Verses 29–35
This is the second account, which follows on from that of ʿĀd, to serve as an admonition for the Prophet’s people. It also serves as a stinging rebuke of them in that they disbelieved in him and in the scripture that was revealed to him in their language, which they knew was a miraculous sign. This was while they were human beings like him, and yet when the jinn heard the Qur’an, they believed in it and returned to their people to warn them.
Commentary
وَإِذْ صَرَفْنَا إِلَيْكَ نَفَرًا مِنَ الْجِنِّ يَسْتَمِعُونَ الْقُرْآنَ فَلَمَّا حَضَرُوهُ قَالُوا أَنْصِتُوا ۖ فَلَمَّا قُضِيَ وَلَّوْا إِلَىٰ قَوْمِهِمْ مُنْذِرِينَ ٢٩
(46:29) When We dispatched toward you a team of jinn listening to the Qur’an. When they were in its presence, they said, “Be silent!” When it was finished, they went back to their people as warners.
To “dispatch” (ṣarf) means to drive something from one state to another or from one place to another. A “team” (nafar)—based on what Rāghib has said—literally means a group of men still small enough to escape notice, and it can be applied to any group of three or more men, women, humans, or jinn, as in this verse. Listening to the Qur’an is an adjective for a team.
The meaning is: “And mention when we directed to you a number of the jinn listening to the Qur’an.”
…when they were in its presence, they said, “Be silent!”
Its presence means the presence of the Qur’an, and this intimates a sense of activity (i.e. its recitation). Silent means to be quiet in order to listen. In other words, when they attended the Qur’an’s recitation, they said to one another: “Be silent so that we may listen properly!”
When it was finished, they turned to their people as warners.
It means the Qur’an, in the sense of its recitation and reading. Turned means that they departed. As warners is a circumstantial qualifier for the plural pronoun in they turned. In other words, when the recitation had finished completely, they departed to their people to warn them of God’s punishment.
قَالُوا يَا قَوْمَنَا إِنَّا سَمِعْنَا كِتَابًا أُنْزِلَ مِنْ بَعْدِ مُوسَىٰ مُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ يَهْدِي إِلَى الْحَقِّ وَإِلَىٰ طَرِيقٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ ٣٠
(46:30) They said, “O our people! Indeed we have heard a Book which has been sent down after Moses, confirming what was before it. It guides to the truth and to a straight path.
Here God relates what they said to their people when they invited them to believe and warned them. A Book which has been sent down after Moses means the Qur’an, and this statement would appear to suggest that they were believers in Moses and his scripture. Confirming what was before it means either that it confirms the Torah or all the heavenly scriptures.
It guides to the truth and to a straight path: In other words, it guides whoever follows it to the path of truth, to a straight path from which no one who walks upon it will stray in their beliefs or actions.
يَا قَوْمَنَا أَجِيبُوا دَاعِيَ اللَّهِ وَآمِنُوا بِهِ يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ مِنْ ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُجِرْكُمْ مِنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ ٣١
(46:31) O our people! Respond to God’s summoner and have faith in Him. He will forgive you of your sins and shelter you from a painful punishment.”
God’s summoner is the Prophet. Elsewhere, God says: This is my way. I summon to God with insight… (). Some have suggested that it refers to what they had heard of the Qur’an, but this is unlikely.
The apparent meaning of the word of (min) in He will forgive you of your sins is partitioning (tabʿīḍ), in other words: “He will forgive you some of your sins” meaning “those that they earned before you believed.” God says: …if they relinquish, what is already past shall be forgiven them ().
It is said: This means some of God’s rights over them, for these are forgiven through repentance, and believing is a kind of repentance. As for the rights they owe to people, these are not forgiven through repentance. However, this reading is refuted by the fact that Islam effaces whatever came before it.
وَمَنْ لَا يُجِبْ دَاعِيَ اللَّهِ فَلَيْسَ بِمُعْجِزٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَلَيْسَ لَهُ مِنْ دُونِهِ أَوْلِيَاءُ ۚ أُولَٰئِكَ فِي ضَلَالٍ مُبِينٍ ٣٢
(46:32) Those who do not respond to God’s summoner cannot thwart [God] on the earth, and they will not find any protectors besides Him. They are in manifest error.
Meaning, whoever does not believe in God’s summoner cannot thwart God upon the earth by rejecting his preaching, and they will not have any protectors besides God to help them and support them in that. In short, someone who does not respond to the summoner’s call only hurts himself; he does not impair God’s plan in any way, whether by himself or even with the help of others, which is why he has no protector besides God. That is why God finishes by saying: …They are in manifest error.
أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا أَنَّ اللَّهَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَلَمْ يَعْيَ بِخَلْقِهِنَّ بِقَادِرٍ عَلَىٰ أَنْ يُحْيِيَ الْمَوْتَىٰ ۚ بَلَىٰ إِنَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ ٣٣
(46:33) Do they not see that God, who created the heavens and the earth and was not exhausted by their creation, is able to revive the dead? Yes, indeed He has power over all things.
