Verses 51–53
These verses contain God’s final description of Divine Revelation in this sūrah. It is divided into three categories: revelation, from behind a curtain, or by sending a messenger who reveals whatever God wishes by His permission. Then God says that He reveals whatever is revealed to the Prophet in this way, and whatever He reveals to him is not something the Prophet could have known by himself. Rather this revelation is a light by which God guides whomever He wishes of His servants and by which the Prophet also guides by His leave.
Commentary
وَمَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَنْ يُكَلِّمَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَّا وَحْيًا أَوْ مِنْ وَرَاءِ حِجَابٍ أَوْ يُرْسِلَ رَسُولًا فَيُوحِيَ بِإِذْنِهِ مَا يَشَاءُ ۚ إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ حَكِيمٌ ٥١
(42:51) It is not for any human that God should speak to him except through revelation or from behind a curtain, or send a messenger who reveals by His permission whatever He wishes. Indeed He is all-exalted, all-wise.
We have already discussed the meaning of Divine Speech in the second volume of this work. The Qur’an uses the word “speech” (kalām) to describe His speech, and the verb “speaking to” (taklīm) for His action, whether this is in a literal sense or a figurative one. For example, we read: He said, “O Moses, I have chosen you over the people with My messages and My speech. So take what I give you, and be among the grateful.” () and, and to Moses God spoke directly (). One of the instances of His speech is what the Prophets receive from Him by way of revelation.
Based on this, there is no need to treat the exception in except a revelation as a discontinuous exception as revelation and the two categories mentioned after it are all forms of God speaking to human beings. It does not matter whether He is using this word in a literal or figurative sense, because each method—revelation, whatever is from behind a curtain or whatever is sent with a messenger—is a form of God’s communication with humankind.
So when God says a revelation—and the word “revelation” (waḥī) alludes to the speed at which this takes place according to Rāghib—this is a categorical object (mafʿūl muṭlaq) to indicate the type (nawʿ) of speech, as are the two categories that follow it. This renders the meaning: It is not for a person that God should speak to them in any mode of speech except these three modes; namely revelation, from behind a curtain or by sending a messenger to reveal whatever He wishes by His leave.
The apparent meaning of the disjunction signified by or in this verse is to distinguish between the three different categories. The last two categories are distinguished by qualifies, such as a curtain or a messenger who reveals to the Prophet. But the first category is not qualified by anything, and this contrast would suggest that revelation in this sense refers to a subtle mode of communication that does not rely on any mediator between God and the Prophet. As for the other two categories, they are distinguished by the fact that they each have an additional qualifier, namely a curtain or a messenger who reveals on God’s behalf, and each of these is a form of mediator. The difference between these two is that in one the mediator is a messenger who reveals to the Prophet himself, while the curtain is a mediator that does not actually reveal but the revelation comes from behind it.
We can deduce that the third category of revelation—a messenger who reveals by His permission—means revelation through the mediation of a messenger who is the angel of revelation. That angel reveals whatever God wishes to the Prophet by His leave. God says: brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart (), and Say, “Whoever is an enemy of Gabriel, it is he who has brought it down on your heart with the will of God…” (). However, even with this in mind, God is still the true revealer, as He says: in what We have revealed to you of this Qur’an ().
Some commentators have suggested that “messenger” (rasūl) in the phrase …or send a messenger who reveals by His permission whatever He wishes… refers to the Prophet conveying the Divine Message to people. However, this is not compatible with the word reveals (yūḥī) because the word “reveals” is never used to describe the Prophet’s conveyance (tablīgh).
The second kind of revelation, …from behind a curtain…, means with the mediation of the curtain (ḥijāb) between the Prophet and God. However, this mediator does not actually reveal to the Prophet in the same way as the messenger does in the third category. Instead we see that the revelation begins from behind it based on the use of the particle “from” (min). Here, “behind” (warāʾ) does not mean literally at the back of the curtain, but rather something beyond the thing that encloses it. God says: …and God besieges them from all around (). This is like when He spoke to Moses upon the mount: When he approached it, he was called from the right bank of the valley at the blessed spot from the tree… (). And in this category of revelation is included that which is revealed to the Prophets in their dreams.
As for the first category, this refers to God speaking directly to the Prophet without any intermediary or barrier.
But insofar as all these ways in which God speaks to the Prophet are attributed to God, in spite of their obvious differences, it is proper to apply the term “revelation” (waḥī) to any one of them. It is with this in mind, that God attributes all revelation to Himself in the verse: We have indeed revealed to you as We revealed to Noah and the prophets after him (), and in the verse: We did not send any before you except as men to whom We revealed ().
