst
examples of misinterpreting the Qur'an. The Qur'an here mentions three distinct
kinds of the army consisting of the men, the jinns and the birds, and all the
three gave been qualified by the prefix a1 (alif-lam) to denote a class.
Therefore, al jinn and al-tair could not be included in al-ins (the men), but
could be two separate and different classes from the men. Moreover, a person who
has a little acquaintance with Arabic cannot imagine that in this language the
mere word a/ Jinn could ever imply a group of the men, or al-tair troops mounted
on horses, nor could any Arab understand these meanings from these words.
Calling a man a jinn only figuratively because of some supernatural feat of his,
or a woman a fairy because of her beauty, or a fast moving person a bird dces
not mean that the words Jinn and fairy and bird will henceforth be taken to mean
a powerful man and a beautiful woman and a fast moving person respectively.
These are only the metaphoric and not the real meanings of these words. In a
discourse, a word is used in its figurative instead of its real meaning, and the
listeners also will take it in that meaning, only when there exists in the
context a clear pointer to its being figurative. What, after all, is the pointer
in the context here from which one may understand that the words jinn and tair
have been used not in their real and lexical meaning but in their figurative
meaning? Contrary to this, the work and the state of a member each of the two
groups that have been mentioned in the following verses, fall entirely against
the purport of this interpretation. If a person does not want to believe in
something stated in the Qur'an, he should frankly say that he does not believe
in it. But it would be moral cowardice and intellectual dishonesty if one should
force the clear words of the Qur'an to give the meaning that he wants them to
give, and tell the world that he believes in what the Qur'an says, whereas he
does not, in fact, believe in it but believes in his own distorted meaning.
24This verse also has been greatly misconstrued by some commentators of the
present day. They say that wad-in naml does not mean "valley of the ants", but
it is the name of a valley that was in Syria, and namlah does not mean an ant
but it is the name of a tribe. Thus, according to them, the verse means this:
"When the Prophet Solomon reached the valley of the ants, a Namilite said, 'O
people of the Naml tribe ......" But this also is an interpretation which is not
supported by the words of the Qur'an. Even if we took wad-in-naml to be the name
of a valley and supposed that it was inhabited by the tribe of Bani an-Naml, it
would be against the Arabic idiom and usage to speak of a member of the tribe as
namlah. Although there are many Arab tribes which have been named after the
animals, e.g. Kalb (dog), Asad (lion), etc"., yet no Arab would ever say in
respect of a member of the Kalb or the Asad tribe: "A dog said, or a lion said,
etc. Therefore, it would be against the Arabic idiom to say in respect of a
member of the Naml tribe: "A namlah (ant) said this." Then a member of the Naml
tribe's warning the people of his tribe, saying, "O Namilites, get into your
houses lest Solomon's hosts should trample you down without even knowing it,"
becomes meaningless, It has never happened that an army of men should have
trampled down a group of men without knowing it. If the army has come with the
intention of an attack, it would be useless for the other side to get into their
houses, for in that case the invaders would follow them into their houses, and
trample them more ruthlessly. And if the army is only on the routine march, it
is just enough to clear off the way for it. Human beings may be harmed by the
marching columns, but it can never happen that the soldiers on the march would
trample down other men without knowing it. Therefore, if Bani an-Naml were a
tribe of human beings, and one of its members were to warn his people, then in
case of an attack, he would have said, "O Namilites, flee your houses and take
refuge in the mountains lest Solomon's armies should destroy you. " And in case
there was no danger of an attack, he would have said, "O Namilites, clear off
the way lest one of you should be harmed by the marching columns of Solomon's
armies."
This error in the interpretation is on account of the Arabic
idiom and the subject-matter. As for the name of the valley and the tribe of
Bani an-Naml inhabiting it, it is a mere hypothesis for which there exists no
scientific proof. Those who hold that wad-in -naml was the name of a valley have
themselves pointed out that it had been so named because of the abundance of
ants in it. Qatadah and Muqatil say, "It is a valley in the land of Syria where
ants are found in abundance. But in no book of history and geography and in no
archaeological research it is mentioned that it was inhabited by a tribe called
Bani an-Naml. Thus, it is merely a concoction that has been invented to support
one's own interpretation.
This story is also found in the Israelite
traditions but its latter portion falls against the Qur'an as well as against
the regal dignity of the Prophet Solomon. According to it, when the Prophet
Solomon was passing through a valley which abounded in ants, he heard an ant
calling out to the other ants to say, "Get into your holes, otherwise you will
be trampled down by Solomon's hosts." At this, Prophet Solomon displayed great
vanity before the ant to which the ant rejoined, " What are you?-the product of
a mere sperm-drop! " Hearing this the Prophet Solomon felt greatly ashamed.
(Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. X1, p. 440). This shows how the Qur'an corrects the
wrong traditions of the Israelites, and cleanses the filthy spots with which
they had themselves branded the characters of their Prophets. It is these
traditions about which the Western orientalists shamelessly claim that the
Qur'an has plagiarized them for its narratives.
Rationally also it is not
at all inconceivable that an ant should warn members of its' own species of an
impending danger and tell them to get into their holes. As for the question as
to how the Prophet Solomon heard it, the answer is: It is not all difficult to
understand the crude speech of an ant for a person whose senses can comprehend
and receive a subtle message like the Word of Revelation
25"Restrain
me...thanks to Thee" means this: "O my Lord! the wonderful powers and abilities
that You have given me are such that if I become even a little forgetful and
heedless, I might transgress the bounds of service and be puffed up with pride
and go astray. Therefore, O my Lord, restrain me so that I may remain grateful
to You for all Your blessings instead of being ungrateful."
26"Admit
me..righteous servants" probably implies this: "I should be included among the
righteous in the Hereafter and should enter Paradise along with them." For a
person who does righteous acts will automatically be righteous, but one's entry
into Paradise in the Hereafter cannot come about merely on the strength of one's
good works, but it will depend on Allah's mercy. According to a Hadith, the Holy
Prophet once said, "Merely the deeds of any one of you will not enable him to
enter Paradise." It was asked, "In your case too, O Messenger of Allah?" He
replied, "Yes, I also shall not enter Paradise only on the strength of my deeds,
unless Allah Almighty covers me with His mercy."
This prayer of the
Prophet Solomon on this occasion becomes irrelevant if an Naml is taken to mean
a vibe of human beings and namlah a member of that tribe. After all, there could
be nothing extraordinary in the warning given by a member of a human tribe to
the people of his vibe about the approaching troops of a powerful king that it
should have induced the king to make such a prayer to Allah. However, a person's
having such a wonderful power of comprehension that he may hear the speech of an
ant from a distance and also understand it, is certainly something
extraordinary, which can involve a person in self-conceit and vanity. In such a
case only the prayer of the Prophet Solomon can be relevant."
27That is,
the birds whose troops, as mentioned above, were included in the armies of
Prophet Solomon like the troops of the men and jinns. It is just possible that
the Prophet Solomon had employed them for communicating messages, hunting and
performing other such services.
28Some people of the modern time say
that the hud-hud (hoopoe) does not mean the bird commonly known by this name,
but is the name of a man who was an officer in the army of Solomon. This claim
is not based on any historical research in which they might have found a person
named hud-hud included in the list of the officers of the government of the
Prophet Solomon, but they base their claim on the argument that the custom of
naming human beings after animals is prevalent in Arabic as in other languages
and was also found in Hebrew. Moreover, the, work that has been ascribed to the
hud-hud in the following verses and its conversation with the Prophet Solomon,
can, according to them, be only performed by a human being. But if one keeps in
view the context in which this thing occurs in the Qur'an, it becomes evident
that this is no commentary of the Qur'an but its distortion. After all, why
should the Qur'an put the intellect and intelligence of man to the test by using
enigmatic language '? Why should it not clearly say that a soldier of the
Prophet Solomon's cavalry, or platoon, or communication department, was missing,
whom he ordered to be searched out, and who came and gave this news and whom he
dispatched on such and such a mission? Instead, it uses such language that the
reader, from the beginning to the end, is compelled to regard it as a bird. Let
us, in this connection, consider the tarts in their sequence as presented in the
Qur'an.
First of all, the Prophet Solomon expresses his gratitude to
Allah for His this bounty: "We have been taught the speech of the birds." In
this sentence, firstly, the word Lair has been used absolutely which every Arab
and scholar of Arabic will take in the meaning of a bird, because there is
nothing in the context that points to its being figurative; secondly, if tair
implied a group of men and not a bird, the ward language or tongue would have
been used concerning it and not speech. 'Then, a person's knowing the tongue of
another people is not so extraordinary a thing that it should be specially
mentioned. Today there are among us thousands of men and women, who can speak
and understand many foreign languages. This is in no way an unusual achievement
which may be mentioned as an extraordinary gift of God.
Then the Qur'an
says, "For Solomon were gathered hosts of jinns and then and birds." In this
sentence, firstly, the words Jinn and ins (men) and tair have been used as names
for three well-known and distinct species denoted by these words in Arabic. Then
they have been used absolutely and there is nothing in the context that may
point to any of them being used metaphorically, or as a simile. hecause of which
one may take them in another meaning than their well- known lexical meaning.
Then the word ins has occurred between the words jinn and Lair which does not
allow taking it in the meaning that the Jinn and the tair were, in tact, two
groups included in the species of ins (men). Had this been meant the words would
have been: ul jinn wat-tair min-al-ins and not min-al- Jinn wal-ins Wat-tair.
A little further un the e Qur'an says that the Prophet Solomon said this
when-during his review of the birds hr found the hud-hud missing. If the fair
were human beings and hud-hud also was the name of a man, a word or two should
Dave been there to indicate this so that cite poor reader should not have taken
the word for a bird. When the group being mentioned is clearly of the birds and
a number of it is called hud-hud. how can it be expected that the reader will of
his own accord understand them to be human beings'?
