Recitation by Mishary Al-Alfasy
The name of this Surah is composed of two words, Ha-Mim and As-Sajdah, which
implies that it is a Surah which begins with Ha-Mim and in which a verse
requiring the performance of sajdah (prostration) has occurred.
Period of Revelation
According to authentic Traditions, it was sent
down after the affirmation of the Faith by Hadrat Hamzah and before the
affirmation of the Faith by Hadrat Umar. Muhammad bin Ishaq, the earliest
biographer of the Holy Prophet, has related on the authority of Muhammad bin
Ka'b al-Qurzi, the famous follower of the Companions, that one day some of the
Quraish chiefs were sitting in their assembly in the Masjid al-Haram, while in
another corner of the Mosque there was the Holy Prophet sitting by himself. This
was the time when Hadrat Hamzah had already embraced Islam and the people of the
Quraish were feeling upset at the growing numbers of the Muslims. On this
occasion, Utbah bin Rabi'ah (the father-in-law of Abu Sufyan) said to the
Quraish chiefs: "Gentlemen, if you like I would go and speak to Muhammad (upon
whom be Allah's peace and blessings) and put before him some proposals; maybe
that he accepts one of them, to which we may also agree, and so he stops
opposing us." They all agreed to this, and Utbah went and sat by the Holy
Prophet. When the Holy Prophet turned to him, he said: "Nephew, you know the
high status that you enjoy in the community by virtue of your ancestry and
family relations, but you have put your people to great trouble: you have
created divisions among them and you consider them to be fools: you talk ill of
their religion and gods, and say things as though all our forefathers were
pagans. Now listen to me and I shall make some suggestions. Consider them well:
maybe that you accept one of them." The Holy Prophet said: "Abul Walid, say what
you want to say and I shall listen to you." He said, "Nephew, if by what you are
doing, you want wealth, we will give you enough of it so that you will be the
richest man among us; if you want to became an important man, we will make you
our chief and will never decide a matter without you; if you want to be a king,
we will accept you as our king; and if you are visited by a jinn, whom you
cannot get rid of by your own power, we will arrange the best physicians and
have you treated at our own expense." 'Utbah went on speaking in this strain and
the Holy Prophet went on listening to him quietly. Then he said, "Have you said,
O Abul Walid, what you had to say?" He replied that he had. The Holy Prophet
said: "Well, now listen to me."Then pronouncing Bismilah ir Rehman-ir-Raihm he
began to recite this very Surah, and Utbah kept on listening to it, putting his
hands behind his back and leaning on them as he listened. Coming to the verse of
prostration (v. 38) the Holy Prophet prostrated himself; then raising his head,
said, "This was my reply, O Abul Walid, now you may act as you please." then
Utbah arose and walked back towards the chiefs, the people saw him from afar,
and said: "By God! Utbab's face is changed. He does not look the same man that
he was when he went from here." Then, when he came back and sat down, the people
asked, "What have you heard?" He replied, "By God! I have heard something the
like of which I had never heard before. By God, it's neither poetry, nor
sorcery, nor magic. O chiefs of the Quraish, listen to what I say and leave this
man to himself. I think what he recites is going to have its effect. If the
other Arabs overcome him, you will be saved from raising your band against your
brother, and the others will deal with him. But if he overcame Arabia, his
sovereignty would be your sovereignty and his honor your honor." Hearing this
the chiefs spoke out: "You too, O father of Walid, have been bewitched by his
tongue." Utbah replied, "I have given you my opinion; now you may act as you
please." (Ibn Hisham, vol. I, pp. 313-314).
This story has been narrated
by several other traditionists also on the authority of Hadrat Jabir bin
Abdullah in different ways, with a little variation in wording. In some
traditions it has also been related that when during the recitation the Holy
Prophet had come to verse 13, viz."If they turn away, say to them: I warn you of
a thunderbolt the like of which had visited the Ad and the Thamud,"Utbah had
spontaneously placed his hand on the Holy Prophet's mouth, and said: "For God's
sake, have mercy on your people." Afterwards he justified his action before the
Quraish chiefs, saying: "You know that whatever Muhammad says is always
fulfilled; therefore, I feared lest a torment should descend on us." (For
details, see Tafsir Ibn Kathir, vol. IV, pp. 90- 91; Al Bidayah wan-Nihayah,
vol. III, p. 62).
Theme and Subject Matter
In the discourse that Allah
sent down in response to what Utbah said, no attention whatever was paid to the
absurd proposals that he had made to the Holy Prophet. For what he had said was,
in fact, an attack on the Holy Prophet's intention and his intellect. His
assumption was that as there was no possibility of his being a Prophet and the
Quran being Allah's Revelation, inevitably the motive of his invitation must
either be the desire to obtain wealth and political power, or, God forbid, he
had lost his reason. In the first case, he wanted to make a bargain with the
Holy Prophet; in the second, he was insulting him when he said that the Quraish
chiefs would have been cured of his madness at their own expense. Obviously,
when the opponents come down to such absurd things, no gentleman would like to
answer them, but would ignore them and say what he himself had to say.
Therefore, ignoring what Utbah said, this Surah makes antagonism its subject of
discussion, which the unbelieving Quraish were showing stubbornly and wickedly
in order to defeat the message of the Qur'an. They would say to tho Holy
Prophet, "You may try however hard you try: we would not listen to you. We have
put coverings on our hearts and we have closed our ears. There is a wall between
you and us, which would never let us meet together."