This is what can be gleaned by pondering the verse at hand. Commentators have many lengthy discussions and disagreements on this topic which we have avoided becoming bogged-down in here; anyone who is interested can refer to their books.
…Indeed He is all-exalted, all-wise: This serves to explain the reason for the contents of the verse. It is because of God’s exaltation above creation and the natural order that He is too magnificent to speak to them as they speak to one another. But it is because of this exaltation and wisdom that He speaks to them in the modes of revelation He has chosen; it is in His nature to guide every species towards felicity. God says: Our Lord is He who gave everything its creation and then guided it. (), and With God rests guidance to the straight path (). And in order for the human being to pursue his felicity with knowledge and awareness, God must teach him what felicity means and show him a way of living that will bring him to it. The human intellect is not sufficient for this purpose because it is unreliable; sometimes right and sometimes wrong. So God chose to use revelation which is never wrong. And we have spoken extensively about this conclusive proof (ḥujjah) in other places of this work.
وَكَذَٰلِكَ أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ رُوحًا مِنْ أَمْرِنَا ۚ مَا كُنْتَ تَدْرِي مَا الْكِتَابُ وَلَا الْإِيمَانُ وَلَٰكِنْ جَعَلْنَاهُ نُورًا نَهْدِي بِهِ مَنْ نَشَاءُ مِنْ عِبَادِنَا ۚ وَإِنَّكَ لَتَهْدِي إِلَىٰ صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ ٥٢
(42:52) Thus have We revealed to you the Spirit of Our dispensation. You did not know what the Book is, nor what is faith; but We made it a light that We may guide by its means whomever We wish of Our servants. And indeed you guide to a straight path,
From the context it appears that thus (kadhālik) refers to what has been mentioned in the previous verse about the three categories of revelation. This reading is supported by numerous narrations indicating that just as the Prophet received revelation through Gabriel (which is the third category of revelation), he would also receive revelations in his dreams (the second category) and receive revelations directly without any intermediary (the first category).
It is said that this indicative pronoun (“thus”) refers to any kind of revelation that was sent down to the Prophets. This rests on the assumption that by spirit, God means Gabriel or the Spirit of Command (al-rūḥ al-amrī), as we shall discuss.
By revealed to you the Spirit—according to what has been said—God means revealing the Qur’an, and this reading is supported by God saying: …but We made it a light… And it is on this basis that some say “spirit” here refers to the Qur’an itself.
However, several problems remain with this interpretation. First of all, there is no doubt that the context of the present discussion is explaining that whatever knowledge or teachings you have, act upon or call people towards, these are not teachings you grasped by yourself or produced on the basis of your own knowledge. Rather they have come to you from Us; We have sent them down to you by way of our revelation. On this basis, then if “spirit” referred to the revealer of the Qur’an, it would have been necessary to restrict it to the Book (kitāb) when God said: You did not know what the Book is, nor what is faith. This is because the meaning of “the Book” is the Qur’an, in which case faith would be rendered superfluous here.
Secondly, we can call the Qur’an a spirit insofar as it is gives life to hearts by its guidance, as God says: …when he summons you to that which will give you life… (), and: Is he who was lifeless, then We gave him life and provided him with a light by which he walks among the people… (). However, if this is what is meant here, then there is no need for us to qualify the word “spirit” with the phrase Our dispensation (min amrinā). Rather, the apparent meaning is that the Spirit of His dispensation (al-rūḥ min amrihi) is a creature from the higher realms that accompanies the angels in their descent, as God says:
In it the angels and the Spirit descend, by the leave of their Lord, with every command. ()
On the day when the Spirit and the angels stand in an array. ()
Say, “The Spirit is of the command of my Lord….” ()
…and confirmed him with the Holy Spirit…. ()
And Gabriel is also called the Trustworthy Spirit (al-rūḥ al-amīn) and the Holy Spirit (al-rūḥ al-qudus) when God says:
…brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit…. ()
Say, the Holy Spirit has brought it down duly from your Lord…. ()
One could reply to the first objection: Even if the above context required that God only mention the Book, belief in the contents of the book, of the knowledge and teachings it contains, is a logical corollary of sending it down; one which cannot be separated from it and its good effects. Therefore it is perfectly plausible to say: Thus we revealed to you a Book. You did not know what the Book is, or what a wonderful effect it would have on you, meaning your faith in it.