Then the Prophet
Solomon says, "I will punish him severely, or even slaughter him, unless he
presents before me a reasonable excuse." A man is killed, or hanged, or
sentenced to death, but never slaughtered. Some hard-hearted person may even
slaughter another person out of vengeance, but it cannot be expected of a
Prophet that he would sentence a soldier of his army to be slaughtered only for
the offense of desertion, and Allah would mention this heinous act of the
Prophet without a word of disapproval.
A little further on we shall again
see that the Prophet Solomon sends the same hud-hud with a letter to the queen
of Sheba and tells him "to cast it before her". Obviously, such an instruction
can be given to a bird but not at all to a man when he is sent as an envoy or
messenger. Only a foolish person will believe that a king would send his envoy
with a letter to the queen of another country and tell him to cast or throw it
before her. Should we suppose that the Prophet Solomon was not aware of the
preliminary social etiquette which even common people like us also observe when
we send our servant to a neighbor? Will a gentleman tell his servant to carry
his letter to the other gentleman and throw it before him?
All these
things show that the word hud-hud here has been used in its lexical meaning,
showing that he was not a man but a bird. Now, if a person is not prepared to
believe that a hud-hud can speak those things that have been ascribed to it in
the Qur'an, he should frankly say that he does not believe in this narrative: of
the Qur'an. It is sheer hypocrisy to misconstrue plain and clear words of the
Qur'an according to one's own whims only in order to cover up one's lack of
faith in it.
29Saba' were a well-known commercial people of southern
Arabia, whose capital city of Ma'rib lay about 55 miles to the north-east of
San`a', the present capital of Yaman. They rose to power after the decline of
the Minaean Kingdom in about 1100 B.C. and flourished for a thousand years in
Arabia. Then in 115 B.C. they were replaced by the Himyarites, the other
well-known people of southern Arabia, who ruled Yaman and Hadramaut in Arabia
and Habash in Africa. The Sabaeans controlled the whole trade that passed
between eastern Africa, India, the Far East and Arabia itself, on the one hand,
and Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome on the other. That is why they were famous for
their wealth in the ancient times; so much so that according to the Greek
historians they were the richest people of the world. Besides trade and
commerce, another great reason for their prosperity was that they had built dams
here and there in their country to store rainwater for irrigation purposes,
which had turned their whole land into a veritable garden. The Greek; historians
have made mention of the unusual greenery of their country; and the Qur'an also
refers to it in Surah Saba': 15.The statement of the hud-hud, `I have obtained
knowledge of things of which you have no knowledge", does not imply that the
Prophet Solomon was wholly unaware of Saba'. Obviously, the ruler of Syria and
Palestine whose kingdom extended to the northern shores of the Red Sea (Gulf of
`Aqabah), could not be unaware of a people who ruled the southern shores (Yaman)
of the same Red Sea, and who also controlled an important pan of the
international trade. Moreover, according to Psalms, Solomon's father, Prophet
David, knew Saba' We lied the following words of his prayer in Psalms
"Give the king thy judgment, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son
(i.e. Solomon)... The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents:
the kings of Sheba and Seba (i.e. of Yaman's and Habash's branches) shall offer
gifts." (72: 1-2, 10-11).
Therefore, what the hud-hud means to say is
this: "The knowledge of the things 1 have seen with my eyes in the central city
of the Sabaeans. has not yet reached you."
30This shows that the people
of Saba' at that lime followed the religion of sun-worship, which is also
supported by the ancient traditions of Arabia. Ibn ishaq has cited the
genealogists' saying to the effect that Saba' have in fact descended from an
ancestor whose name was `Abd Shams (slave of the sun, or sun-worshiper) and
title Saba'. This is supported by the Israelite traditions as well. According to
these when the hud-hud arrived with the Prophet Solomon's letter, the queen of
Sheba was going for the worship of the sun-god, and it threw the letter on the
way before the queen.
31The style shows that the sentences from here to
the end of the paragraph are not a part of the hud-hud's speech but its speech
ended with: "they prostrate themselves before the sun", and these words are an
addition by Allah to its speech. His opinion is supported by the sentence: "He
knows all that you conceal and reveal." These words give the impression that the
speaker and the addressees here are not he hud-hud and the Prophet Solomon and
his courtiers respectively, but the speaker is Allah and the addressees the
mushriks of Makkah, for whose admonition this story has been related. From among
the commentators, Allamah Alusi;, the author of Ruh-al-Ma ani, also has
preferred the same opinion.
32That is, Satan has made them believe that
earning the worldly wealth and making, their lives more and more grand and
pompous is the only real and fit use of their mental and intellectual and
physical powers. Apart from these, they need not think seriously on anything
else: they need not bother themselves to see whether there was any factual
reality behind the apparent life of the world or not, and whether the basis of
their religion, morality, culture and system of life accorded with that Reality
or went utterly against it. Satan satisfied them that when they were making
adequate progress in respect of wealth and power and worldly grandeur, they had
no need to see whether their beliefs and philosophies and theories were correct
or not, for the only proof of their being correct was that they were earning
wealth and enjoying life to their hearts content.
33That is, He is
bringing continuously into existence those things which before their ' birth
were hidden here and there: He is bringing out continuously countless kinds of
vegetation and minerals from the bowels of the earth: He is manifesting from
upper space such things as could not even be conceived by the human mind before
their manifestation.
34That is, His knowledge embraces everything; the
open and hidden are alike for Him; He is aware of everything. By citing these
two attributes of Allah the object is to impress that if they had not been
deluded by Satan, they could have seen the right way clearly: they could have
perceived that the hot burning sphere of the sun which has no sense of its own
existence, did not deserve to be worshiped but worship was due to Him alone Who
is the All-Knowing and the All-Wise Being, and Whose power is bringing into
existence new and ever stew phenomena every moment.
35This is one of
those verses of the Qur'an, whose recital makes it obligatory for one to perform
a Sajdah (prostration), and there is a consensus on this of the Muslim jurists.
The object of performing a Sajdah here is that a believer should set himself
apart from the sun-worshipers and should declare by his action that he does not
regard the sun but Allah Almighty alone as his Deity and Lord.
36Here
ends the role of the hud-hud (hoopoe). The rationalists deny its being a bird
for the reason that a bird could not possibly be endowed with such powers of
observation, discrimination and expression that it should pass over a country
and should come to know that it is the land of Saba`, it has such and such a
system of government, it is ruled by a certain woman, its religion is sun
worship, that it should have worshiped One God instead of having gone astray,
and then on its return to the Prophet Solomon it should so clearly make a report
of all its observations before him. Due to these very reasons the open atheists
object that the Qur'an is a book of fables and legends; then those who try to
interpret the Qur'an rationally misconstrue its clear words in order to prove
that the hud-hud was not at all a bird but he was a man. But the question is:
What scientific information have these gentlemen got by which they could tell
with absolute certainty what powers and abilities the different species of
animals and their different individuals have got? The information that they
possess only consists of the results interred froth the grossly insufficient
observation made cursorily by them of the life and behavior of the animals. In
fact, man has not so far been able to know through any certain means what
different animals know and what they see and hear. and what they feel and think
and understand, and how the mind of each one of them works. Yet, whatever little
observation has been made of the life of the different species of animals, it
has revealed some of their wonderful abilities. Now, when Allah, Who is the
Creator of these animals, tells us that He had taught the speech of the birds to
one of His Prophets and blessed him with the ability to speak to them, and the
Prophet's taming and training had so enabled a hud-hud that it could make
certain observations in the foreign lands and could report theta to the Prophet,
we should, in fact, be prepared to revise our little knowledge about the animals
in the light of Allah's statement. But, instead, we commit the folly of taking
our this insufficient knowledge as the criterion and belie this statement of
Allah or distort it out of its true meaning.
37That is, "The letter is
important for several reasons: (1) It has reached me in an unusual way. Instead
of an envoy it has been brought and dropped at me by a bird. (2) It is from
Solomon, the great ruler of Palestine and Syria. (3) It has been begun with the
name of Allah, the Compassionate, and Merciful, which is an unusual way of
correspondence and is not followed by any kingdom in the world. (4) Then, it is
also unusual that a letter should be written only in the name of Allah, the
Exalted, spare from all other gods and goddesses. (5) The most important thing
in it is that it quite clearly and plainly invites us to give up rebellion and
adopt obedience and present ourselves before Solomon in submission (or as
Muslims)."
"Present yourselves as Muslim" can have two meanings: (I)
"Present yourselves in submission"; and (2) "present yourselves as Muslims
(after embracing Islam)." The first meaning is in accordance with the Prophet
Solomon's position as a ruler, and the second with his position as a Prophet.
Probably this comprehensive word was used in order to convey both the meanings
through the letter. The same sort of invitation has always been extended by
Islam to independent nations and governments that they should either accept
Islam and become equal partners in the Islamic system of life, or surrender
political independence and submit to the system of Islam and pay Jizyah"
38The words used in the Text are: hatta tash-hu-dun (unless you are present, or
unless you bear witness). That is: "I regard your presence necessary when I take
a decision in important matters, and also that whatever decision I take you
should be there to testify that it is right and correct." This shows that though
the system of government among Saba' was kingship, it was not tyrannical; but
the ruler of the time decided matters in consultation with the important people
in the government.
39In this one sentence a thorough criticism has been
made of imperialism. The kings' invasion of the other countries and the
victorious nations' violence against the oppressed nations has never been for
the sake of reform and goodwill. 'fire object has been to control and exploit
the means and resources of sustenance granted to the other nation by God, and
make it so helpless that it should never be able to rise in resistance and
demand its share. For this purpose they block up all it, means of prosperity,
power and honor, crush down all self respecting elements, instill in its members
attitudes of slavery, flattery, treachery and spying against one another,
imitation of the conqueror and respect for his civilization, contempt of their
own civilization and other such mean qualities of character. Thus, gradually
they bring them down to such a low level of character where they may not
hesitate even to sell off any of their most sacred objects of heritage and be
ready to perform any wretched service on payment.