This verse and all the ones that follow it until the end of the sūrah are connected to the previous verse: The day when the faithless are offered the Fire, “You have exhausted…” (). They finish off the discussion of the warning this sūrah contains, namely the Resurrection and the return to God, as we have already explained.
Here, see means to know something through insight. Exhausted means to be rendered impotent or to become tired, but the first is more eloquent based on what has been said. In the Arabic text, the bāʾ in …is able to… (bi qādirin) is additional (zāʾidah) because it is attached to a predicate following a negative clause (Do they not see…), as if to say: “Is not God able…?” (a laysa allāhu bi qādirin…?).
The verse means: “And do they not know that God, who created the heavens and the earth and was not unable to create them (or was not tired out by creating them) is able to revive the dead—when He is the origin of everything’s existence and life? Of course he is able, because He has power over all things!” And we have explained this style of argument more than once already.
وَيَوْمَ يُعْرَضُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا عَلَى النَّارِ أَلَيْسَ هَٰذَا بِالْحَقِّ ۖ قَالُوا بَلَىٰ وَرَبِّنَاۚ قَالَ فَذُوقُوا الْعَذَابَ بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَكْفُرُونَ ٣٤
(46:34) The day when the faithless are exposed to the Fire, “Is this not a fact?” They will say, “Yes, by our Lord!” He will say, “So taste the punishment because of what you used to disbelieve.”
This affirms the argument in the previous verse by foretelling what will happen to those who deny the Resurrection on the Day of Judgement. The meaning of the verse is clear.
فَاصْبِرْ كَمَا صَبَرَ أُولُو الْعَزْمِ مِنَ الرُّسُلِ وَلَا تَسْتَعْجِلْ لَهُمْ ۚ كَأَنَّهُمْ يَوْمَ يَرَوْنَ مَا يُوعَدُونَ لَمْ يَلْبَثُوا إِلَّا سَاعَةً مِنْ نَهَارٍ ۚ بَلَاغٌ ۚ فَهَلْ يُهْلَكُ إِلَّا الْقَوْمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ ٣٥
(46:35) So be patient just as the resolute among the Messengers were patient, and do not seek to hasten [the punishment] for them. The day when they see what they are promised, [it will be] as though they had remained only an hour of a day. This is a proclamation. So shall anyone be destroyed except the transgressing lot?
This verse seeks to draw a conclusion (with So…) from the reality of the Resurrection which has been demonstrated through rational arguments and which God has foretold of and negated all doubt from.
It means: So be patient with the denial of those disbelievers and their refusal to believe in that Day, just as the resolute amongst the Messengers were patient. And do not hasten the punishment for them, because they will surely encounter it and the punishment it carries; it is not a day that is far-off for them, even if they imagine it to be so.
The day when they see what they are promised, as though they had remained only an hour of a day: This illustrates just how close that day is to them and their worldly lives by describing their condition when they witness that day; when they see what they have been promised on that day and what kind of punishments have been prepared for them, their condition will be like that of someone who had spent only an hour of a day upon the earth.
This is a proclamation. So shall anyone be destroyed except the transgressing lot?: In other words: This Qur’an and the explanation it contains is a proclamation from God sent by way of prophethood. So will anyone be destroyed in the manner God has conveyed except the transgressing people who cast off the cloak of servanthood?
In this verse, God has commanded his Prophet to be patient just as the Resolute Messengers (rusul ūlū al-ʿazm) before him were patient. This alludes to the fact that the Prophet is himself one of these messengers, so he should be patient as they were. The meaning of “resolute” (ʿazm) here is either patience, as some have understood the following verse to mean: As for him who endures patiently and forgives—that is indeed the steadiest of courses (ʿazm al-umūr) (46:43). Or it could mean resolution to fulfil the pledge taken from the Prophets, as God alludes to in the verse: Certainly We had enjoined Adam earlier; but he forgot, and We did not find any resoluteness in him (). Finally, it could also mean resolution (ʿazīmah), meaning governance (ḥukm) and law (sharīʿah).
According to the third meaning, which is the correct one according to the narrations of the Imāms of the Prophet’s Household, these Resolute Messengers are five individuals: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon them all). This is based on the verse: He has made plain to you of the religion what He enjoined upon Noah and that which We have revealed to you and that which We enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Jesus (). And we have already seen verses that are close in meaning to this.
Some commentators have said that all the Messengers (rusul) are resolute (ūlū al-ʿazm), in which case the among the Messengers is taken as an explanation of the Resolute (rather than the Resolute referring to a sub-category of Messengers). Other commentators have said that they are the eighteen messengers mentioned in Sūrah al-Anʿām (verses 83–90) because after mentioning them, God says: So follow their guidance ().
