Recitation by Mishary Al-Alfasy
It is derived from the very first word wadh-dhariyat, which implies that it
is a Surah which begins with the word adh-dhariyat.
Period of
Revelation
The subject matter and the style clearly show that it was
sent down in the period when although the Holy Prophet's invitation was being
resisted and opposed with denial and ridicule and false accusations stubbornly,
persecution had not yet started. Therefore, this Surah also seems to have been
revealed in the same period in which the Surah Qaf was revealed.
Subject Matter and Topics
The Surah mostly deals with the Hereafter,
and in the end it presents the invitation to Tauhid. In addition, the people
have also been warned that refusal to accept the message of the Prophets and
persistence in the concepts and creeds of ignorance have proved to be disastrous
for those nations themselves which have adopted this attitude and way of life in
the past.
About the Hereafter what this Surah presents in short but pithy
sentences is this: The people's different and conflicting beliefs about the end
of human life are themselves an express proof that none of these beliefs and
creeds is based on knowledge; everyone by himself has formed an ideology on the
basis of conjecture and made the same his creed. Someone thought that there
would be no life-after-death; someone believed in the life- after-death, but in
the form of the transmigration of souls someone believed in the life hereafter
and the meting out of the rewards and punishments but invented different sorts
of props and supports to escape retribution. About a question of such vital and
fundamental importance a wrong view of which renders man's whole life-work wrong
and waste and ruins his future for ever, it would be a disastrous folly to build
an ideology only on the basis of speculation and conjecture, without knowledge.
It would mean that man should remain involved in a grave misunderstanding, pass
his whole life in the heedlessness of error, and after death should suddenly
meet with a situation for which he had made no preparation at all. There is only
one way of forming the right opinion about such a question, and it is this: Man
should seriously ponder over the knowledge about the Hereafter that the Prophet
of Allah is conveying to him from Him, and should study carefully the system of
the earth and heavens and his own existence: and should see whether the evidence
of that knowledge's being sound and correct is afforded by everything around him
or not. In this regard, the arrangement of the wind and rain, the structure of
the earth and the creatures found on it, man's own self, the creation of the
heavens and of everything in the world in the form of pairs have been presented
as evidence of the Hereafter, and instances have been cited from human history
to show that the temper of the empire of the Universe requires that the law of
retribution must operate here.
After this, giving the invitation to
Tauhid briefly, it has been said : "Your Creator has not created you for the
service of others but for His own service. He is not like your false gods, which
receive sustenance from you and godhead of which cannot function without your
help, but He is a God Who is the Sustainer of all, Who does not stand in need of
sustenance from anyone and Whose Godhead is functioning by His own power and
might.
In this very connection, it has also been stated that whenever the
Prophets of Allah have been opposed and resisted, they have not been opposed and
resisted on the basis of any rational ground but on the basis of the same
obduracy and stubbornness and false pride that is being shown against the
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), and there is no
other motive for it than rebellion and arrogance. Then the Holy Prophet has been
instructed not to bother about the rebels but to go on performing his mission of
invitation and admonition, for it is useful and beneficial for the believers
although it may not be so for the other people. As for the wicked people who
still persist in their rebellion, they should know that their predecessors who
followed the same way of life, have already received their shares of the
punishment, and these people's share of the punishment has been made ready for
them.