40This sentence has two
meanings and both are equally probable: (1) It may be a part of the queen of
Sheba's speech, which she might have added in order to emphasize her foregoing
words; and (2) it may be Allah's words which have been added as a parenthesis in
support of the queen's speech.
41This sentence is not meant to express
pride and vanity. What it means to say is this: "I have no desire for your
wealth; I only desire that you should believe, or at least submit to a righteous
system. if you agree to neither of these alternatives, it is not possible for me
to accept the bribes of wealth and leave you tree in the , matter of a
polytheistic and wicked system of life. What my Lord has given me is enough for
me to cherish any desire for your wealth.
42There is a subtle gap
between this and the previous sentence, which one can easily till up by a
careful study of the discourse. It means this: "O Messengers, take ties gift
back to the people who nave sent you. They will either have to yield to our
first proposal, i. e. they should come before us as Muslims, or we shall bring
forces against them."
43The details of the story that have been omitted
are to the effect: The envoys returned to the queen with the gift and made a
report of what they had seen and heard; the queen decided on the basis of what
she heard about the Prophet Solomon to make a visit to Jerusalem to see him
personally; she left Saba' for Palestine accompanied by her royal entourage and
Sent a message to Solomon's court that she was herself coming to personally hear
the invitation from the king himself and to have a direct talk with him. Here,
the story is resumed from the time when the queen had reached near Jerusalem and
was going to appear before Solomon in a day or two.
44That is, the same
throne about which the hoopoe (hud- hud) had reported, "She has a splendid
throne." Some commentators have given a strange interpretation here. They say
that the Prophet Solomon wanted to have the throne before him before the queen's
arrival because he wanted to take possession of it. For he feared that if the
queen became a Muslim. it would be unlawful to take possession of her property
without her approval: therefore, he made haste to have the queen's throne with
him even before her arrival in Jerusalem because at chat time it was lawful to
take it into his possession. May Allah pardon us! This is a strange concept
about the intention of a Prophet. Why should one not understand the verse in the
light that Prophet Solomon wanted to show a miracle also to the queen and her
courtiers besides preaching his message so that she might know what
extraordinary powers Allah, Lord of the worlds, had granted His Prophet so that
she might be convinced that Solomon was surely a Prophet of Allah`? Some modern
commentators have put an even more strange meaning on this verse. They translate
the verse thus: "Which of you can bring me a throne for the queen:'" whereas the
Qur'an has used the word bi- 'arshi-ha which means "her throne', and not bi-'arshil,-laha,
"a throne for her". They mistranslate the verse in order to get rid of what the
Qur'an has stated that the Prophet Solomon wanted the queen's own throne to be
brought froth Yaman to Jerusalem and that too before the queen's arrival.
45From this it becomes obvious whether the jinns under the Prophet Solomon
were, according to the interpretation of some rationalist commentators of the
modern times, from among mankind or from among the hidden creation commonly
known as jinns. Obviously, the sitting of the Prophet Solomon's court would at
the most be of three to four hours, and the distance of Ma'rib, capital of
Saba', from Jerusalem was even as the crow dies, not less than 1500 miles. To
fetch a splendid throne of a queen from such a distant place in such a short
time could not be possible for a man, even if he be a very strong and robust
person. This task cannot be performed even by a jet plane of today. The throne
was not lying in a jungle from where it had just to be fetched. It lay in a
queen's palace, which must have been well-guarded, and in the absence of the
queen it must have been kept in a secure place If a man had gone to fetch it, he
should have been accompanied by a commando force so that he could overwhelm the
guards and snatch away the throne. How could all this be accomplished before the
rising of the court? This thing can be conceived only in connection with a real
Jinn !
46That is, "You can trust me in that I will not carry it away, nor
steal any valuable thing from it.”
47Nothing is known with certainty as
to who this person was, what special knowledge he had and what Book is referred
to here, whose knowledge he had. No explanation of these things has been given
either in the Qur'an or in any authentic Hadith. Some of the commentators say
that it was an angel; others say that it was a man. Then they differ as to the
identity of the man. Someone mentions the name of Asaf bin Barchiah, who,
according to the rabbinical traditions, was the Prince of Men. Someone says that
he was Khidr; someone mentions some other name; and Imam Razi insists that it
was the Prophet Solomon himself. But none of these has any reliable source for
his information, and Imam Razi's opinion does not even fit in with the Qur'anic
context. Likewise, about the Book also the commentators differ. Someone says
that it refers to Lauh-i-Mahfuz (the Preserved Tablet) and some other takes it
for the Book of Law. But all this is mere guess-work. Similar guesses have been
made about the knowledge the man had from the Book. We only know and believe
what has been said in the Qur'an, or what becomes evident from its words In any
case the person was not from among the jinns, and possibly he was a man. He
possessed some extraordinary knowledge, which had been derived from some Divine
Book (al-Kitab) . The jinn had claimed to fetch the throne within a few hours by
means of his physical strength; this man fetched it in a moment by the power of
his knowledge.
48The words of the Qur'an are very clear in this regard.
This person's claim did not remain a claim like the jinn's, but, in tact, as
soon as he made the claim the throne was seen placed before the Prophet Solomon
the next moment. just consider these words:
"The person said, `I will
bring it to you in the twinkling of an eye.' As soon as Solomon saw the throne
placed before him...."
Anyone who reads these words, regardless of the
extraordinary nature of the event, will surely understand that no sooner did the
person utter these words than the event as claimed by him took place forthwith.
There is, therefore, no need to make far-fetched interpretations of this plain
matter. Then, on seeing the throne, the Prophet Solomon's exclaiming, "This is
by the Grace of my Lord so that He may test me (to see) whether I am grateful or
ungrateful!" can be relevant only if the event be extraordinary; otherwise if
only a skillful craftsman of the king had hurriedly made or arranged a throne
for the queen, it could not be so novel an event at which the Prophet Solomon
should have spontaneously exclaimed: "This is by the Grace of my Lord!..." and
feared that the prompt arrangement of a throne for the honorable guest might
cause him to become ungrateful to Allah instead of being grateful. After all,
there could be no question of a believing ruler's becoming involved in vanity
and self-conceit on this small achievement, especially when he was not merely an
ordinary believer but a Prophet of Allah
As for the question as to how a
royal throne was fetched over a distance of 1,500 miles in the twinkling of an
eye, it can be briefly answered thus: "The concepts of time and space, and
matter and movement, that we have formed on the basis of our experiments and
observations, are only applicable to us. These concepts are not correct in
respect to God, nor is He bound by these. Not to speak of an ordinary throne,
His power can make the sun; and even much larger stars, travel millions of
millions of miles in the matter of moments. The God Who by His one Command
brought this huge universe into being, had the power to have moved the throne of
the queen of Sheba at a speed greater than the speed of light. In this very
Qur'an it has been stated that Allah, by His powers, took his servant Muhammad
(may Allah's peace be upon him) from Makkah to Jerusalem and also brought him
back in the same night.
49That is, He does not stand in need of
somebody's gratefulness. His Godhead is neither enhanced by an iota by
somebody's gratefulness nor diminished by that amount by somebody's ingratitude
or thanklessness. He is a Sovereign in His own right. His Sovereignty is not
dependent on His creation's acknowledgment or rejection. The same thing has been
expressed in the Qur'an through the Prophet Moses: "If you prove thankless, you
and all the dwellers of the earth, (you should know that) Allah is
All-Sufficient and worthy of all praise by Himself." (Ibrahim: 8). The same
theme is contained in a Hadith Qudsi related in Muslims saying:
"Allah
says: O My servants, if you all men and jinns, from the beginning to the end,
together become like the heart of the most righteous person among you, it will
not cause any increase in My Kingdom; and O My servants, if you all men and
jinns, from the beginning to the end, together become like the heart of the most
sinful person among you, it will not cause any decrease in My Kingdom. O My
servants, it is your own deeds which I credit to your account, and then fully
recompense you for them. So, whoever receives something good, let him be
grateful to Allah, and whoever receives something else, let him curse his own
self only".
50As to how the queen reached Jerusalem and how she was
received, has been omitted. The story is resumed from the time when she had
arrived at the palace to see Prophet Solomon.
51This is a meaningful
sentence, which means: (1) "Whether she understands or not that it is her own
throne which has been fetched in no time from her capital to distant place like
Jerusalem;" and also (2) "whether she is guided aright after seeing this
wonderful miracle, or persists in her error." This refutes the wrong idea of the
people who say that the Prophet Solomon intended to take possession of the
throne. Here he himself clearly says that he had done this in order to help the
queen see Guidance.
52This also refutes the speculations of those people
who depict the event in :t manner as though the Prophet Solomon wanted to have u
throne made for the queen and for this purpose he invited tenders and a strong,
robust artisan offered to make hint a throne in the matter of a few hours, but
,n expert craftsman submitted that he could make and produce it in no time. This
w hole guess-work is destroyed by the tact that Solomon himself ordered the
throne to be fetched before him (v. 381), and when it had been fetched, ordered
his servants to set it before the queen casually (v. 41), and then when she
arrived, she was asked whether her throne was like that (v. 42), and she
answered, "It is just the same." Obviously, there could he no room for the
absurd interpretations in the face of such a clear statement of facts. If there
is still any doubt left, it can be satisfied by the next sentence.