And to the second objection, it could be said: Even if the normal sense of “spirit” is what you have mentioned, here it must mean something else. This is because if “spirit” means the Spirit of Command or Gabriel, then the word “revealed” should mean “sent” but God does not say anywhere that He “revealed” the Spirit of Command or the Angel. So the word “revealed” must mean “sent”, and this is far from ideal. In fact, it makes more sense to understand “spirit” to refer to the Qur’an than for “revealed” to mean “sent.” And both responses are not without merit.
It is said: “Spirit” refers to Gabriel, because God calls him that in the Qur’an when He says: …brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit… (), and: Say, the Holy Spirit has brought it down duly from your Lord… ().
It is also said: “Spirit” refers to the Spirit of Command, which descends with the angels of revelation to the Prophets, as God says: He sends down the angels with the Spirit of His command to whomever He wishes of His servants: “Warn…!” () And when He says He “revealed”, He means He “sent.”
We could explain the use of “revealed” to mean “sent down” because according to the verse, All His command, when He wills something, is to say to it “Be,” and it is (), God’s command is His word; and if the Spirit is of His command, as in the verse The Spirit is of the command of my Lord (), then it is His word too. This is confirmed when God says about Jesus son of Mary The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only an Messenger of God, and His Word that He cast toward Mary and a spirit from Him. () Sending down the word (kalimah) means to speak (taklīm), and therefore there is no problem with saying that God sends down the Spirit through revelation while the Prophets are known to be confirmed in their actions by the Spirit, just as it reveals their teachings to them. God says: and confirmed him with the Holy Spirit (). And we have mentioned this already when discussing the verse: …and We revealed to them the performance of good deeds, the maintenance of prayers, and the giving of zakat… ().
It is also possible to remove the objection against “revealed” meaning “sending down” or “sending” by saying that a Spirit (rūḥan) is in the accusative case but with an implicit proposition in front of it (nazʿ al-khāfiḍ). In this case, the pronoun it still refers to the Qur’an or the Book, as this is known from the context of the verse. This would make the meaning: “Thus we revealed the Qur’an to you with a Spirit of Ours. You did not know what the Book is, or what Faith is. But we made the Qur’an (or the Book) a light… etc.” But I do not know of any commentator who has adopted this opinion.
You did not know what the Book is, nor what is faith: As we mentioned above, the purpose of this verse is to explain that whatever the Prophet has that he is calling people to embrace is only from God and not from himself, and that whatever he has been given has been received through revelation after he was made a prophet. So when the Qur’an says he did not know what the Book is, it means he had no knowledge of what knowledge, practical teachings, or doctrines it contained. That is the knowledge that was given to him after he became a prophet who received revelation. When it says he did not know what faith was, this means that he did not adhere to true doctrines and righteous deeds in all their details. And the word “faith” (īmān) is used to refer to actions in the verse: And God would not let your faith go to waste ().
Based on this, we can construe the meaning thus: Before We revealed the Book to you through Our Spirit, and all the knowledge and teachings it contains, you were not engaged in what you are doing now. In other words, you did not adhere in belief or practice to its contents. However, this does not conflict with him being a believer in God or a monotheist before being made a prophet, or his conduct being righteous. The only thing that the verse is negating here is the Prophet having detailed knowledge of the Book or adhering to it in his beliefs and practices in a detailed sense; this does not conflict with him having a general knowledge or adherence to faith in God and submission to the Truth.
This refutes the claim some make on the basis of this verse that the Prophet did not believe before receiving revelation.
It also refutes the opposite claim that his knowledge was already complete and his action already perfect before he was made a prophet. The verse highlights precisely this distinction between before and after; he contributed nothing to what he acquired after being made a prophet—it came only from God by way of revelation.
…but We made it a light that We may guide by its means whomever We wish of Our servants: “It” in …We made it… refers to the Spirit.
And, if we assume that the Spirit is the spirit of the Qur’an, then whomever We wish means the Prophet and those that believe in him, for they are all guided by the Qur’an.
But if we take the Spirit to refer to the Spirit of Command, then whomever We wish means all of the Prophets and everyone from their communities who believed in them. After all, the Spirit guides whoever it came down to with revelation; the Prophets and the faithful of their communities. But the Spirit gives special guidance to the Prophets and directs them towards righteous deeds.
On this basis, this verse should be read in the context of confirming the Prophet; it confirms his claim that the Book has been given to him through God’s revelation, and it confirms his claim that he believes in that which he enjoins upon other people. If so, then the verse is in the same vein as God’s saying: you are indeed one of the Messengers, on a straight path sent down gradually from the All-mighty, the All-merciful ().
