Ruku 282 ع

Commentary:

رشدہ (his guidance) means, the guidance which befitted his station as a great Prophet of God. The clause, "We knew him well" means, "We were fully conversant with his excellent inborn qualities i.e. We knew his real worth or We knew that he was eminently fit to be entrusted with the great and noble duties of a Prophet."

6:75; 19:43; 26:71.

Important Words:

تـماثیل (images) is the plural of تـمثال which means, an image (Aqrab). See also 2:18; 2:107; 6:39; 13:7 & 14:46.

The particle ما (what) here denotes contempt and derision and not a question.

Commentary:

Everyone has his own style of speech. Abraham too had his peculiar way of talking. While talking to idol-worshippers he generally made use of irony. In the present verse he appears to be asking a question while in reality he is speaking contemptuously of the gods of his people. This special style of Abraham is also apparent from 6:77,78,79. In the present verse he seems to say to his people: "How useless and futile these images are which you worship!" While Abraham used to talk in ironical language, Jesus would talk in metaphors. Several of his sayings quoted in the Quran have been misunderstood because they have been taken literally.

In the expression لـھا (lit. to which) the letter ل is used to denote respect and reverence and also to express emphasis. The word عکف is not generally followed by ل. We say عکف فی المکان i.e. he stayed in the place. عکف علی الامر means, he stuck to the affair (Aqrab).

The word اب beside meaning 'father' also means paternal uncle. The person mentioned in the above verse was Abraham’s uncle and not his father who is said to have died before Abraham was invested with the divine mission of a Prophet. See also 6:75.

The verse points to a very close resemblance between Abraham and the Holy Prophet. The fathers of both had died before they were made Prophets. Both were brought up by their uncles. Both preached the message of Unity of God to their uncles. Both the uncles refused to accept the Divine Message with this difference that whereas Abraham’s uncle opposed and persecuted him, Abu Talib, the Holy Prophet’suncle, though he did not accept his message, stood by him through thick and thin to the last moment of his life and even suffered for him.

26:75; 43:24.

60:5.

Commentary:

The people of Abraham were such confirmed idolaters that when they saw Abraham preaching against idol-worship they did not at first believe that he was serious and earnest about his preaching. In this verse they have been depicted as asking him whether he was really convinced of the truth of his mission or whether he was only joking and jesting with them.

Commentary:

The verse points to the supreme truth that Divine Messengers, when they talk about God, speak from personal experience. They do not merely make an assertion about God but substantiate it with practical proofs from their own life. They do not invite people to God merely because human reason demands belief in His existence but they do it with full conviction and firm faith. When they say that God exists they say it with full conviction because they constantly hear His sweet voice and because also they themselves speak to Him and receive answer to their prayers from Him. God reveals Himself to them and they witness practical proofs of His power and omniscience in their own persons. So their testimony about the existence of God is based not on hearsay, nor on reason alone but primarily and principally on their personal experience. It is for this reason that God has commanded the Holy Prophet to declare:

"I call unto Allah on sure knowledge, I and those who follow me" (12:109).

Commentary:

Probably Abraham had spoken these words to himself or they give verbal expression to the plan which he had contrived in his mind practically to demonstrate the folly and falsity of the polytheistic beliefs and practices of his people.

37:94.

Important Words:

جذاذاً (pieces) is inf. noun from جذ. They say, جذہ i.e. he cut it and broke it into pieces. جذ فی سیرہ means, he walked quickly (Lane).

Commentary:

The pronoun ہ in the expression الیه may refer either to God, or to the chief idol or to Abraham himself. As referring to Abraham, the meaning of the verse would be that he broke all the idols except the chief among them so that his people should have recourse to him to ask him who had broken their idols and that when they should come to him he should tell them that instead of inquiring from him they should put the same question to their chief idol. This was a very effective and forcible way of bringing home to the idolaters the futility of worshipping mere lifeless blocks of wood or stone.

If the pronoun ہ be taken to refer to God, then the meaning would be that Abraham broke the idols of his people so that when they should see them broken into pieces they should realize their complete powerlessness and uselessness and so turn to God.

It may be noted here that the idols belonged to Abraham’s own family. Otherwise it was not right and proper for him to break other people’s idols.

Commentary:

The clause من فعل ھذا may mean:

(a) Who has done this?