53That is, "Even before we saw this miracle we had been convinced by what we had
heard of Solomon (peace be upon him) that he was a Prophet of Allah, and not
merely a ruler of a kingdom." After seeing the throne and saying, "It is just
the same", what could be the relevance of adding this sentence if it is supposed
that the Prophet Solomon had got a throne manufactured and set the same before
her? Even if it is supposed that no effort was spared to have a throne
manufactured closely resembling the queen's what special excellence it could
have to make a sun- worshiping queen exclaim "We had already known this and we
had become Muslims!"
54This sentence has been added by Allah to clarity
the queen's position, saying that she was not obdurate and stubborn. She had
been an unbeliever till then mainly because she canto of an unbelieving people.
As she had become accustomed to bowing down before a false deity since her
childhood, it had become a hindrance for her to the right way. As soon as she
came in contact with the Prophet Solomon, she discerned the right way and the
hindrance was removed Forthwith.
55This was the last thing that opened
the queen's eyes. The first thing was Solomon's letter that had been begun with
the name of the AII-Compassionate, the AII-Merciful Allah, a way different front
the common custom prevalent among the kings. The second was his rejection of her
gifts, which made the queen understand that he was a different kind of king. The
third was the report made by the queen's envoys froth which she came to know
about Solomon's pious life, his wisdom and his message of the Truth. This very
dung had induced her to travel to Jerusalem herself to personally meet the
Prophet Solomon, and to this she had referred when she said. "We had already
known this and we had become Muslims." The fourth thing was the removal of her
throne from Ma'rib to Jerusalem in no time, from which the queen realized that
he had Allah's power at Itil hack. Now this was the last thing that removed
every doubt front her mind regarding the unique and great personality of the
Prophet Solomon. When she saw that in spite of possessing every means of comfort
and ease and a grand palace for a dwelling, he was so free from every conceit,
so God-fearing and righteous and so grateful to God that he bowed before Him far
every small favor and his life so different from the life of those who were
enamored of the world, she exclaimed the words that follow.
56This story
of the Prophet Solomon and the queen of Sheba has been related in the Old and
the New Testaments and the Israelite traditions in different ways, but the
Qur'anic narration differs from all others. A resume of the story as given in
the Old Testament is as follows:
"And when the queen of Sheba heard of
the tame of Solomon, she came to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem,
with a very great company . when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him
of all that was in her heart. And Solomon told her all her questions ...... And
when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, and the house that he
had built, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the
attendance of his ministers, and their apparel; his cup bearers also, and their
apparel; and his ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord; there
was no more spirit in her. And she said to the king, It was a true report which
I heard in mine own land of thine acts, and of thine wisdom: Howbeit I believed
nut their words, until I carte, and thine eves had seen it: and, behold, the one
half of the greatness of they wisdom Was not told rte: for thou exceedest the
(ante that 1 heard. Happy are thy men. and happy are these thy servants, which
stand continually before thee, and hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord they
God, which delighted in thee to set thee on his throne ..... And she gave the
king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices great abundance and
precious stones: neither was there any such spice as the queen of Sheba gave
king Solomon ..... And king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all her desire,
whatever she asked ..... So she turned, and went away to her own land, she and
her servants." (2 Chronicles, 9: 1-12. A similar account is also found in I
Kings, 10: 1-13).
In the New Testament. the following sentence only has
been reported from a discourse of the Prophet Jesus about the queen of Sheba .
"The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation,
and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear
the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here." (Matthew,
12: 42; Luke, 11: 31).
The story of the Prophet Solomon and the queen of
Sheba as given in the rabbinical traditions resembles in most parts with the
Qur'anic version. The hopoe's absence, then its .arrival and reporting about
Sheba and its queen, the Prophet Solomon's sending her a letter through it, the
hoopoe's dropping the letter in front of the queen right at the time when she
was going for sun-worship, the queen's calling for her ministers' council, then
her sending of valuable gifts to Solomon, her traveling to Jerusalem and meeting
him personally, her arrival in the palace and thinking that Prophet Solomon was
sitting in the midst of a pool of water, tucking up her skirt in order to enter
it-all this has been mentioned in these traditions as in the Qur'an. But there
is no mention whatsoever in these traditions of the Prophet Solomon's reply on
receipt of the gift, having the queen's th rune fetched from Ma'rib, his bowing
down before God in thankfulness for every favor of His, and the queen's
embracing the Faith ultimately, at his hand, his belief in the oneness of God,
etc. And worst of all, these wicked people have accused Prophet Solomon of
having committed adultery, God forbid, with the queen of Sheba, giving rise to
an illegitimate race, which gave birth to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon,
who destroyed Jerusalem. (Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. XI, p. 443). The fact of the
matter is that n section of the Jewish learned men have been highly critical of
the Prophet Solomon. They have accused him of heinous crimes like violating the
Commandments of the Torah, of pride of government, pride of wisdom, of being a
hen-pecked husband, and of luxurious living, polytheism and idol-worship.
(Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. XI, pp. 439-441). It is due to this propaganda that
the Bible presents him only as a king instead of a Prophet, a king who was lost
in the love of polytheistic women against the Divine Commandments, whose heart
was turned away from God, and was turned to other gods and goddesses. (I Kings,
11: 1-11). As against this it can be seen what great favor has the Qur'an done
to the Israelites by cleansing the personalities of their elders of the tilth
thrown at them by themselves, and yet the Israelites, ungrateful as they are,
look upon the Qur'an and him who brought it as their enemies.
57For
comparison. see Al-A'raf: 73-79, Hud: 61-68, Ash-Shu'ara': 141159, AI-Qamar:
23-32, Ash-Shams: 11-15.
58That is, as soon as the Prophet Salih
embarked on his mission, his people were divined into two groups, the believers
and the disbelievers, and a conflict started between them as stated elsewhere in
the Qur'an:
"The chiefs of his tribe, who .were full of pride, said to
those who had believed from among the oppressed people, 'Do you know it for
certain that Salih is a Messenger from his Lord?' They replied, `Indeed, we
believe in the message with which he has been sent.' But those who had arrogant
assumption of superiority, said, `We deny that which you believe'." (Al-A'raf:
75-76).
One should note that precisely the same situation arose in Makkah
at the advent of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace be upon him). The
nation was divided into two factions and a conflict started between them.
Therefore, this story fully applied to the conditions in which these verses were
revealed.
59That is, "Why do you hasten in asking for a torment instead
of some good from Allah`?" The following saying of the chiefs of the Prophet
Salih's people has been related at another place: "O Salih, bring that scourge
with which you threaten us, if you really are one of the Messengers."
(Al-A`raf:77).
60One meaning of what they said is: "Your movement has
proved to be an evil omen for us. Since you and your companions have revolted
against the ancestral religion, one or the other calamity is befalling us almost
daily, because our deities have become angry with us. In this sense, this saying
is similar to the sayings of most of those polytheistic nations who regarded
their Prophets as ominous. In Surah Ya Sin, for instance, a nation has been
mentioned, which said to its Prophet "We regard you as an evil omen for
ourselves." (v. 18) The same thing was said by the Pharaoh's people about the
Prophet Moses: "Whenever a good time came, they would say, `This is but our
due', and when there was a bad time, they would ascribe their calamities to
Moses and his companions." (Al A`raf 130) Almost similar things were said in
Makkah about the Holy Prophet also.
The other meaning of their saying is
this: "Your advent has stirred up divisions in our nation. Before this we were a
united people, who followed one religion. Your ominous coming has turned brother
against brother, and separated son from father. " This very accusation was being
brought against the Holy Prophet by his opponents over and over again. Soon
after he started his mission of inviting the people to the Faith, the delegation
of the chiefs of the Quraish, who went to Abu Talib, had said, "Give up to us
this nephew of yours: he has opposed your religion and your forefathers'
religion and has sown discord among your people, and has held the whole nation
as foolish." (Ibn Hisham, Vol. I. p. 285).
On the occasion of Hajj, when
the disbelievers of Makkah feared that the visitors from outside might be
influenced by the Holy Prophet, they held consultations and decided to approach
the Arab tribes and tell them: "This man is a sorcerer, who by his sorcery
separates son from his father, brother from his brother, wife from her husband,
and man from his family." (Ibn Hisham, p. 289).
61That is, "The truth is
not that which you understand it to be. The fact which you have not yet realized
is that my advent has put you to the test. Until my arrival you were following a
beaten track in your ignorance. You could not recognize the truth from the
falsehood; you had no criterion for judging the genuine from the counterfeit;
your worst people were lording over your best people, who were rolling in the
dust. But now a criterion has come against which you will all be judged and
assessed. Now a balance has been set up publicly, which will weigh everybody
according to his true worth. Now both the truth and the falsehood have been made
manifest. Whoever accepts the truth will weigh heavy whether he was not being
held even worth a farthing so far; and whoever persists in falsehood will not
weigh a gramme even though he was being esteemed as the chief of the chiefs
before this. Now the judgment will not be based on the nobility or otherwise of
the family one came of, or the abundance of the means and resources that one
possessed, or one's physical strength but on this whether one accepted the truth
gracefully or preferred to remain attached to falsehood."
62That is, nine
chiefs of the tribes each of whom had a band of followers with him.
63"The guardian": the chief of the Prophet Salih's tribe, who, according to the
ancient tribal tradition and custom, could make a claim to blood vengeance. The
same was the position in Makkah of the Holy Prophet's uncle, Abu Talib. The
Quraish were hesitant that if they attacked and killed the Holy Prophet, Abu
Talib, the chief of Bani Hashim, would come out with a claim to blood vengeance
on behalf of his clan.
64This precisely was the kind of plot which the
Makkan chiefs of the clans were devising against the Holy Prophet, and they
devised the same ultimately on the occasion of migration (Hijrah) to kill him.
They decided that men from all the clans would attack him in a body so that the
Bani Hashim could not hold any one of the clans as responsible for the murder,
and, therefore, would find it impossible to fight all of them at one and the
same time.
