Verses 1–16
بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Compassionate
This sūrah centres on the theme that the Prophet has been sent as a warner with revelation from the divine environs calling people to the oneness of God (tawḥīd) and sincerity in worship.
The sūrah is divided into the following sections:
It begins by describing the deniers (kuffār)—their haughtiness, disunity, and total arrogance towards following him or believing in him. It describes how they keep people away from him and utter baseless claims, which are refuted in a separate section.
Then it commands the Prophet to be patient and recalls the stories of God’s ancient worshippers.
Then it speaks of the fate of those who are mindful of God versus the evildoers.
Then it commands the Prophet to proclaim his message and call to the oneness of God. It also commands him to pronounce that the followers of Satan are doomed to the fire, for God decreed this on the day when He ordered the angels to prostrate to Adam, and Iblīs refused; therefore, he was cursed, and it was decreed that he and whoever followed him would end up in the Fire.
The context indicates that the sūrah was revealed in Mecca.
Commentary
ص ۚ وَالْقُرْآنِ ذِي الذِّكْرِ ١ بَلِ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا فِي عِزَّةٍ وَشِقَاقٍ ٢
(38:1–2) Ṣād. By the Qur’an, full of remembrance (dhikr), the rejectors are in vainglory (ʿizzah) and schism (shiqāq).
Remembrance (dhikr) here refers to the remembrance of God—His uniqueness and things that derive from that, such as an understanding of the truths of the Resurrection and prophethood. Vainglory (ʿizzah) here implies “snubbing” or “turning their noses up at”. Schism (shiqāq) means “dissention” or “factionalism”. Majmaʿ al-Bayān says:
The word was originally used to mean to place each of the two groups in a different compartment (shiq), that is in different sides. The expression shaqq fulānun al-ʿaṣā (so-and-so broke the unity) is also derived from that.
By the Qur’an, full of remembrance is an oath similar to these oaths in the Qur’an:
Yā sīn. By the wise Book…. ()
Qāf. By the noble Qur’an…. ()
Nūn. By the pen…. ()
Like the other oaths, it is not grammatically appended to the next verse [with a conjunction such as and]. What is being sworn is found in the rejectors are in vainglory and schism; that is, their haughtiness is what prevents them from accepting the Prophet, even though many peoples before them perished for this reason. Then it recounts the Prophet’s warning and their response, as well as what he called them to. It is as if what is being sworn here is: “You are one of the [divinely sent] warners. This is also evinced by the fact that they spurn you, abhorred by your warning, time and time again.”
Exegetes have put forward many ideas about the meanings of by the wise Qur’an and the grammatical structure; however, most of them cannot really be derived from the text, so we have omitted them since it would not be useful to mention them.
It means—and God knows best—“I swear by the Qur’an containing remembrance that you are one of the warners. Those who deny you are prevented from accepting it and following it, and hence oppose it.”
كَمْ أَهْلَكْنَا مِنْ قَبْلِهِمْ مِنْ قَرْنٍ فَنَادَوْا وَلَاتَ حِينَ مَنَاصٍ ٣
(38:3) How many generations (qurūn, sing. qarn) did We destroy before them? They cried out when the time for escape (manāṣ) had passed.
Qarn are the people of a specific era. According to Majmaʿ al-Bayān, manāṣ comes from the root n-a-ṣ (nāṣa, yanūṣ). Manāṣ with an n means “to lag behind”; as with b [instead of n], it means “to advance”. It is said to mean “to flee” or “to escape”.
It means, “We destroyed many ancient peoples before them. They received messengers and were warned but, like them, denied the warning. When the punishment descended, they called out, ‘Woe betide us! We were wrongdoers’”—or else “they cried out to God for help. But the time had passed for the punishment to be delayed”—or else “there was nowhere to flee”.
وَعَجِبُوا أَنْ جَاءَهُمْ مُنْذِرٌ مِنْهُمْ ۖ وَقَالَ الْكَافِرُونَ هَٰذَا سَاحِرٌ كَذَّابٌ ٤
(38:4) And they wonder that a warner has come to them from themselves, while the rejectors say, “He is a lying sorcerer.”
