ٱلْمُرْسَلِينَ

Commentary:

The story of Talut, Jalut and David has been fittingly concluded by God with the verse under comment to point out that these incidents have been referred to by the Quran not by way of telling a story but as divine signs in order to hint that the Prophet of Islam, being also a Messenger of God, is sure to receive at least the same help and succour as was received by His Messengers of yore.

2:215; 40:52.

6:116.

Commentary:

In this verse God, lovingly addresses the Holy Prophet with words of comfort and solace, as if saying: "We know that thou art indeed pained to see people denying God, but the law of God cannot be changed. We never compel men to become believers." The words, There is none that can change the words of Allah, refer to this very law of God, which is unalterable. The law is twofold: firstly, that whenever a Prophet of God appears, there are always men who deny and oppose him; secondly, that God never compels such men to accept the truth. See 2:257; 3:21; 36:31.

4:166; 5:20; 18:57.

5:70; 7:36.

Commentary:

All Divine Messengers have a sort of dual personality—a twofold mission. They bring glad tidings for one class of men and warnings for others. Those who accept them receive tidings of blessings and those who reject them receive warnings of punishments. Those who are weak should hasten to join the class of men for whom glad tidings are meant. They have no reason to fear; for, as the verse makes it clear, if they accept the Prophets, "no fear shall come on them, nor shall they grieve!"

28:66.

5:110.

Commentary:

The verse embodies the important principle that in one way or another all are responsible to God. The people will be questioned as to how they received God’s Messengers, and the Messengers will be questioned as to how they delivered the Divine Message and what response the people gave them.

See 7:74.

Important Words:

عقروا (hamstrung) is derived from عقر. They say عقره i.e. he wounded him, or he wounded him much; he hacked or hamstrung it (a beast); he struck or cut its (an animal’s) leg with a sword, etc.; he stabbed an animal, etc.; he killed, slew or destroyed. عقربی means, he detained or restrained me. عقر and عقرت mean, he or she was barren and produced no issue (Lane).

Commentary:

The reference in the pronoun "that" in the clause, bring us that, is to the punishment mentioned in 7:74 above. The she-camel was held out as a sign, and that sign was to be witnessed on her being obstructed by disbelievers. They not only hindered the free movement of the she-camel but even wounded and killed her which amounted to an open challenge to Salih to do his worst,—to call upon his God to send down the threatened punishment upon them.

Important Words:

اصحاب الحجر (People of the Hijr). حجر is derived from حجر (hajara) which means, he prevented or hindered or interdicted. See also 2:75. حجر (Hijr) means, forbidden, unlawful, inviolable or sacred; garden or walled garden of palm-trees prohibited to the public; a fortress; a wall of stones built round a house; the place round which such a wall is made; relationship that prohibits marriage; understanding or intelligence, because it forbids that which it does not behove one to do; bosom or breast; figuratively also protection. The word also means, the country or land of Thamud (Lane, Aqrab & Mufradat).

Commentary:

Hijr lay between Tabuk and Medina. Here lived the people of Thamud to whom Salih was sent as a Warner. The city of this tribe appears to have been largely built of stones. It was surrounded by a stone wall and ramparts. Hence this name.

It is worthy of note that though only one Prophet, Salih appears to have been sent to these people, in the verse under comment they are condemned as having rejected the Messengers of God. The same expression has been used in 26:106, 124, 142, 161 & 177 where the tribes mentioned are said to have rejected all Prophets, while as a matter of fact each one of these different tribes rejected only a particular Prophet who was sent to them. This shows that in the sight of God the rejection of one Prophet means the rejection of all because, first, the basic teachings of all Divine Messengers are the same and so the rejection of one Prophet implies the rejection of all others, and, secondly, the rejection of a Prophet implies rejection of God, Who is the Sender of all Prophets. This is why Jesus warned the Jews that by rejecting him they were rejecting Moses; for if they had really believed in Moses, they should not have hesitated to accept him (John 5:46). This is true of all Prophets and Messengers of God. He who rejects the Prophet of his own day shows by his act of rejection, that if he had lived in the time of any other Prophet, he would have rejected him also. Hence it is that the rejection of one Prophet, according to the Quran, is tantamount to the rejection of all Prophets and the acceptance of one is tantamount to the acceptance of all of them. See also 2:137, 286; 3:85 & 4:153.

The next few verses of the present Surah and some opening verses of the following Surah embody mighty prophecies and deal with subjects of very great import.