65That is, "Before they could make the night attack on the
Prophet Salih at the appointed time Allah sent down His scourge which destroyed
their whole nation completely. It appears that they made this plot after
hamstringing the she-camel. According to Surah Hud: 65, when they had killed the
she-camel, Prophet Salih gave them a notice to enjoy life in their houses for
three more days, for then they would be seized by the torment. At this they
might have thought that the torment with which Salih threatened them might come
or might not, but they must take We vengeance on Salih himself. Therefore, most
probably they chose We same night for We attack which Allah had appointed for
sending down We torment, and thus were struck down by Allah even before they
could touch We Prophet Salih."
66That is, "The ignorant people will say,
`There is no link between We Prophet Salih and his she-camel and We earthquake
which struck We people of Thamud. These Wings have Weir natural causes. Their
occurrence or otherwise has nothing to do with We piety and wickedness of the
people of a place, with Weir high-handedness or Weir show of mercy. It is
meaningless merely to say that such and such a city or land was filled with sin
and wickedness, and therefore, it was overwhelmed by flood, or its habitation
turned upside down by an earthquake, or it was ruined by a sudden disaster'."
But We people who possess knowledge know that this universe is not being ruled
by a deaf and blind God, but by an All-Wise, All-Knowing One Who is deciding We
destinies. His decisions are not subject to physical causes, but We physical
causes are subject to His will. His decisions to debase or exalt nations are not
taken blindly but with wisdom and justice. In His Book of Law Were is also
included We principle of retribution, according to which the wicked are made to
suffer for Weir evil deeds even in this world, on moral grounds. The people who
are aware of these realities, cannot explain away We occurrence of an earthquake
by citing physical and natural causes; they will rather look upon them as the
scourge of warning for themselves, and they will learn lessons from it. They
will try to understand those moral causes because of which the Creator
annihilated a flourishing nation, which He Himself had created. They will divert
Weir conduct and attitude from We track that brings Allah's wrath to We way that
joins them to His mercy.
67For comparison, See Al-A`raf: 80-84; Hud,
74-83, Al-Hijr: 57-77, Al-Anbiya': 71-75, Ash-Shu`ara': 160-174, Al-`Ankabut:
28-75, As-Saffat: 133138, Al-Qamar: 33-39.
68This can have several
meanings and probably all are implied: (1) `That you are not unaware of this
act's being wicked, but you commit it knowing it to be so"; (2) "You are also
not unaware that the man has not been created for the man's sex satisfaction but
the woman, and the distinction between them (man and woman) is not such as you
cannot perceive, yet with open eyes you commit this abominable act." (3) "You
indulge in this indecency publicly when there are people watching you", as
stated in Surah `Ankbut: 29, thus: " ..... and you indulge in indecencies in
your assemblies."
69The word jahalat here has been used in the sense of
folly and stupidity. But even if it is taken in the sense of ignorance and lack
of knowledge, it will mean: "You do not know the evil consequences of your acts.
You only know that you are deriving sensual pleasure, but you do not know what
severe punishment awaits you for this criminal and heinous pleasure-seeking. The
scourge of Allah is ready to strike you but you are engaged in a senseless,
filthy game with impunity.
70That is, "The Prophet Lot had already been
instructed not to take the woman along because she had to be destroyed along
with her people."
71From here starts the second discourse, and this is
its introductory sentence. This introduction teaches how the Muslims should
begin a speech. That is why the truly Islamic-minded people have always been
starting their speeches and discourses with the praise of Allah and salutation
on His righteous servants. But now this is looked upon as characteristic of
bigotry, and the present-day Muslim speakers have no idea of starting their
speech with these words, or feel shy of doing so.
72Superficially the
question whether Allah is better or the false deities appears to be odd. As a
matter of fact, there can be no question of goodness in the false gods and,
therefore, they cannot be compared to Allah. As for the polytheists, even they
had no misconception that Allah could be compared to their gods. But they were
asked this question in order to be warned against their error. For obviously
none in the world would do anything unless he saw some good in it. Now if the
polytheists served their deities and implored them for their needs instead of
Allah, and presented their offerings before them, this would be meaningless
unless they perceived some good in them. That is why they have been explicitly
asked to consider whether Allah is better or their deities, for they could not
face and answer this forth-right question. Even the most hardened polytheist
among them could not venture to say that their deities were better. But if they
acknowledged that Allah is better it would demolish their whole creed, for then
it would be unreasonable to adopt the inferior against the superior creed. The
Meaning of the Qur'an Thus, the Qur'an at the very outset made the opponents
helpless. After this, pointed questions have been asked, one after the other,
about the manifestations of the power and creation of Allah to the effect:
"Whose works are these? Is there besides Allah any other god also associated
with these works'? If not, why have you then set up these others as your
deities?"
According to traditions, whenever the Holy Prophet recited this
verse, he would immediately respond to it, saying: "Nay, but Allah is better,
and He alone is the Everlasting and Exalted and High."
73No one from
among the mushriks could answer that someone other than Allah had done these
works, or someone else was Allah's associate in doing these. The Qur'an at other
places says with respect to the pagans of Makkah and the Arab mushrikin: "If you
ask them, 'Who has created the heavens and the earth?' they will surely say:
'The All-Mighty, the All-Knowing One has created them'." (Az-Zukhruf: 9) "And if
you ask them, Who has created them? they will surely say, 'Allah'." (Az-Zukhruf:
87), "If you ask them, 'Who sent down rain water from the sky and thereby raised
the dead earth back to life ?' They will surely say, 'Allah'." (Al-`Ankabut:
63). "Ask them: Who provides for you from the heavens and the earth? Who has
power over these faculties of hearing and sight? Who brings forth the living
from the dead and the dead from the living? Who controls and directs the system
of the universe?' They will surely say, 'Allah'." (Yunus: 31 ). Not only the
polytheists of Arabia but of the whole world generally acknowledged, and
acknowledge even today, that Allah is the Creator of the universe and He alone
controls and directs its system. Therefore, none of them could answer this
question even obstinately for the sake of the argument that their deities were
Allah's associates in those works, for if he had done so, thousands of his own
people would have belied him saying that, that was not their belief.
This
and the other questions that follow not only contain a refutation of the creed
of shirk (polytheism) but of atheism as well. For example, in this first very
question, it has been asked, "Who has sent down rainwater and caused to spring
up by it beautiful gardens?" Just consider whether the presence of the
substances essential for the growth of countless kinds of plant life, in the
soil or near the soil, and the existence in water of those very qualities which
are in accordance with the requirements of animal and vegetable life, and the
evaporation of this water again and again from the seas, and its condensation
and raining regularly in different parts of the earth from time to time, and the
coordination between the soil and the air, the water, the temperature;.etc.,
conducive to proper growth of plant life and fulfillment of the countless
requirements of every sort of animal life, could be just accidental, or the
result of the wise scheming and planning the supreme power and will of an
All-Wise Designer. And is it possible that this accident should continue to
recur constantly for millions and millions of years on end? Only an obstinate
person who has been blinded by prejudice will regard it as accidental, for no
truth loving, sensible person can make such a senseless claim or accept it.
74It is not a simple thing for the earth to be a place of rest for the
countless kinds of different creations living on it. If man looks into the wise
harmony and coordination with which this sphere of the earth has been
established, he is simply amazed and starts feeling that these harmonies and
concordances and relations could not be brought about without the grand design
of an All-Wise, All Knowing and All-Powerful God. This sphere of the earth is
floating in space and is not resting on anything, yet there is no commotion and
no vibration in its movement. Had there been any vibration in it, such as we
experience during an earthquake, life could not exist here. This sphere comes
before the sun and hides from it regularly, which causes the alternation of the
day and night. Had it turned the same face perpetually towards the sun and kept
the other side always hidden, no life could be possible here, for on the bright
side all life would have been shriveled up, and on the dark side all life would
have been frozen to death. The sphere is enveloped by a five hundred mile thick
atmosphere, which protects it against the' continual bombardment of meteors,
otherwise the twenty million meteors on the average, which dart towards the
earth daily at 30 miles per second, would have caused such destruction as would
not have allowed any man animal or tree to survive. The same atmosphere controls
the temperature, raises clouds from the oceans, carries water to different parts
of the earth and provides the required gases that sustain the human, animal and
plant life. Without it the earth could not become a fit place of rest for any
kind of animal life. Just under the earth's surface all those minerals and
chemicals which are essential to the survival of vegetable and animal life have
been provided in abundance. Wherever these natural resources do not exist, the
land there cannot sustain any kind of life. A great store of water has been
arranged on the earth in the form of oceans, rivers, lakes, springs and
underground channels and snow on the mountains which melts and flows down in the
form of rivers. Without such an arrangement there could be no life. Then the
earth has been endowed with an appropriate gravitational pull by which it keeps
the water and the air and all other things found on it attracted to it. If this
pull had been a little less strong, it could not have stopped the air and the
water from escaping. It would also have so much increased the temperature that
life here would have become difficult. On the other hand, if the gravitational
pull had been a little stronger, the atmosphere would have been denser, its
pressure would have increased, evaporation would have become difficult and rains
impossible; the cold would have increased and less areas on earth would have
been inhabitable; men and animals would have been shorter in size but heavier in
weight, which would have made movement difficult. Besides, this sphere has been
located at a suitable distance from the sun, which is most appropriate for the
population here. If the distance had been longer, the earth would have received
less of heat, the climate would have been much colder, the seasons much longer
and the earth would be hardly inhabitable. On the other hand, if the distance
had been shorter, the intensity of the heat along with other factors would have
rendered it unfit for the kind of life man is living here.