And indeed you guide to a straight path: This alludes to the fact that what the Prophet guides people to is a straight path, and that anyone who is guided by the Prophet is guided by God—his guidance is identical with God’s guidance.
صِرَاطِ اللَّهِ الَّذِي لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ ۗ أَلَا إِلَى اللَّهِ تَصِيرُ الْأُمُورُ ٥٣
(42:53) the path of God, to whom belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth. Look! To God do all matters return!
This serves to explain the meaning of the Straight Path to which the Prophet guides people. When God describes Himself as to whom belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth this is to say that this is the proof for his path being the right one. In other words, because God is the master of all things, He is also the master of the ultimate purpose to which all things move towards and their fulfilment and felicity. So it is the ultimate purpose is fulfilment itself, and the path that people must take to attain their felicity is the one He has provided and made clear. No one possesses anything which can provide them with a purpose or goal, or provide them with an alternative route to their purpose. Therefore, the felicity which God calls people towards is true happiness and fulfilment, and the path which He calls them to walk upon is the True Way and the Straight Path.
Look! To God do all matters return!: This calls attention to the logical corollary of God possessing everything in the heavens and the earth, namely that all the affairs associated with them ultimately return to Him. The logical corollary of this in turn is that the path they take—which is one of their affairs—must return to Him also. So the Straight Path is His Path. And here the imperfect tense (muḍāriʿ) is used in return (taṣīr) to signify continuity.
And this alludes to the kernel of Revelation and Divine Speech; namely that insofar as all things return to God, every species has a path it must traverse in order to reach Him, and He must guide it and lead it towards its ultimate purpose. God says: With God rests guidance to the straight path (). This means speaking to each species in a way that accords with its essence (dhāt). In the case of human beings, this is the kind of speaking known as revelation and sending messengers.
It is said that the imperfect tense is used to signify future occurrence (istiqbāl), and so everything returning to Him means on the Day of Resurrection. In this case, the sentence must be understood in the context of promising reward to those guided upon the Straight Path and warning of punishment for those who stray from it. However the previous interpretation is closer to the apparent meaning of the text.
Examining Narrations
- In al-Durr al-Manthūr, Bukhārī, Muslim, and Bayhaqī narrate from ʿĀʾishah:
al-Ḥārith b. Hishām asked God’s Messenger: “How does revelation come to you?”
He replied: “Sometimes the angel comes to me in the likeness of a bell’s ringing, then it ceases and I have understood what he said, and this is the hardest kind of revelation for me. Sometimes he takes the form of a man and speaks to me, and I understand what he says.”
ʿĀʾishah added: “I saw the revelation come down to him on an extremely cold day. By the time it finished, the sweat was dripping from his forehead.”
- And in al-Tawḥīd, via a chain of narrators going back to Zurārah:
I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]: “May I be your ransom, did God’s Messenger used to feel faint when revelation came down to him?”
He replied: “That was when there was no one between him and God; that was when God revealed Himself to Him… that is prophethood, O Zurārah!” And he came forth looking humbled.
- And in ʿIlal, via a chain of narrators going through Ibn Abī ʿUmayr, from ʿAmr b. Jamīʿ from Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]:
When Gabriel came to the Prophet, he would sit before him like a servant and would not enter his presence without first asking his permission.
- And in the al-Amālī of the Shaykh, with a chain of narrators going through Ibn Abī ʿUmayr, from Hishām b. Sālim:
Some of our colleagues asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]: “May God make you prosper, God’s Messenger would say: ‘Gabriel says…’, ‘This Gabriel has bid me do…’ but at other times he would become faint!”
Abū ʿAbd Allāh said: “When the revelation was directly from God—without Gabriel acting as an intermediary—then the Prophet was afflicted thus because of the weight of the revelation. But when Gabriel was between them, he was not afflicted with this. He would say: ‘Gabriel told me…’ and ‘This is Gabriel….’”
- In Baṣāʾir, from ʿAlī b. Ḥissān, from Ibn Bakīr, from Zurārah:
I asked Abū Jaʿfar: “Who is a messenger (rasūl)? Who is a prophet (nabī)? Who is spoken-to (muḥaddath)?”
