کَذَّبَتۡ

6:35; 35:26; 40:6; 54:10.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that those who reject God’s Prophets and do not observe the principles laid down in the preceding verses invite and incur Divine wrath. As an illustration the verse gives the instances of the people of Noah, and of the tribes of ‘Ad and Thamud. These peoples were visited with God’s punishment because they ignored and defied His commandments.

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.

9:70; 40:32; 50:13.

Important Words:

اوتاد (stakes) is the plural of وتد. They say وتد الوتد i.e. he made the peg firm or he drove it into the hole. اوتاد means, tent-pegs, poles, wooden nails; stakes etc. اوتاد الارض signifies, the mountains; اوتاد البلاد means, the chief men of the towns and اوتاد الفم means, the teeth (Aqrab). ذو الاوتاد thus signifies, lord of large armies or stakes or of firmly established dominions.

6:35; 22:43; 35:26; 54:10.

Commentary:

The verse gives an illustration of the great power and wealth which disbelievers, in the time of Noah and the Prophets who came after him, possessed. Just as disbelievers were seized with Divine punishment because they rejected and opposed their Prophets, so will the enemies of the Holy Prophet be punished.

6:35; 22:43; 35:26; 40:6.

23:26.

Commentary:

As briefly stated in the Introduction, almost the entire Surah is devoted to a discussion of the dreadful fate which the Rejecters of former Divine Prophets had met and this fact has been adduced as an argument to prove the truth of the Holy Prophet’s claim. The cases of the People of Noah, of the tribes of ‘Ad and Thamud and that of the people of Lot have received a special and somewhat detailed mention because these peoples lived on the confines of the Hijaz and the Quraish were quite familiar with their histories and had commercial relations with them. The people to whom Noah preached his Message lived in Iraq which lies to the north-east of Arabia, and the tribe of ‘Ad lived in Yemen and Hadramaut which form the southern part of it while the tribe of Thamud throve and flourished in the north-west of Arabia which extends from the Hijaz to Palestine and the ill-fated people of Lot lived in Sodom and Gommorah in Palestine.

9:70; 14:10; 38:13; 40:32.

Commentary:

For the People of Noah see 11:26-49; for اصحاب الرس (Companions of the Well) 25:39, and for Thamud 11:62-69.

26:124.

69:5.

Commentary:

As all Prophets are commissioned by God and their revelation proceeds from the same Divine Source and contains analogous eternal basic principles, the rejection of one Prophet amounts to the rejection of all of them. That is why the verse describes the tribe of Thamud as having rejected all Divine Messengers while, in fact, they had rejected only the Prophet Salih.

7:83; 26:161; 29:30.

Important Words:

القارعة (the sudden calamity) is derived from قرع. They say قرع رأسه بالعصا i.e. he struck his head with a stick. قرع الباب means, he knocked at the door. القارعة means, a great calamity which strikes terror into the hearts of people (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

Whereas, in the preceding three verses, the inevitability of the doom in store for the opponents of the Holy Prophet was emphasized, in the verse under comment the case of the ‘Ad and the Thamud tribes is cited to warn them that they should learn a lesson from the evil fate of these peoples, who in the remote past, flourished in their neighbourhood.

Commentary:

In this and the next four verses is cited the example of the tribe of Thamud who defied Divine guidance and opposed their Prophet working out thereby their own ruin.