These are a
few of those harmonies and concordances due to which earth has become a place of
rest for its population. A man with a little common sense who is aware of these
facts cannot imagine for a moment that these concordances have come into
existence without the design of an All-Wise Creator, as a mere accident, nor can
he ever conceive that a god or goddess, jinn or prophet, saint or angel, could
have had any hand in the creation and bringing into operation of this grand
design.
75That is, the bodies of sweet and saline waters that exist on
the earth but do not , intermingle. Underground water channels mostly flow
separately with sweet water and saline water side by side. Even in the middle of
the bitter seas there exist at some places springs of sweet water; their current
remains separate from the sea water and the sea passengers obtain their drinking
water from it. (For further explanation, see, E.N. 68 of Surah Al-Furqan) .
76The Arab polytheists themselves knew and acknowledged that Allah alone
could avert a disaster. Therefore, the Qur'an reminds them again and again that
they implore Allah alone for help when they are confronted by a calamity. But
when the calamity is removed, they start invoking others besides Allah. (For
details, see E.N.'s. 29 to 41 of Al-An`am, Yunus: 21-22, E.N. 46 of An-Nahl, and
E.N. 84 of Bani Isra'il). And this is not only true of the Arab polytheists but
of all polytheists; so much so that even the Russian atheists who are regularly
campaigning against God-Worship, had to invoke God when in the Second World War
they were tightly encircled by the German forces.
77This has two
meanings: (1) "He raises one generation after the other and one nation after the
other"; and (2) "He gives you power and authority to rule in the earth"
78That is, "He has made such arrangements by means of the stars that you can
find your way even in the darkness of the night." This is also because of the
wise planning of Allah that He has created such means by which man can determine
his direction and the way to his destination in his journeys by sea and land. In
the day time he is guided by different land-marks and the direction of sunrise
and sun-set, and in the dark nights by the stars. In Surah An-Nahl this has been
counted among the bounties of Allah: "He has placed land-marks to direct people,
and by the stars, too, they are guided aright." (v. 16)
79"Allah's mercy"
the rain whose coming is promptly foretold by the winds.
80The simple
fact hat has been expressed in this one sentence is so vast in meaning and
detail that as one considers it more and more deeply one goes on getting new and
ever new proofs of Allah's existence and His unity. to the first place, take the
question of the creation itself. Man by his knowledge has not been able to
discover what is life, how and where form it comes. So far the admitted
scientific fact is that the mere arrangement of inanimate matter by itself
cannot bring about life. Though the atheists assume, unscientifically, that life
comes into existence automatically when all the elements essential for its
creation combine together accidentally in the right proportion, yet if the
mathematical law of chance is applied to it, the possibility of its occurrence
comes to naught. All attempts made so far to produce animate matter out of
inanimate matter experimentally in the laboratory have met with utter failure in
spite of employing every possible care. At the most what has been created is
DNA, which is the basic constituent of the living cell. This is the essence of
life but not life itself. Life in itself even now is a miracle which cannot be
explained scientifically except by saying that it is the result of a Creator's
will and command and design.
Furthermore, life does not exist in a
solitary form but in a limitless variety of forms. Man has so far discovered
more or less a million species of animals and two hundred thousand species of
plants on the earth, which in their constitution and special characteristics are
so clearly and absolutely different from one another, and have been maintaining
their distinctive features since the earliest known times so consistently that
no Darwin could ever give any rational explanation of this great variety of life
except the existence of the creative design of One God. Not a link has so far
been discovered between any two species, which might have broken up the form of
the characteristics and constitution of one species and might be struggling to
attain the characteristics and constitution of another species. The whole record
of the fossils is without such a precedent, and among the existing animals also
there is no such "eunuch" in its physical form. Any member of any species that
exists is found with the distinctive features of its own species, and every
story that is invented and announced from time to tune about the discovery of
some missing link is destroyed by the facts themselves. Therefore, the
inevitable fact is that it is the All-Wise Designer, the Planner of creation,
its Enforcer and its Fashioner, Who has endowed life with all its countless
different forms.
This was about the beginning of the creation. Now let us
consider its reproduction. The Creator has placed in the constitution and
snake-up of every animal and vegetable species such a wonderful mechanism, which
goes on producing through its countless members an endless race exactly with its
own distinctive form and nature and characteristics, and it never has happened
even by mistake that in these millions and millions of tiny sex workshops a
certain workshop of a species may have turned out a specimen of a different
species. The observations of modern Genetics in this connection present
wonderful facts. Every plant has been so endowed with the capability of
procreating its species that the new generation should possess all the
distinctive characteristics of its own species and its every member should be
distinguished in its special features from the members of all other species.
This element for the survival of the species and its procreation is contained in
a part of a cell of every plant, which can be seen with effort only through a
most powerful microscope. This tiny engineer directs the whole development the
plant precisely and definitely on the way which is the way .of its own
distinctive species. That is why all the plants that have emerged from a grain
of wheat arty where in the world have in turn produced only wheat. In no climate
and in no region has it ever happened that from the whole race of a grain of
wheat even a single grain of barley might have emerged. The same is the case
with animals and men. None of them has been created just for once, but on an
inconceivably high scale a huge factory of reproduction is functioning every
where, which is constantly bringing into existence, from the members of every
species, countless other members of the same species. If one considers the
microscopic germ of procreation which along with all the distinctive features
and hereditary characteristics of its species is found in a small portion of its
tiny self and thou looks at the extremely delicate and complex physiological
system and the subtle, intricate processes by which the procreative seed of
every member of every species produces a member of the same species, one cannot
conceive for a moment that such a tine and subtle system could come into being
by itself, and then keep on functioning by itself in millions and millions of
the members of different species. This thing stands in need of an All-Wise
Designer not only for its beginning but for its proper and perpetual functioning
also it needs an Administrator Who is at once Wise and Ever-Living and
Self-Subsistent, Who is ever watching and guiding the work of these workshops.
These facts destroy the very basis of an atheist's denial of God as also of
a polytheist's creed of polytheism. A foolish person only can think that an
angel or a jinn or a prophet or a saint has any hand in this work of God, but no
unbiased person possessed of a little common sense can ever say that this huge
workshop of production and reproduction with all its underlying wisdom and order
started working just accidentally and has since been working so automatically.
81The question of the provision of sustenance also is not so simple as a
person may feel it to be from a cursory study of this brief sentence. There
exist on this earth millions of animal and vegetable species, each comprising
billions of members having different food requirements. The Creator has arranged
the means of sustenance for each species in such abundance and so within easy
reach that members of no species ever go without food. Then the agencies of the
earth and sky which combine and work together in this system are varied and
countless. Unless there is the right kind of coordination and harmony between
the heat, light, air, water and the diverse substances of the earth, not a
single particle of food can be produced.'
Can anyone conceive that this
wise system could come about just accidentally. without the intelligent planning
and design of an All-Wise Creator? And can anybody in his senses imagine that in
this system there could be any hand of a Jinn or an angel or the spirit of a
pious man?
82That is, "You should either bring a proof to show that
someone else is an associate of Allah in these works, or, if that is not
possible, you should at least explain by an argument why you should worship and
serve any other god beside Allah, when One Allah alone has done, and is doing,
all these works."
83In the preceding verses, arguments have been given to
prove that Allah is the One and only Deity when considered from the viewpoint of
creation, design and provision of the means of sustenance. Now in this verse it
is being told that from the viewpoint of knowledge too, which is an important
attribute of Godhead, Allah is Unique and without associate. Whatever creations
are therein the heavens and the earth, whether angels or jinns, prophets and
saints, or other men and other creatures, they have only limited knowledge.
Something is hidden from all of them. The All-Knowing One is only Allah, from
Whom nothing whatever of this universe is hidden, and Who knows every thing of
the past and the present and the future.
The word ghaib means something
hidden and covered. As a term it implies everything which is unknown, and beyond
one's sphere of knowledge and information. There are many things in the world
which individually are known to some human beings and. unknown to others. And
there are many others which taken as a whole have never been known to any of
mankind, nor are known at present; nor will be known in the future: The same is
the case with the jinns and the angels and other kinds of creation: certain
things are known to some of them and hidden from others, and many things hidden
from all of them and known to none. All kinds of hidden things are only known to
One Being, the All-Knowing Allah. For Him nothing is unknown everything is known
and evident.
In order to bring out this reality the method of the
question as employed above with regard to creation, design and sustenance of the
universe has not been adopted here. The reason is that the manifestations of
those attributes are clear and evident which everyone sees, and which even the
pagans and polytheists acknowledged, and do even today, that they are the works
of Allah. So, the argument adopted above was: When all these works, as you
admit, are being done by Allah, and no one else is His partner in these, why
have you then made others His associates in Divinity, and in His worship?
However, the attribute of knowledge . has no perceptible manifestation which may
be referred to and pointed out. It can be comprehended only by thought and
reflection. Therefore, it has been put forward as an assertion instead of a
question. Now it is for every intelligent person to think and consider for
himself whether it is reasonable to believe that there should be any other than
Allah, who is all-knowing, i.e. who knows all those conditions and things and
realities which existed in the universe in the past; or exist now; or will exist
in the future. And if there is none other who is all knowing, and cannot be,
then is it reasonable to believe that any of those who are not aware fully of
the realities and conditions and circumstances can become the answerer of the
people's prayers, fulfiller of their needs and remover of their hardships ?