Meaning, they are astonished that a warner has arisen among their own people, a human being like themselves, for the idol-worshippers disdained the idea of a human messenger.
The rejectors say, “He is a lying sorcerer”: This indicates that they accused the Prophet of sorcery because they were unable to come up with something similar to the Qur’an. Lying (kadhdhāb) means that they were accusing him of fabricating the Qur’an and the truths within it, and falsely claiming that it came from God.
أَجَعَلَ الْآلِهَةَ إِلَٰهًا وَاحِدًا ۖ إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَشَيْءٌ عُجَابٌ ٥
(38:5) “Does he make all the gods into a single god? This is a mind-boggling thing (la-shayʾun ʿujāb)!”
ʿUjāb (“very strange”, “mind-boggling”) with a single j is an exaggerated form of ʿajab (“wonderous”, “unusual”); it is even stronger if the j is doubled.
With this expression of amazement, phrased as a rhetorical question, the deniers (kāfirīn) conclude their speech. Make (jaʿala) here means “he made it into” or “he pronounced that they were”; exegetes have noted that make here refers to non-real things, such as their false articles of faith, not actual things, as in the verse: And they made the angels who are servants of the Merciful female (). [That is, they declared that the angels were female, not that they actually tinkered with the angels to turn them into females.] Essentially, they are accusing the Prophet of morphing all their demigods into a single god to deny that their demigods hold any divinity, and of decreeing that the only god is Allah.
وَانْطَلَقَ الْمَلَأُ مِنْهُمْ أَنِ امْشُوا وَاصْبِرُوا عَلَىٰ آلِهَتِكُمْ ۖ إِنَّ هَٰذَا لَشَيْءٌ يُرَادُ ٦
(38:6) And their noblemen go about [saying], “Keep adhering patiently to your gods. This is what is desired.”
By saying that it was their chiefs or noblemen who were going around saying that, it hints that the noblemen were working together to try to solve the problem of the Prophet’s call to monotheism and his disavowal of their gods. They had decided to try to do this through some form of conciliation, and so they spoke to the Prophet. However, he refused to budge, so some of them went around saying to others—or else they said to their underlings—“keep on patiently adhering to your gods”. This interpretation is reinforced by some narrations on the cause of revelation of this verse, which shall be mentioned in the section on narrations, God willing.
“Keep adhering patiently (amshū wa aṣbirū) to your gods”: It is understood from the text that this is what the noblemen are telling people [even though there is no actual verb “say” in the text]. They are telling the people to keep on worshipping their gods even though the Prophet has disgraced and slandered them. From the text, it seems most likely that the noblemen are saying this to each other, although possibly they are saying this to the masses.
“This is what is desired (inna hādhā la-shayʾun yurād)”: The noblemen are implying that the Prophet is seeking something that people naturally desire—namely, leadership—and that he concocted his prophetic mission as a pretext to gain power. This is similar to what the chieftains of the people of Noah told their people:
“He is only a man like you who wants to lord himself over you” ().
This is the most direct reading of the text. However, exegetes have put forward other meanings of “this is what is desired”:
- “This steadfastness that we have witnessed from him in holding firm to his demands and persevering in his religion is a great and desirable (yurād) thing.”
- “What is happening now is one of the vagaries of Time that has been fated for us (yurādu binā). The only way out is to keep going and persevere.”
- “Patience is a noble virtue which is desirable (yurād) for us in matters like this.”
There are also other interpretations; however, these views are weak and do not fit with the text.
مَا سَمِعْنَا بِهَٰذَا فِي الْمِلَّةِ الْآخِرَةِ إِنْ هَٰذَا إِلَّا اخْتِلَاقٌ ٧
(38:7) “We heard nothing of this in the latest religions. It is but an invention.”
The latest religions (al-millah al-ākhirah) means the religions of recent generations and practiced by their contemporaries, in contrast to ancient religions. It is as if they are saying, “This is not today’s religion; the people of today’s world will never accept it. Rather, these are the myths of the ancients.”