(b) Whosoever has done this.

Important Words:

یذکرھم (speak ill of them). ذکرہ means, (1) he mentioned it, told it, related it; (2) he spoke well of him or he spoke ill of him and mentioned his faults. They say لئن ذکرتنی لتندمن i.e. if thou speak ill of me, thou wilt assuredly repent. An Arab poet says:

لا تذکری فرسی وما أطعمته

فیکون جلدك مثل جلد الا جرب

i.e. do not thou speak ill of my horse and of what I have given him for food or thy skin will be like the skin of the scabby (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The reason why Abraham was summoned to appear in public was either that those who had heard him speak ill of the idols should bear witness against him that he had broken the idols, or that after listening to the evidence against Abraham they might decide what punishment should be meted out to him. Or the reason might be that all people should witness the punishment that was to be inflicted on him. This is the significance of the words "that they may bear witness."

Important Words:

بل is a particle of digression. Sometimes its meaning is either the cancellation of what precedes as in بل عباد مکرمون i.e. nay (or nay rather or nay but), they are honoured servants (21:27); or transition from one object of discourse to another as in بل تؤثرون الحیاة الدنیا i.e. but you prefer the present life (87:17). Sometimes it is also used to denote the passing from one subject to another without cancelling what precedes it and is syn. with و(and), as in بل ھو قرآن مجید i.e. And it is a glorious Quran. Thus بل means, but; and; surely or verily (Lane). Here it is used in the sense of إن (surely).

Commentary:

If the expression بل فعله کبیرھم ھذا is rendered as "somebody has surely done this," a stop will have to be placed after فعله and the words کبیرھم ھذا will be treated as an independent sentence meaning, "here is the chief" of them. This is the meaning we have adopted in the text and this seems to be the more correct meaning. Or the words بل فعله کبیرھم ھذا may have been spoken ironically or by way of mockery by Abraham as was his wont while talking to his idolatrous people. In that case the sense of the words would be something like this: "Why should have I done this, their chief here may have done it," meaning thereby that "the fact is too evident to warrant any questioning or to need any explanation that I have done this, i.e. I have broken the idols. If I had not done this, could this lifeless block of stone have done this?" In this verse Abraham seems to have rebuked his people for their idolatrous practices and brought home to them the futility of those practices, first by breaking the idols and then by challenging their votaries to ask those idols to tell them who had broken them.

The verse by implication points to one of the most important Divine attributes. Abraham confounded his idolatrous people by first breaking the idols and then by inferring therefrom that an idol which could not save itself from harm and which could not even answer the call of its worshippers was but a lifeless thing, fit to be thrown on the scrap-heap, and that his Lord was the Ever-living God Who answered and accepted the prayers of His servants. See also 20:90.

Important Words:

نکسوا علی رؤوسھم (their heads were made to hang low for shame). نکسوا is derived from نکس . They say نکسه or نکسه (nakkasahu) i.e. he turned it over or upside down; changed its manner of being or state; he turned it over upon its head. نکس رأسه means, he bent or lowered or hung down his head towards the ground for shame or by reason of abasement. نکس المریض means, illness returned or reverted to the sick man. نکس الرجل means, the man became weak and powerless (Lane, Aqrab & Ma‘ani). Thus the Quranic expression نکسوا علی رؤوسھم would mean, (a) they returned to their former state of disbelief, or wicked behaviour; (b) they reverted to disputation after they had taken the right course; (c) they hung down their heads in shame and were completely dumbfounded, or their heads were made to hang low for shame.

29:18; 37:96.

Important Words:

For أف (fie) see 17:24.

Commentary:

Abraham denounced the false beliefs of his idolatrous people with a courage and boldness which is the special characteristic of God’s Prophets.

'Abraham', says Dr. F. M. T. Bohl, D.D., Ph.D. in Enc. Brit. 'is no leader of a Bedouin tribe seeking plunder and conquest; his significance lies rather in the field of religion. He is not, in the first instance, the progenitor of a people but the founder and leader of a religious movement. Like Muhammad many centuries later, he stood at the head of a great movement among the Semitic peoples and tribes...While Abraham’s forefathers served other gods (Josh. 24:2), 'the God who redeemed Abraham was the same as the God of Moses and Elijah'. See also 6:75.

29:25; 37:98.