There is a subtle relationship between Divinity and the knowledge of the
unseen and hidden. Since the earliest times in whatever being has man imagined
the presence of an attribute of Godhead, he has taken it for granted that it
knows everything and nothing is hidden from it. In other words, it is
self-evident for man to believe that making or marring the destinies, answering
the prayers, fulfilling the needs and helping everyone in need of help, can be
the work of the being who knows everything and from whom nothing is hidden. That
is why whomever man has regarded as possessor of the powers and authority of
Godhead he has necessarily regarded him as the knower of all hidden things as
well. For his intellect testifies rightly that knowledge and authority are
inter-dependent. Now if it is a fact that none but God is the Creator and the
Designer and the Answerer of the prayers and the Providence, as has been proved
in the foregoing verses, then it is also a self-evident reality that none but
God is the Knower of the hidden things. After all, who in his senses could
imagine that an angel or a jinn or a prophet or a saint or any other creature
would be knowing where and what kinds of animals existed in the oceans and in
the atmosphere and under the layers of the earth and upon its surface? And what
is the correct number of the planets in the heavens? And what kinds of creatures
exist in each of them? And where is each one of these creatures living and what
are its requirements? All this should necessarily be known to Allah, because He
has created them and He alone has to watch over their conditions and control
their affairs and arrange for their sustenance. But how can some one else with
his limited self have this vast and all-embracing knowledge and what has he to
do with the functions of creation and sustenance that he should know these
things?
Then this quality is also not divisible in the sense that a
person, for instance, may be the knower of everything on the earth, or the
knower of everything concerning human beings only, on the earth. It is in the
same way indivisible as are God's Creativity and His Providence and His
Self-Subsistence indivisible. After all, how can it be possible for one to know
all the affairs and all the conditions and states of all human beings who have
been born in the world since the beginning of creation, and will be born till
Resurrection, from the time their mothers conceived them till the time they will
breath their last ? And how and why will he know all this ? Is he the creator of
these countless multitudes ? Did he create their seed in their fathers'
sperm-drop ? Did he mold and shape them in their mother's womb? Did he arrange
for their normal birth'? Did he make the destiny of each one of them? Is he
responsible for taking decisions with regard to their life and death, their
health and ill-health, their prosperity and adversity, and their rise and fall
in the world ? And since when did he become responsible for it? Since before his
own birth or since after it ? And how can these responsibilities remain confined
only to human beings? This is only a part of the universal administration of the
heavens and the earth. The Being Who is controlling the whole universe is the
Being Who alone can be responsible for the creation and death of men, for
restricting and extending their provisions and for making and marring their
destinies.
That is why it is a fundamental article of Islam that none
other than Allah is the Knower of the hidden and unseen things. Allah may
disclose whatever of His information He wills to whomsoever of His servants He
pleases and bless him with the knowledge of one or more of the hidden things as
a whole. Being the Knower of all hidden and unseen things is the attribute only
of Allah, Who is the Lord of all creation "He alone has the keys of the `unseen'
of which none has the knowledge but He." (Al-An`am: 59) "Allah alone has the
knowledge of the Hour: He alone sends down the rain and He alone knows what is
(taking shape) in the wombs of the mothers. No living being knows what he will
earn the next day, nor does anybody know in what land he will die." (Luqman 34)
"He knows what is before the people and also what is hidden from them; and they
cannot comprehend anything of His knowledge save whatever He Himself may please
to reveal." (Al Baqarah: 255).
The Qur'an does not rest content with this
general and absolute negation of the knowledge of the hidden and unseen for the
different forms of creation, but about the Prophets in particular, and the Holy
Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be Allah's peace) himself it clearly says that they
do not possess the knowledge of the hidden and unseen, and that they were given
only that much knowledge of the hidden by Allah as was necessary to enable them
to carry out the duties of Prophethood. Surah Al-An`am.: 50, Al-A'raf: 187, At-Taubah:
101, Hud: 31, AlAhzab: 63, Al-Ahqaf: 9, At-Tahrim: 3 and Al-Jinn: 26-28 do not
leave any room for doubt in this regard.
All these elucidations of the
Qur'an support and explain the verse under discussion after which there remains
no doubt that looking upon another than Allah as the knower of the hidden and
unseen and believing that someone else also possesses the knowledge of all the
past and future events, is an absolutely un-Islamic belief. Bukhari, Muslim,
Tirmidhi, Nasa'i, Imam Ahmad, Ibn Jarir and Ibn Abu Hatim have cited this saying
of Hadrat `A'ishah. through authentic reporters: "Whoever claimed that the Holy
Prophet (peace be upon him) knew what was going to happen the next day, accused
Allah of lying, for Allah says: O Prophet, say, `None in the heavens and the
earth has the knowledge of the hidden and unseen but Allah'." Ibn al-Mundhir has
reported this on the authority of 'Ikrimah, the well-known pupil of Hadrat
'Abdullah bin 'Abbas: "A person asked the Holy Prophet: O Muhammad, when will
Resurrection be? And our territory is suffering from famine: when will it rain ?
And my wife is pregnant: what will she deliver, a boy or a girl? And I know what
I have earned today; but what shall I earn tomorrow? And I know where I was
born, but where shall I die?" In reply, the Holy Prophet recited verse 34 of
Surah Luqman as cited above. Then the well-known Tradition as reported in
Bukhari; and Muslim and other works of Hadith also supports the same. According
to it one of the questions asked by Angel Gabriel from the Holy Prophet when he
sat among the Companions in human shape before him, was: "When will Resurrection
be?" The Holy Prophet replied: "The one being questioned knows no better than
the one questioning." Then added, "This is one of those five things whose
knowledge is possessed by none but Allah," and then he recited the above-cited
verse of Surah Luqman .
84That is "Those others about whom it is thought
that they possess the knowledge of the hidden and, therefore, are regarded as
partners in Divinity, are themselves unaware of their future. They do not know
when will Resurrection be when Allah will raise them up again.
85After
warning the people about their basic errors with regard to Divinity, it is being
said that the reason why these people are involved in these errors is not that
they have reached this conclusion after serious thought and deliberation that
there exist other beings also who are Allah's associates in His Divinity, but
the actual reason is that they have never considered this matter seriously. As
they are unaware of the Hereafter, or are in doubt about it, or are blind to it,
their heedlessness of the Hereafter has developed in them an utterly
irresponsible attitude. They are not at all serious about the universe and the
real problems of their own lives. They do not bother to know what reality is and
whether their philosophy of life accords with that reality or not. For,
according to them, in the end the polytheist and the atheist, the monotheist and
the agnostic, all will become one with the dust after death, and nothing will
bear any fruit.
The theme of the Hereafter is contained in this sentence
of the preceding verse: "They do not know when they will be raised back to
life." In that sentence it was said that those who are made deities-the angels,
jinns, prophets, saints, etc., do not themselves know when will Resurrection be.
Here three things have been said about the common polytheists and the atheists:
(1) They do not at all know whether there will be any Hereafter or not; (2) this
lack of information on their part is not due to the reason that they were never
informed of this, but because they did not believe in the information given to
them and doubted its authenticity; and (3) they never bothered to consider with
due thought and seriousness the arguments that were advanced about the coming of
the Hereafter, but they preferred to remain blind to it.
86This brief
sentence contains two strong arguments for the Hereafter as well as admonition:
Firstly, those communities who rejected the Hereafter could not help
becoming criminals: they lived irresponsibly; they committed cruelties and all
kinds of sin; and ultimately their moral depravity led them to utter ruin. This
continuous experience of human history which is testified by the doomed
communities all over the world, clearly shows that belief and unbelief in the
Hereafter has a deep relationship with the soundness or the unsoundness of human
behavior. Belief in it generates sound behavior and denial of it unsound
behavior. This is a clear proof of the fact that belief in it is in accordance
with the reality; that is why belief helps life to follow the right path. And
rejection of it is against the reality; that is why rejection leads life into
crooked alleys.
Secondly, the destruction of the communities, which
became criminals, one after the other, in the long experience of history is a
clear pointer to the fact that this universe is not being ruled by the deaf and
blind and senseless forces, but this is a wise system which is functioning
according to the unalterable law of retribution, which is dealing with the human
communities only on moral grounds, in which no community is given long enough
rope to commit whatever evil it likes and continue to enjoy life and commit
injustices after it has once risen to power and prosperity. But when a wicked
community happens to reach a certain stage, a mighty hand topples it from power
and hurls it into the abyss of ignominy. Anyone who realizes this fact can have
no doubt that the same law of retribution calls for the establishment of a new
world after this world, where all individuals and nations and the whole mankind
collectively should be rewarded and punished for their deeds. For the
requirements of justice cannot be fulfilled only by the destruction of a wicked
nation; this does not in any way redress the grievances of the oppressed people;
this does not punish those who had enjoyed life and left the world before the
coming down of the scourge; this does not also take to task those wicked people
who went on leaving behind them legacies of immoralities and deviations for the
coming generations. The torment that visited the nation only put a stop to the
further tyrannies of its last generation. The court has not yet started working,
to punish every wicked person for the evil done, to compensate every oppressed
person for the losses incurred, and to reward all those who stood by the right
against the onslaught of evil, endeavored to reform things and faced
persecutions in this way throughout their lives. All this should necessarily
happen at some time. For the continuous operation in the world of the law of
retribution clearly points to the temperament and technique of the ruling
government of the universe that it judges human deeds by moral standards and
punishes and rewards them accordingly.
Besides these two arguments, the
aspect of admonition in this verse is: "Learn lessons from the fate of the
guilty people of the past, and do not persist in the foolish belief of the
denial of the Hereafter, which, in fact, was responsible for making them
criminals. "
87That is, "You have done full justice to your mission of
preaching. Now if they do not listen to you, and wish to persist in their folly
and deserve the Divine torment, you should not consume yourself by being
distressed and grieved at their condition. Then, why should you feel vexed at
their mean machinations that they are devising in order to fight the truth and
to frustrate your movement of return `? You have Allah's power at your back. If
they do not listed to you, they will only be harming themselves, not you."
88The same threat which is implied in the preceding verse. What they meant
was: "When will the scourge with which you threaten us overtake us? Why are we
not being punished when we have not only rejected you but have also done
whatever we could to frustrate your mission'?"