Some exegetes say that the latest religions (al-millah al-ākhirah) is intended to mean “Christianity” because Christianity was the most recent major religion. Furthermore, Christians were not professing belief in the unity of God (tawḥīd); rather, they were professing belief in trinity; therefore, it would have been correct for them to say that they had not heard of the idea of tawḥīd in the most recent religion—that is, Christianity. However, this interpretation can be refuted by the text itself, especially since Christianity—like Islam—had not taken root [among the polytheists of Mecca].
“It is but an invention”: Meaning a lie and a fabrication.
أَأُنْزِلَ عَلَيْهِ الذِّكْرُ مِنْ بَيْنِنَا ۚ بَلْ هُمْ فِي شَكٍّ مِنْ ذِكْرِي ۖ بَلْ لَمَّا يَذُوقُوا عَذَابِ ٨
(38:8) “Has the Reminder been revealed to one of us?” Nay, they are in doubt about My reminder. Nay, when they taste punishment.
“Has the Reminder been revealed to one of us?” This is a rhetorical question expressing their distaste. They felt it was deeply unlikely that Muḥammad would have been chosen to receive revelation but not themselves. These words are similar to what they say in “he is naught but a man like us” (); that is, they deny that there was anything special about him that would have led to him being chosen as a divine messenger.
Nay, they are in doubt about My reminder: This strikes back at all of what they were saying. That is, they were not speaking from the perspective of faith and belief in him; rather, they were speaking from the perspective of doubt in his message—that is, the Qur’an.
They did not doubt him because proofs of his prophethood were hidden from them or because these proofs were insufficient to garner certainty. Rather, they doubted him because their hearts clung to falsehood; their attachment to their customs blinded them to his miraculous divine signs. Therefore, they doubted his message even though it itself was miraculous.
Nay, when they taste punishment: This builds on the previous refutation. They do not deny him because they doubt him personally. Rather, their arrogance will never allow them to confess to his truth until they taste the divine punishment. Then, they will be forced to confess to the truth, as was done with others.
When they taste punishment implies that after they taste divine punishment, they will taste nothing other; it warns them of the divine punishment looming over them.
أَمْ عِنْدَهُمْ خَزَائِنُ رَحْمَةِ رَبِّكَ الْعَزِيزِ الْوَهَّابِ ٩
(38:9) Or do they have the treasures of the mercy of your Lord, the mighty, the giver?
This continues refuting their words. Or is disjunctive [meaning it is a fully separate question from the previous]; this verse is similar to: “Has the reminder been revealed to him among us?” () It means, “Do they control the treasures of the mercy of your Lord which He dispenses to whomever He wills, such that they might stop Him from doing that? No, they are His alone, and He knows best whom to appoint as His messenger. He chooses to bestow His special mercy upon whomever He wills.”
The verse ends with the mighty, the giving to emphasise the main point—that is, they do not control any of the stores of divine mercy because He is the one who is mighty and inviolable. None can meddle in divine affairs. Furthermore, it is not their place to withhold divine mercy from anyone, since He is the giving, and gives abundantly and copiously.
أَمْ لَهُمْ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا ۖ فَلْيَرْتَقُوا فِي الْأَسْبَابِ ١٠
(38:10) Or do they have reign over the heavens and earth and what is between them? Then let them ascend (fal-yartaqū) by any means (asbāb).
Here also, or (am) is disjunctive [making it fully separate]. The command to ascend is to show that they cannot. Yartaqū means “ascend”. Asbāb (“means”) bespeak of stairs or a ladder that they could use to make their way up to the heavens. Perhaps “ascend to the heavens” is goading them to plot some way to distribute or withhold the divine resources.
It means, “If they truly reign over the heavens and the earth, let them administer them and prevent the revelation from descending to a man on My earth. If it be so, let them clamber up to the heavens and stop this revelation from coming down to you.”
جُنْدٌ مَا هُنَالِكَ مَهْزُومٌ مِنَ الْأَحْزَابِ ١١
(38:11) A host defeated over there (jundun mā hunālika mahzūm), one of the factions (min al-aḥzāb).
Defeated (mahzūm) means “deserted” or “forsaken”. One of the factions (min al-aḥzāb) elaborates on a host (jundun mā). The particle mā indicates that it is a puny, laughable contingent despite their boasting.