Commentary:

Being unable to refute Abraham’s argument, no course was left open to his idolatrous people but to have recourse to persecuting and tormenting him and if possible to killing or burning him to death—indeed a very clear but mean confession of their discomfiture and defeat at Abraham’s hands. Similarly did the opponents of the Holy Prophet plot against him. The Quran says: And remember the time when the disbelievers plotted against thee that they might imprison thee or kill thee or expel thee (8:31).

Besides the verse under comment, at two other places in the Quran the plot against Abraham has been mentioned. In 29:25 we have: And the answer of his people was only that they said, 'slay him or burn him' and in 37:98 it is stated: they said, 'Build for him a structure and cast him into the fire.'

Commentary:

In 29:25 we are told that Abraham’s enemies sought to slay or burn him but God saved him from the fire, and in 37:98,99 we read that Abraham’s enemies designed to build a structure for him and cast him into the fire but they failed in their evil design. The present verse however says, "O fire, be thou cool and a means of safety for Abraham." How the fire became cool we are not told. Timely rain or a stormy hurricane might have extinguished it. In any event God did bring about circumstances which led to Abraham’s deliverance. There is always an element of mystery in heavenly miracles and Abraham’s having been saved from the fire was indeed a great miracle.

This incident of Abraham’s having been cast into the fire is credited not only by the Jews but also by the Eastern Christians; the 25th of the second Canun, or January, being set apart in the Syrian Calendar for the commemoration of Abraham’s being cast into the fire. (Hyde, De Rel. Vet Pers., p. 73). See also Mdr. Rabbah on Gen. Par. 17; Schalacheleth Hakabala, 2; Maimon de Idol. Ch. 1; and Jad Hachazakah, Vet, 6, who makes Abraham, in his 40th year, renounce star-worship, break images, escape the wrath of the king by a miracle, and preach that there is one God of the whole universe.

37:99.

Commentary:

By the words, the land which We blessed for the peoples, is meant Canaan to which country the great Patriarch migrated with his nephew, Lot.

Abraham journeyed from Ur (Mesopotamia) to Harran and from there, by God’s command, to Canaan, which God had decreed to give to his posterity. This journey had a precise objective and aim. In pursuance of Divine plan and design, all the great Prophets or their followers, at one time or another, have to migrate from their homes. Abraham accompanied by Lot migrated from Mesopotamia to Canaan; Moses had to flee with his people from Egypt to the Promised Land; Jesus had to quit Palestine after his escape from the cross and journeyed to the east in search of the ten lost tribes of Israel and last of all the Holy Prophet had to migrate from his native city, Mecca, and adopt Medina as his home.

11:72; 19:50; 29:28; 37:113; 51:29.

Commentary:

Ishmael, the eldest son of Abraham has not been mentioned here. He has been mentioned separately in v. 86 below on account of his being the head of a distinct and more important line.

2:125; 32:25.

Commentary:

God chose leaders of religious movements from among the progeny of Abraham in fulfilment of his prayer referred to in 2:125. A similar promise in regard to the raising of Divine Reformers in every age from among his followers was made to the Holy Prophet (Abu Dawud). This promise is also implicit in the famous prayer, i.e. Darud, viz. "O Lord bestow thy blessings upon Muhammad as Thou didst bestow Thy blessings upon Abraham." Divine Reformers continued to appear among the progeny of Abraham till, with the rejection of Jesus by the Jews, they were deprived of this boon for all times and prophethood was transferred to the House of Ishmael in fulfilment of the above-said prayer. Divine teachers are now raised from among the followers of the Holy Prophet in every century to regenerate Islam and they will continue to do so till the end of time. The fulfilment of the prayer implicit in Darud establishes the superiority of the Holy Prophetover Abraham because whereas Divine teachers ceased to appear among the progeny of Abraham after Jesus, they will continue to appear among his followers as long as this world lasts.

7:84; 27:58; 29:34.

Commentary:

The most important and prominent of the signs that God gives to His prophets in support of their claim is that they are vouchsafed spiritual knowledge and Divine wisdom in a very large measure. This sign was given to all the Prophets—Lot, Joseph, David, Solomon, Moses and last of all it was granted to the greatest of all the Divine Prophets—the Holy Prophet Muhammad, in the form of the Quran which is now the only guide for all mankind till the end of time and which is his greatest and standing miracle.