2:214; 4:166; 6:49; 17:106.

Important Words:

لید حضوا (that they may rebut) is derived from دحض . They say دحضت رجله i.e. his foot slipped. دحضت حجته means, his argument, plea, allegation or evidence was or became null or void. ادحض means, he rendered null and void an argument, etc.; he rebutted it. The Quranic words لیدحضوا به الحق mean, that they might rebut thereby the truth (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The verse means to say that signs are shown to disbelievers that they may benefit by them and by accepting truth save themselves from Divine punishment. But they mock at them and treat them as vagaries of superstitious and ignorant people and reject them with contempt. They accept, however, as holy writ the half-baked theories of their own philosophers and social thinkers. These verses describe the mental attitude of western nations towards spiritual matters.

21:9.

Commentary:

This verse again answers from another angle the commonplace objection of disbelievers that the Holy Prophet lived like an ordinary man (v. 8). It means to say that the Holy Prophet’s mission is not something novel. He is just like those Divine Messengers who have gone before him. He is an ordinary mortal like them and like them he eats and talks and moves about and, like the followers of those Prophets, his followers also will have to suffer for the cause they hold dear. If these things did not stand in the way of the earlier Prophets being accepted as Divine Messengers, why should they in his case, and why should new criteria be devised to test his truth?

28:22.

Commentary:

By the words, "made me one of the Messengers," Moses means that the very fact that God has made him a Prophet is a proof that what he had done was not an intentional wrong but an unwitting act done on the spur of the moment.

Commentary:

The people of Noah had rejected only one Messenger—Noah. But they have been represented in this verse as having rejected all the Messengers of God. This shows that the rejection of one Divine Messenger is in reality equivalent to the rejection of all of them. This is so because they are all commissioned as Messengers by the same Divine Authority and their Messages proceed from the same Source and are identical in fundamentals and basic principles.

7:66-67.

Commentary:

For a more detailed note on ‘Ad see 11:51. Briefly, ‘Ad was not the name of a single but of a group of tribes whose different sections rose to power at different times. The name ‘Ad is found in ancient books of geography which shows that a people bearing this name did indeed live in the past. The tribe has also been called ‘Adi Iram in the Quran, (89:8). The Quran has also mentioned the following facts about this tribe: (1) They built lofty buildings and no other people in Arabia attained to that height of power to which they had attained (89:9). (2) They lived immediately after Noah. (3) They built monuments on elevated places (26:129) of which the ruins still exist in Arabia. (4) The territory in which these people lived was called Ahqaf (46:22) which literally means meandering and zigzag sandhills. (5) They were destroyed by a violent wind which continued to blow over their territory consecutively for seven days, burying their chief cities under heaps of sand and dust (69:7-8). (6) The history of these people has now become wrapped in obscurity (46:26).

7:74; 11:62-63; 27:46.

Commentary:

This and the following several verses deal with the tribe of Thamud. According to Abu Isma‘il, the author of Futuhush-Sham, they were a very powerful people. Their rule and dominion had extended from Busra, a town in Syria to Aden. They had made great progress in agriculture and architecture. They were a highly civilized and cultured people. The tribe has been mentioned by Greek historians. They place it in a period not long before the Christian era. Hijr or Agra, as they call it, is given as the home of these people. Al-Hijr which has also been known as Mada’ini Salih (the Cities of Salih) and which seems to have been the capital of these people lies between Medina and Tabuk, and the valley in which it is situated is called Wadi Qura. The Quran represents them as the immediate successors of ‘Ad (7:75). From 40:31-32, it appears that they lived before the time of Moses. It is worthy of note that the accounts of the Prophets Noah, Hud and Salih have been given at various places in the Quran and everywhere the order observed is the same, viz. the account of Noah precedes that of Hud and the account of Hud precedes that of Salih, which is the true chronological order. This shows that the Quran gives accurately and in their true historical order the facts of history long consigned to oblivion and quite wrapped in obscurity. For a fuller note on Thamud see 11:62.

7:81-83; 54:34.

15:79; 38:14; 50:15.

Important Words:

الایکة (the wood) is derived from the verb أیک (ayika). أیک الشجر means, the trees grew thick and formed a wood. الایکةmeans, a collection of numerous tangled or dense trees of the kind of lotus and wild berries; a thicket (Lane & Aqrab). See also 15:79.