The insignificance of the host is reinforced by the fact that host (jundun) is in the indefinite form, followed by the particle mā, and described by over there (hunālika), which is used for far-off things. It groups them among the parties that united against the Prophet and which God ultimately put an end to, as will be discussed later. For that reason, this group is described as defeated even though they had not yet been defeated at the time of the revelation.
It means, “They are such a tiny, miserable force, defeated over there. They are one of those groups that denied the Messengers and mustered against them; thus, they earned My punishment.”
كَذَّبَتْ قَبْلَهُمْ قَوْمُ نُوحٍ وَعَادٌ وَفِرْعَوْنُ ذُو الْأَوْتَادِ ١٢ وَثَمُودُ وَقَوْمُ لُوطٍ وَأَصْحَابُ الْأَيْكَةِ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ الْأَحْزَابُ ١٣ إِنْ كُلٌّ إِلَّا كَذَّبَ الرُّسُلَ فَحَقَّ عِقَابِ ١٤
(38:12–14) The people of Nūh, ʿĀd, and Pharaoh—the lord of spikes, firmly planted, of the tent-poles (dhū al-awtād)—spurned [faith, the messengers] before them. And Thamūd and the people of Lūṭ and the dwellers of the wood (aṣḥāb al-aykah): these were the factions. They all denied the messengers, and earned retribution.
The lord of spikes (dhū al-awtād) is an epithet of the Pharaoh. Awtād is the plural of watad (“tent-stake”, “tent-pole”, “peg”, “spike”) and is used in its conventional meaning.
It is said that Pharaoh was called the lord of spikes (dhū al-awtād) because:
1) The Pharaoh had his own amusement grounds with posts from which they used to entertain him.
2) Whenever the Pharaoh was angry at any of the prisoners, he would hammer their hands, feet, and head to the ground with stakes and torture them.
3) The Pharaoh had many soldiers who were the backbone of his rule.
There are also other views; however, there is no evidence to prefer one over the other.
The dwellers of the wood (aṣḥāb al-aykah) were the people of Shuʿayb. They have already been mentioned in Sūrah al-Ḥijr and Sūrah al-Shuʿarāʾ. [They] earned retribution establishes that it was their just desert. It had neared them and ultimately destroyed them.
وَمَا يَنْظُرُ هَٰؤُلَاءِ إِلَّا صَيْحَةً وَاحِدَةً مَا لَهَا مِنْ فَوَاقٍ ١٥
(38:15) They but awaited (yanẓuru) a single blast, with no delay.
Yanẓuru comes from the verb root n-ẓ-r (“to wait for”, “to await”). Fawāq means “return” or “a scant delay”. It means, “These deniers from your people are waiting for nothing but a single blast that will wipe them out. They will no longer be able to turn back or delay; it will be their end.”
Some exegetes say that the blast here is on the Day of Resurrection, because the people of Muḥammad were granted respite from divine punishment until the Final Hour. However, in the exegesis of Sūrah Yūnus, you already saw that the literal meaning of the verses of the book suggests otherwise; the interested reader can refer back to that.
وَقَالُوا رَبَّنَا عَجِّلْ لَنَا قِطَّنَا قَبْلَ يَوْمِ الْحِسَابِ ١٦
(38:16) They said, “Our Lord! Hasten for us our fate (qiṭṭanā) before the day of account.”
Qiṭṭ means “lot” or “destiny”. By urging that the punishment be hastened before the Day of Resurrection, they are mocking the notion that the Day of Account shall ever come or that punishment has been promised for them.
Examining Narrations
- In al-Kāfī, with a chain of narration from Jābir, it is related that Imam al-Bāqir said:
Abū Jahl ibn Hishām came forward, and with him were some of the Quraysh. They went to Abū Ṭālib and said, “The son of your brother is annoying us and our gods. Tell him to keep his hands off our gods, and we will keep our hands off his god.”
