وَيُنذِرَ ٱلَّذِينَ قَالُوا۟ ٱتَّخَذَ ٱللَّهُ وَلَدًا
17:112; 19:36; 21:27; 25:3; 39:5; 72:4.
Commentary:
It is worthy of special note that the Quran is first spoken of as 'giving warning', next as 'giving glad tidings' (v. 3) and then again as 'giving warning' as in the present verse. Disbelievers have been warned twice and in between these two warnings the believers have been given glad tidings. This seems rather strange and the words appear to have been used haphazardly. But it is not so. They serve a very useful purpose. The two 'warnings' and the one 'glad tidings' point to three important periods of the history of Islam. The first 'warning' mentioned in v. 3 pertains to the disbelievers of Mecca and all those people in the time of the Holy Prophet who had rejected his Message and were punished for their rejection and opposition. The 'glad tidings' spoken of in the same verse applies to Muslims who after their enemies had been destroyed enjoyed Divine favours for a very long time and this fulfilled the Divine promise embodied in the words, "Wherein they shall abide forever." For long centuries Muslims ruled over a large part of the globe and enjoyed great power and prestige. The 'second warning' embodied in the present verse refers to Christian nations of "the latter days" and implies a prophecy that after Muslims had enjoyed power and dominion for a long time, their glory would depart and Christian nations would again come into their own and spread over the entire world and would prove as a bar sinister to the expansion of Islam. These present-day Christian nations of the west have been warned of a severe punishment that is in store for them in the words, that it may warn those Who say, Allah has taken unto Himself a son. Thus this giving of warnings twice and interspersing these two warnings with glad tidings for Muslims implied three great prophecies viz. (a) the discomfiture and destruction of the Holy Prophet’s opponents in his own time; (b) the phenomenal rise of Muslims to power and glory and, after the departure of Muslim glory, (c) the punishment that is in store for the nations who say that Allah has taken unto Himself a son. The signs of this Divine punishment are already becoming too manifest to be overlooked.
17:112; 19:36; 21:27; 25:3; 39:5; 72:4.
The Qur’an is first spoken of as 'giving warning,' next as 'giving glad tidings' (v. 3), and then again as 'giving warning' as in the present verse. Disbelievers have been warned twice and in between these two warnings the believers have been given glad tidings. This double warning interspersed with glad tidings for Muslims implied three prophecies: (a) the discomfiture and destruction of the Holy Prophet’s opponents in his own time, (b) the phenomenal rise of Muslims to power and glory, and, (c) after the departure of their glory, the punishment in store for the nations who say that 'Allah has taken unto Himself a son.'