89This is a royal way of
saying a thing. When words like "perhaps", "no wonder", etc. occur in the Divine
discourse, they do not contain any sense of doubt, but express Allah's
Independence and Self-Sufficiency. Allah's power is so great that His willing a
thing and its happening is one and the same thing. It is inconceivable that He
should will a thing and it should not happen. Therefore, when He says, "No
wonder it may well be so", it means, "It will certainly be so if you do not mend
your ways."
90That is, "It is Allah's mercy that He does not seize the
culprit immediately after his commission of a crime but gives him respite to
reform himself. But most people are not grateful for this, and do not utilize
the period of respite for their reformation. On the contrary, when they see that
they have not been taken to task immediately, they form the idea that there is
none to call theta to account. Therefore, they are free to do whatever they like
and they should not listen to any word of admonition".
91That is, "He is
not only aware of their open misdeeds but is also fully aware of the malice and
spite which they are concealing in their hearts and the evil plots which they
are making secretly. Therefore, when the time comes to call them to account,
they will be taken to task for everything done and thought."
92Here by
"Book" is not meant the Qur'an, but the Divine Record in which everything has
been registered.
93This sentence is connected with the foregoing theme as
well as with what follows. In the first case, it means that it is a
manifestation of the knowledge of the All-Knowing God that He is explaining
through a gentile (non-Jew) in this Qur'an the reality of those events which are
a part of the Israelite history, and which are being disputed by the learned men
of the Israelites themselves. (The examples of this have been given in the early
part of this Surah as explained in our Notes). In the second case, it means that
just as Allah has decided those disputes, so He will decide this dispute also
which is going on between the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace be upon
him) and his opponents as to who is following the truth and who the falsehood.
So, a few years after the revelation of these verses the Decision came before
the whole world. In the same land of Arabia and in the same clan of the Quraish
there was not left a single person who was not convinced that it was Muhammad
(upon whom be Allah's peace) who was following the Truth and not Abu Jahl and
Abu Lahab. Even the children of these people admitted that their fathers were in
the wrong.
94That is, "It is Mercy and Guidance for those who accept the
message of the Qur'an and believe in what it presents. Such people will be saved
from the errors in which their own people are involved. They will find the right
way of life by means of the Qur'an and they will be blessed with such favors by
Allah, which the disbelievers among the Quraish cannot even imagine today." This
shower of Allah's mercy was also witnessed by the world after a few years. The
same people who were living unknown lives in a corner of the Arabian desert and
could at the most become successful raiders in the state of unbelief, suddenly
emerged after their belief in the Qur'an as the guides of the world, leaders of
the nations, makers of human civilization and rulers over a vast part of the
world.
95"Between these people": Between the disbelievers of the Quraish
and the believers.
96That is, "Neither can any power withhold His
judgment from being enforced, nor is there any chance of an error in His
judgment."
97"The dead" the ones whose consciences are dead and whose
stubbornness, obstinacy and love of the usage and custom have deprived them of
the sense of discrimination between the Truth and falsehood.
98That is,
"Who not only close their ears against what you say, but slink away from the
place where they fear they aught hear what you say.
99That is, "It is
none of your job to pull them forcibly to the right way and drag them along with
you. You can only tell them by the word of mouth and by your example that this
is the right way and the way they are following is the wrong way But how can you
guide the one who has closed his eyes and is not at all inclined to see
anything?"
100That is, "...when Resurrection which they are being
promised will approach."
101According to Ibn `Umar, this will happen
when there remains no one in the world to command the people to do good and
forbid them to do evil. Ibn Marduyah has reported a Hadith on the authority of
Abu Said Khudri; according to which the latter heard the same thing from the
Holy Prophet himself. This shows that when man gives up the duty of exhorting
others to do good and forbidding them to do evil, Allah will bring forth a beast
to serve as the final warning just before Resurrection. This, however, is not
clear whether it will be just one beast, or a particular species of beasts, who
will spread all over the earth. The words daabbat-an-min-al-ard might contain
both the meanings. In any case, what it will say will be: "The people did not
believe Allah's Revelations in which Resurrection was foretold. Now the same
Resurrection is about to come; Iet everyone know that what Allah said was true".
The sentence, "The people did not believe in Our Revelations", is either a part
of the beast's own speech, or Allah's narration of its words. If these are its
own words, the word "Our" will be understood in the style of an official who
speaks on behalf of his government and not on his personal behalf. In the second
case, since Allah is narrating the beast's words, He has used "Our Revelations"
in the normal sense.
As to the time and occasion of the appearance of
this beast, the Holy Prophet has said: "The sun will rise in the west and the
beast will suddenly appear in the open daylight. Whichever of these signs
appears first, it will be closely followed by the other." (Muslim) In the other
traditions related in Muslim, Ibn Majah, Tirmidhi, Musnad Ahmad, etc. the Holy
Prophet foretold that the signs of Resurrection-emergence of the Anti-Christ (Dajjal),
appearance of the beast, smoke and the rising of the sun in the west -will
appear one after the other.
As for the nature, general appearance, place
of appearance and other details about the beast, contradictory traditions have
been reported, which only cause confusion and are not relevant to the object for
which this thing has been mentioned in the Qur'an.
As regards the beast's
speaking to human beings in a human language, this will be a manifestation of
the power of Allah, Who can give the power of speech to anything He pleases. He
will give this power only to a beast before the event of Resurrection, but when
Resurrection will have taken place, each limb of man-his ears, his eyes, even
his skin-will speak out and give evidence in the Court of Allah, as has been
clearly stated in Ha Mim As-Sajdah: 20-21: "Then, when all will have reached
there, their ears and their eyes and their very skins will bear witness against
them concerning what they had been doing in the world. They will say to their
skins, "Why have you borne witness against us?' They will reply, `The same God
Who has given speech to everything has given us speech'."
102That is,
"You did not deny My Revelations on the basis of some scientific investigation,
which might have proved them to be false, but you denied them without any sound
reason."
103That is, "If it is not so, can you then prove that you
treated them as false only after a thorough scientific investigation through
which you came to know that the reality was not that which was being presented
in these verses?"
104That is, "Two out of the countless signs were such
which they were observing at all times, whose benefits they were enjoying every
moment, and which were not hidden even from a blind or deaf or dumb person.
While they benefited by the rest at night and the opportunities afforded by the
day, why did they not think that it is a system devised by an All-Wise Being,
Who has established the relationship between the sun and the earth precisely to
meet their requirements and needs ? This cannot be a mere accident, for it
clearly manifests purposefulness, wisdom and planning, which cannot be the
characteristic of the blind forces of nature, nor the work of many gods. It can
only be a system established by the One Creator and Master and Disposer, Who is
ruling over the earth, the moon, the sun and all other planets. From the
observation of this single phenomenon they could judge that the alternation of
the day and night testified to the truth that We have conveyed through Our
Messenger and Our Book."
105That is, "It was not something
incomprehensible either. There were among their own relatives, their own clan
and their own brotherhood people like themselves, who had seen the same very
Signs and believed that the creed of God worship and Tauhid towards which the
Prophet was inviting them was precisely in accordance with the truth and
reality."
106For a detailed discussion of the blowing of the Trumpet, see
E.N. 47 of AI-An`am, E.N. 57 of Ibrahim, E.N. 78 of Ta Ha, E.N. 1 of Al-Hajj,
E.N.'s. 46, 47 of Ya Sin and E.N. 79 of Az-Zumar.
107That is, "From such
God you should not expect that after giving you the powers of intellect and
discrimination and control over things, He will remain unaware of your deeds and
actions and will not see how you have been using the delegated authority in the
earth."
108The reward will be better in two ways: (1) It will be higher
than what a person will actually deserve for his good deeds; and (2) it will be
everlasting and for ever though the good act was temporary and its influence
confined to a limited period only.
109That is, "Though the terrors of
Resurrection will stun and confound the disbelievers, the believers will remain
safe and secure from them, for everything in the Hereafter will be according to
their expectations. They had already known from the messages brought by the
Messengers of Allah that Resurrection will take place, and a new World will be
established when everyone will be called to account for his deeds. Therefore,
they will neither be bewildered nor alarmed, which will be the case with those
who had denied this Day and retrained heedless of it, till their last breath in
the world .They will also be satisfied because they had worked for this Day and
had brought necessary provisions from the world for their success here.
Therefore, they will not be stupefied and confounded as will be those who had
invested all their energies and capabilities 'in their struggle for achieving
worldly successes only, and had never thought that there would be life hereafter
also for which they should make some provision. Contrary to them, the believers
will be satisfied that the Day for the sake of which they had given up the
unlawful benefits and pleasures of life and had undergone hardships and toil,
had at last come, and they will not be deprived of the rewards of their works."
109aAt several places in the Qur'an it has been stated clearly that an evil
will be punished in the Hereafter only to the extent of the evil committed, but
a good act will be rewarded much more generously by Allah than what the doer
will actually deserve for it. For more examples of this, see Surah Yunus: 26-27,
AlQasas: 84. Al-'Ankabut: 7, Saba': 37-38, Al-Mu'min: 40.
110As this
Surah was sent down at a stage when the message of Islam was confined to Makkah
and its addressees were the people of that City only, it was said, "I have been
commanded that I should worship the Lord of this City." And the characteristic
of the Lord was stated to be that He had made that City sacred. This was meant
to warn the disbelievers of Makkah, as if to say, " You may if you so like prove
thankless to that God Who has done you the great favor of making this City of
yours a haven of peace in the strife-ridden land of Arabia, and Who by His grace
has made it the center of spiritual affiliation for the whole of Arabia, but I
have been commanded to be grateful to him and bow down before Him. None of your
deities had the power to make this City a sanctuary and make the quarrelsome and
plundering tribes of Arabia have respect for it. I cannot abandon my real
Benefactor and bow down before those who have done me no favor at all.