He told me: “A messenger is one to whom Gabriel comes and speaks. So he sees him as one of you sees his companion when speaking to him. This is a messenger. The Prophet is one who is given revelation in his dreams like Abraham’s vision, and what God’s Messenger would receive while asleep when Gabriel would visit him in dreams. This is how a prophet is. And then there are those who combine being a messenger with being a prophet, so God’s Messenger was a prophet-messenger; Gabriel would come and speak to him and he could see him, and he would also come to him while asleep. As for one spoken-to (muḥaddath), this means they hear the speech of the angel without seeing him, and the angel does not come to them while they are asleep.”
Author’s comments: There are other narrations in this vein.
- In al-Tawḥīd, with a chain of narration going through Muḥammad b. Muslim and Muḥammad b. Marwān from Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]:
God’s Messenger only knew that Gabriel came from God because of Divine Assistance (tawfīq).
- In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, from Zurārah:
I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]: “How is it that God’s Messenger was not afraid that what he was receiving from God could have been tampered with by Satan?”
He said: “When God takes someone as a servant and a messenger, He sends down tranquillity (sakīnah) and clear-headedness (waqār) to them. So he could see what came to him from God as clearly as he saw things with his own eyes.”
- In Kāfī, with a chain of narration going back to Abū Baṣīr:
I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq] about God’s saying: Thus have We revealed to you the Spirit of Our dispensation. You did not know what the Book is, nor what is faith.
He told me: “God has created a being even greater than Gabriel and Michael that was with God’s Messenger and would inform him and advise him on his proper conduct, and this creature is with the Imams after him.”
Author’s comments: There are a number of narrations which say this, and some of them say this being is from the imaginal realm (malakūt).
- In Rūh al-Maʿānī, Ṭabrisī relates from Abū Jaʿfar [Imām al-Bāqir]and Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]:
What is meant by this spirit is an angel that is greater than Gabriel or Michael who was with God’s Messenger and did not ascend to the heavens.
Ālūsī, the author of Rūḥ al-Maʿānī says: “Such a statement is very strange, to the extent that it might not be authentically from these two Imams.” But if we look in Ṭabrisī’s own work, Majmaʿ al-Bayān, the tradition reads: “…It did not ascend to the heavens but remains with us instead.”
Ālūsī’s aversion to this tradition on the basis of something which there is no evidence to contradict is itself strange. This is especially so when we see he accepts the idea that this spirit could have guided other members of the ummah besides the Prophet, as is clear for anyone who studies the remarks he makes in his commentary.
- In Nahj al-Balāghah, we read [that Imām ʿAlī said]:
God joined [this Spirit] to him ever since he was weaned. It is an angel greater than all the others, by which one walks upon the path of noble behaviours and beautiful morals (ṭarīq al-makārim wa maḥāsin al-akhlāq) day and night.
11. In al-Dūrr al-Manthūr, it is narrated from Abū Naʿīm in Dalāʾil and Ibn ʿAsākir from ʿAlī:
It was said to the Prophet: “Have you ever needed to repeat an act of worship?” He said: “No.” The people asked: “Have you ever drank wine?” He said: “No. And I still knew that that which they follow is infidelity (kufr) even though I did not know what the Book was or faith.” And in this regard the verse was revealed: You did not know what the Book is, nor what is faith.
- In al-Kāfī, with a chain of narrators going back through Abū ʿAmr al-Zubaydī from Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]:
God said of the Prophet: And indeed you guide to a straight path. Meaning you call people towards one.
- And in al-Kāfī, with a chain of narrators going back to Jābir, from Abū Jaʿfar [Imām al-Bāqir]:
I [the narrator] heard him say: “A copy of the Qur’an fell into the ocean. When they found it, everything had been washed away except this verse: Look! To God do all matters return!”
See “A Philosophical Discussion on the Speech of Allah” in the exegesis of in Volume 4 of the English translation. [Trans.] ↩︎
Nazʿ al-khāfiḍ: A term from the Kufan school of Arabic Grammar which means that there is an implicit preposition (ḥarf jārr) after a verb. So for example, instead of saying “I passed by so-and-so” (marartu bi fulānin) [where the preposition interposes between the verb and noun, giving the noun following it a genitive declension (the kasrah)] you say “I passed so-and-so” (marartu fulānan) [the preposition is dropped and the verb takes the following noun as a direct object, giving it an accusative declension (the fatḥah)]. According to this theory, here the word “a Spirit” (rūḥan) actually means “with a Spirit” (bi rūḥin), with the preposition “bi” being omitted on the basis of this grammatical rule and “a Spirit” becoming accusative as a result. [Trans.] ↩︎