They had given a
clear notice to the Holy Prophet to the effect: "You may continue your mission
of inviting the people to yourself, but we would go on opposing you as hard as
we can to frustrate your mission."
For this object they had devised the
following plan: Whenever the Holy Prophet or a follower of his would try to
recite the Qur'an before the people, they would at once raise such a hue and cry
that no one could bear anything.
They were desperately trying to
misconstrue the verses of the Qur'an and spread every kind of misunderstanding
among the people. They misconstrued everything and found fault even with the
straightforward things. They would isolate words and sentences from their right
context, from here and there, and would add their own words in order to put new
meanings on them so as to mislead the people about the Quran and the Messenger
who presented it.
They would raise strange objections a specimen of which
has been presented in this Surah. They said, "If an Arab presents a discourse in
Arabic, what could be the miracle in it? Arabic is his mother tongue. Anyone
could compose anything that he pleased in his mother tongue and then make the
claim that he had received it from God. It would be a miracle if the person
would suddenly arise and make an eloquent speech in a foreign tongue which he
did not know. Then only could one say that the discourse was not of his own
composition but a revelation from God."
Here is a resume of what has been
said in answer to this deaf and blind opposition:
The Qur'an is most
certainly the Word of God, which He has sent down in Arabic. The ignorant people
do not find any light of knowledge in the truths that have been presented in it
plainly and clearly, but the people of understanding are seeing this light as
well as benefiting by it. It is surely Allah's mercy that He has sent down this
Word for the guidance of man. If a person regarded it as an affliction, it would
be his own misfortune. Good news is for those who benefit by it and warning for
those who turn away from it.
If you have put coverings on your hearts and
have made yourselves deaf, it is none of the Prophet's job to make the one hear
who does not want to hear, and the one who does not want to understand
understand forcibly. He is a man like you; he can make only those to hear and
understand, who are inclined to hear and understand.
Whether you close
down your eyes and ears and put coverings on your hearts, the fact, however, is
that your God is only One God, and you are not the servant of any one else. Your
stubbornness cannot change this reality in any way. If you accept this truth and
correct your behavior accordingly you will do good only to yourselves, and if
you reject it, you will only be preparing your own doom.
Do you have any
understanding as to whom you disbelieve and with whom you associate others in
divinity? It is with regard to that God Who has created this limitless universe,
Who is the Creator of the earth and heavens, from Whose blessings you are
benefiting on the earth, and on Whose provisions you are being fed and
sustained. You set up His mean creatures as His associates and then you are made
to understand the truth you turn away in stubbornness.
If you still do
not believe, then be aware that a sudden torment is about to visit you, the like
of which had visited the Ad and the Thamud, and this torment also will not be
the final punishment of your crimes, but there is in addition the accountability
and the fire of Hell in the Hereafter.
Wretched is the man who gets as
company such satans from among men and jinn, who show him nothing but green and
pleasant, who make his follies seem fair to him, who neither let him think
aright himself nor let him hear right from others. But on the Day of Reckoning
when their doom overtakes them, each one of them will say that if he happened to
get hold of those who had misled and deceived him in the world, he would trample
them under his foot.
This Quran is an unchangeable Book. You can not
defeat it by your machinations and falsehoods. Whether falsehood comes from the
front or makes a secret and indirect attack from behind, it cannot succeed in
refuting it.
Today when this Quran is being Presented in your own
language so that you may understand it, you say that it should have been sent
down in some foreign tongue. But had We sent it in a foreign tongue for your
guidance, you would yourselves have called it a joke, as if to say, "What a
strange thing! The Arabs are being given guidance in a non- Arabic language,
which nobody understands." This means that you, in fact, have no desire to
obtain guidance. You are only inventing ever new excuses for not affirming the
faith.
Have you ever considered that if it became established that the
Qur'an was really from Allah, then what fate you would meet by denying it and
opposing it so vehemently as you do?
Today you do not believe but soon
you will see with your own eyes that the message of this Qur'an had pervaded the
whole world and you have yourselves been overwhelmed by it. Then you will come
to know that what you were being told was the very truth.
Besides giving
these answers to the opponents, attention has been paid to the problems which
the believers and the Holy Prophet himself were facing in that environment of
active resistance. Not to speak of preaching the message to others, the
believers were even finding it difficult to follow the way of the Faith. Any one
about whom it became known that he had become a Muslim, life would become an
agony. As against the dreadful combination of the enemy and its all pervading
power, they were feeling utterly helpless and powerless. In this state, in the
first place, they were consoled and encouraged, as if to say: "You are not, in
fact, helpless and powerless, for any person who believes in God as his Lord and
adheres to this belief and way of life resolutely, God's angels descend on him
and help and support him at every stage, from the life of this world till the
Hereafter." Then they were encouraged with the consolation: "The best man is be
who does good, invites others to God and proclaims firmly that he is a Muslim."
The question that was vexing the Holy Prophet at that time was as to how be
should carve out a way of preaching his message when he had to face such heavy
odds on every side. The solution he was given to this question was: "Although
apparently the obstacles seem to be insurmountable, the weapon of good morals
and character can smash and melt them away. Use this weapon patiently, and
whenever Satan provokes you and incites you to use some other device, seek
refuge in Allah."