Commentary:

The word الایکة seems to refer to Midian in the neighbourhood of which there existed tangled and luxuriant trees after which these people or a section thereof were called اصحاب الایکة. Midian lay in the Sinai Peninsula, a few miles from the sea. It was originally the name of a tribe who were descended from Abraham through Katurah and who had settled in the locality known after their ancestor Midian, son of Katurah.

The fact that according to the Quran the Prophet Shu‘aib was sent both to اصحاب الایکة i.e. People of the Wood and اصحاب مدین i.e. People of Midian (7:86 & 11:85) shows that both these were the names of two sections of the same people, Shu‘aib particularly belonging to the section known as مدین, because where in the Quran he is stated as having been sent to صدین he is described as "their brother" and where he is mentioned as having been sent to اصحاب الایکة the words "their brother" are omitted.

Further evidence of the close relationship of the "People of the Wood" with the "People of Midian" is furnished by the fact that identical faults have been ascribed in the Quran to both. Compare 26:182-184, 7:86 & 11:85-86. It may further be noted that Midian was both the name of the tribe and the town in which they lived. It was situated at the head of the gulf of Aqaba and near it was the wilderness or Aikah abounding in dwarf trees of the species of wild plumbs and affording shelter to camels, sheep and goats. See also 15:79.

20:39.

Commentary:

The preceding seven verses had spoken of Moses’ mission and by implication had referred to the mission of the Holy Prophet and in fact to the mission of every Prophet of God. From this verse, however, begins the actual story of Moses.

Whereas Moses was cast into the river by his mother to escape being killed by the people of Pharaoh, the Holy Prophet’s mother had to entrust him, while yet a child, to the care of a poor wet-nurse, to whom all the well-to-do families of Mecca had refused to entrust their babies on account of her poverty.

5:110; 7:7.

27:60.

Commentary:

The reference in the verse is to the Holy Prophet who represents all Prophets and Messengers of God.

28:21.

Commentary:

The implied reference in the word رجل signifying "a great man", may be to the Promised Messiah who has been referred to as رجل in several sayings of the Holy Prophet. In one of his very well-known sayings the Holy Prophet is reported to have said:

لو کان الایمان معلقا بالثریا لناله رجل من أبناء فارس i.e. If the Faith were to go up to the Pleiades, a man from among the sons of Persia would bring it down to the earth (Bukhari, Kitabut-Tafsir).

المدینة (the town) in the expression اقصا المدینة (farthest part of the town) may stand for القریة (36:14) or for مدینة النبی i.e. the town of the Holy Prophet. In the latter sense of the word, the expression أقصا المدینة may signify that the Promised Messiah would be born in a place far away from المدینة, the second Centre and Headquarters of Islam. In another verse of the Quran (17:2), the scene of the Second Advent of the Holy Prophet has been spoken of as المسجد الاقصی i.e. the Distant Mosque. Words analogous in meaning and significance to the word یسعی (running) have also been used about the Promised Messiah by the Holy Prophet in some of his sayings which point to his tireless, quick and indefatigable work for the cause of Islam.

All the above references seem to point to the Promised Messiah as being the رجل (the Great Man) mentioned in the verse under comment. It is the Promised Messiah who, for the first time, revealed to the world the Quranic truth that Founders of all the great religions of the world were Divine Messengers, as the words, "he said, 'O my people, follow the Messengers'", point out.

Commentary:

The verse constitutes an effective reply to the charge that the Holy Prophet is a poet or a madman. It purports to say that the Prophet fulfils in his person all the prophecies made by the Israelite Prophets about his advent and the Quran contains all that was imperishable and of permanent value in the former revealed scriptures. How could a madman or poet do all this?

Commentary:

Elias or Elijah lived about 900 B.C. He was a native of Gilead, a place on the eastern bank of the Jordan. According to the Bible he was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind in a chariot of fire and after him his mantle was taken by Elisha (Jew. Enc. & 1 Kings 17: 1).

7:81; 26:161; 29:29.

Commentary:

For Lot see 15:62-78.

21:88; 68:49.

Commentary:

Jonah, the Prophet, has been mentioned at six places in the Quran. In 4:164 and 6:87-88 he has been reckoned among the Prophets of God. In the present verse he has been spoken of as a Divine Messenger and in 21:88 and 68:49, he has been given the descriptive epithets of ذوالنون (Master of the Fish) and صاحب الحوت (Fellow of the Fish). He was an Israelite Prophet and lived in the 9th century in the reign of Jeroboam II or Jehoahaz. See also 6:88.

Commentary:

See next verse.