So Abū Ṭālib sent for the Messenger of God. When the Prophet arrived, he did not see anyone in the house except for the polytheists. He said, “Peace be upon whoever follows the right guidance.” Then he sat, and Abū Ṭālib related to him what they had told him. Then he [the Prophet] said, “I have a better suggestion. What if I were to put forward a declaration (kalimah) by which they would rule the Arabs and tread upon their necks?”
Abū Jahl said, “Sure. What is this declaration?”
He [the Prophet] said, “That they should say there is no god but Allah.”
They stuck their fingers in their ears and left, saying, “We heard nothing of this in the latest religions. It is but an invention” (). In response, God revealed Qur’an (from Ṣād. By the Qur’an, full of remembrance to “It is but an invention”).
- Regarding And they wonder that a warner has come to them from themselves (), Tafsīr al-Qummī says:
When the Prophet openly proclaimed his call [to Islam], the Quraysh converged on Abū Ṭālib and said, “Abū Ṭālib! The son of your brother has deprecated our ideals, slandered our gods, corrupted our youth, and divided our people. If he is doing this to be free of want, we have collected enough wealth for him to make him the richest man of the Quraysh and are ready for him to rule over us [if he stops what he is doing].”
So Abū Ṭālib told the Messenger of God about that, and he replied, “By God! Were they to place the Sun in my right hand and the Moon in my left, I would not want them. Rather, they should gift me this profession (lit. “word”), through which they will rule the Arabs, the non-Arabs will yield to them, and they will be kings in Paradise.”
Abū Ṭālib told this to them, and they said, “All right—we will even say ten words.”
So the Messenger of God told them, “Bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of God.”
They said, “We pray to 360 gods; we should only worship one?”
So God sent down Qur’an (from And they wonder that a warner has come to them from themselves to “It is but an invention”). That is, it was combined with (“Has the Reminder been revealed to one of us?” Nay, they are in doubt about My reminder to one of the factions)—“factions” referring to those who allied against the prophet during the siege of Medina (yawm al-aḥzāb).
Author’s comments: This story is also related through Sunni chains of narration. In some versions of the narration, when the Prophet offers them the profession of tawḥīd, they replied, “Ask us for something else.”
Upon that, he declared, “Even if you were to get the Sun and put it in my hands, I still would not ask you for anything else [other than to profess these words].”
Infuriated, they took the Prophet’s words to mean that they had to give him control over the worldly order, since the Sun and Moon are the greatest operants in the world. Here their sizes are assumed to be what can be sensed with the physical senses to convey the point of the simile.
- In ʿIlal al-Sharāʾiʿ, it is related with a chain of narration from Isḥāq ibn ʿAmmār:
I [Isḥāq ibn ʿAmmār] asked Imam al-Kāẓim, “Why does one rakʿah of prayer have two prostrations? Why are not two prostrations two rakʿāt?”
He said, “When you ask something, empty your heart so you may understand. The first sālāt was prayed by the Messenger of God. He prayed it in the heavens before God, the Exalted, in front of His throne. This is because he had ascended to him [during the miʿrāj] and landed before His throne.
“He said, ‘O Muḥammad! Approach the ṣād [discussed below]. Cleanse and purify the parts of your body that you prostrate with, and pray to your Lord.’
“So the Messenger of God came closer, as God—the blessed and exalted—had commanded, and performed ablutions thoroughly.”
I [Isḥāq ibn ʿAmmār] said, “May I be your ransom, what is this ṣād that he was commanded to make ablutions from?”
He [Imām al-Kāẓim] said, “A fountain gushing forth from one of the pillars of the Throne. It is called the Water of Life. It is what God—the mighty and glorious—speaks of in Ṣād. By the Qur’an, full of remembrance ().”
Author’s comments: A narration telling of a river flowing from a leg of the throne has been related in Maʿānī al-Akhbār from Sufyān al-Thawrī from Imām al-Ṣādiq. In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, it is related from Ibn ʿAbbās that it [Ṣād] is one of the names of God; it also mentions that this is related from Imām al-Ṣādiq.
- Regarding the verse they said, “Our Lord! Hasten for us our fate before the day of account” (), it is related in Maʿānī al-Akhbār, in a narration from al-Aṣbagh ibn ʿAlī, that Imām ʿAlī said:
This is their share of the Fire.