However, God says after mentioning their names: and from among their fathers, their descendants and brethren (). Only after this does He say: So follow their guidance. So he did not say this immediately after enumerating them.
Others still say that they are nine in number: Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, David and Jesus.
Then there are those who say seven: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus.
Or six, namely those who were commanded to fight: Noah, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Moses, David and Solomon.
Or six others: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Job.
Or some have suggested five: Noah, Hūd, Abraham, Shuʿayb, and Moses.
Or some have suggested four: Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. And some suggested that the four are: Noah, Abraham, Hūd and Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon all the Prophets).
But these opinions and others are either given without evidence to support them or with evidence that does not actually support what they are saying. For this reason, we have mentioned them only briefly. For a further discussion of the Resolute Messengers, please refer to our discussions of Prophethood in the second part of this work.
Examining Narrations
- In Tafsīr al-Qummī, concerning the verse When We dispatched toward you a team of jinn… (), we read:
The occasion for its revelation (sabab al-nuzūl) was that God’s Messenger had gone out from Mecca to the market of Ukkāẓ, accompanied by Zayd b. Ḥārithah, inviting people to Islam, but no one responded to him and he could find no one who would accept him. Then he returned to Mecca. When he reached a place called “The Valley of the Jinn” (wādī mujannah), he recited the Qur’an in the middle of the night. A party of the jinn passed by and when they heard the recitation of God’s Messenger they stopped and listened, and when they heard his Qur’an they said to one another: “Be silent!” And when it was finished—meaning when God’s Messenger completed his recitation of the Qur’an—they turned to their people as warners. They said, “O our people…!”
Then they came to God’s Messenger, embraced Islam and believed, and he instructed them in the teachings of Islam. Then God revealed to His Prophet: Say, “It has been revealed to me that a team of the jinn listened…” () and the rest of Sūrat al-Jinn. God recounted what they said, and God’s Messenger appointed one of them to govern the others. They would return to God’s Messenger at all times, so God’s Messenger told the Commander of the Faithful to teach them and instruct them—and amongst them were believers, disbelievers and nāṣibīs, Jews, Christians and Magians, and they are the offspring of jinn.
Author’s comments: There are many narrations recounting the story of this party of the jinn that listened to the Qur’an but their details differ greatly. There is no way to determine which of their accounts is most accurate from the Qur’an, or from any reliable contextual indicators. For this reason we have restricted ourselves here to mentioning what has been related in Tafsīr al-Qummī. However, we will mention a few more accounts when we come to Sūrah al-Jinn, God-willing.
- And in the same book, we read that the Learned One was asked about the believing jinn; namely, would they enter paradise? He said:
No, but God has realms between paradise and hell in which will dwell the believing jinn and the sinful Shiʿa.
Author’s comments: Similar traditions have been narrated through mawqūf traditions coming via Sunni chains of narration. Qummī’s narration is mursal like a muḍmar tradition. If it is accepted as authentic, then we must interpret it to mean that they will enter the lowest levels of paradise, as the general statements of the Qur’an indicate that the rewards of paradise encompass all obedient beings, whether humans or jinn.
- And in al-Kāfī, with a chain of narration via Ibn Abī Yaʿfūr, who said:
I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh say: “The masters of the Prophets and Messengers are five; they are the Resolute Messengers (ūlū al-ʿazm), and they are the axis of prophecy: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muḥammad.”
- In the same book, with a chain of narrators via ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Kathīr from Abū Jaʿfar: God’s Messenger said:
The first legatee (waṣī) who was on the face of the Earth was Seth, son of Adam. No Prophet has ever come without having a legatee. Altogether, there were one-hundred and twenty-thousand prophets, including five Resolute Ones: Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muḥammad.
Author’s comments: There is an abundance of narrations from the Imāms of the Prophet’s Household which indicate that there were five Resolute Messengers. They are related from the Prophet, from Imāms al-Bāqir, al-Ṣādiq and al-Riḍā.
- And Mufīd narrates in Rawḍat al-Wāʿiẓīn:
The Prophet was asked: “How much is between this world and the Hereafter?”
He replied: “The blink of an eye. God says: The day when they see what they are promised, as though they had remained only an hour of a day. This is a proclamation ().”
One of the Imāms, whose name is not identified. [Trans.] ↩︎
Mawqūf: Lit. “stopped”—Traditions that relate the words or deeds of a Companion rather than the Prophet himself. [Trans.] ↩︎
Mursal: Lit. “hurried”—a tradition which purports to convey the words or deeds of the Infallible but whose chain of narration is lacking one or more intermediaries. [Trans.] ↩︎
Muḍmar: Lit. “implied”—similar to the mawqūf category of tradition (see above), except that in this case we are sure that the narrator means to say that this came from the Imām, rather than reflecting his own opinion or interpretation. [Trans.] ↩︎
Lit. “Upon them turns the millstone” (ʿalayhim dārat al-raḥā) [Trans.] ↩︎