26. Ash-Shu'ara'

The letters ta, sin and mim are among the mysterious, disjointed letter-symbols (al muqatta'at) preceding some of the chapters of the Qur'an (see Appendix II).

See surah 12, note 2.

see notes 3 and 4 on 18:6.

Inasmuch as the spiritual value of man's faith depends on its being an outcome of free choice and not of compulsion, the visible or audible appearance of a "message from the skies" would, by its very obviousness, nullify the element of free choice and, therefore, deprive man's faith in that message of all its moral significance.

See 6:4-5 and the corresponding note 4.

The above two verses appear eight times in this surah. Apart from the present instance, they conclude, like a refrain, each of the subsequent seven stories of earlier prophets, which - by means of their, in places, almost identical phrasing - are meant to stress the essential identity of the ethical teachings of all the prophets, as well as to illustrate the statement, in verse 5, that a rejection of God's messages is a recurrent phenomenon in the history of mankind despite the fact that His existence is clearly manifested in all living creation.

Lit., "Will they not be [or "become"] conscious [of me]?" Zamakhshari and Razi understand this rhetorical question in the sense apparent in my rendering, namely, as a statement of fact.

Cf. 20:25-34 and the corresponding notes. In the present context, stress is laid on the deep humility of Moses, who considered himself incapable of fulfilling the task for which he had been chosen, and asked God to entrust it to Aaron instead.

Sc., "and thus frustrate my mission". This is a reference to Moses' killing of the Egyptian, which was the cause of his subsequent flight from his native land (cf. 28:15 ff.)

Lit., "thou didst commit thy deed which thou hast committed" - a construction meant to express the speaker's utter condemnation of the deed referred to: hence, my interpolation of the word "heinous". As regards the above aJlusions to Moses' childhood and youth at Pharaoh's court, the manslaughter committed by him, and his flight from Egypt, see 28:4-22.

As is shown in 28:15-16, after having killed the Egyptian, Moses suddenly realized that he had committed a grievous sin (see also note 15 on the last two sentences of 28:15).

See 28:4-5.

A reference to the terms in which Moses was to - and apparently did - announce his mission (see verse 16 above).

Sc., "by the evidence of His creative will in all that exists": this proposition being, I believe, the main reason for a repetition of the story of Moses in the present surah. (Cf. also verse 28 above.)

Lit., "Do you not hear?" - a rhetorical question meant to convey astonishment, indignation or derision, which may be idiomatically rendered in translation as above.

Cf. 2:115.

In the religion of ancient Egypt, the king (or "Pharaoh", as each of the rulers was styled) represented an incarnation of the divine principle, and was considered to be a god in his own right. Hence, a challenge to his divinity implied a challenge to the prevalent religious system as a whole.

For this rendering of the term mubin, see note 2 on 12:1.

See 7:107-108 and the corresponding note 85, as well as 20:22, 27:12 and 28:32.

Cf. 7:109-110 and the corresponding note 86.

There is no doubt that these "sorcerers" were priests of the official Amon cult, in which magic played an important role. Thus, their victory over Moses would constitute a public vindication of the state religion.

See note 88 on 7:113.

The reason for their premature sense of triumph is given in 7:116 ("they cast a spell upon the people's eyes, and struck them with awe") and 20:66-67 ("by virtue of their sorcery, their [magic] ropes and staffs seemed to him to be moving rapidly; and in his heart, Moses became apprehensive").

See note 89 on 7:117.

See note 91 on 7:123.

I.e., "he is so superior a sorcerer that he could be your teacher".

See notes 44 and 45 on 5 : 33, and note 92 on 7:124, which explain the repeated stress on "great numbers" in the above sentence.

I.e., after the period of plagues with which the Egyptians were visited (cf. 7 :130 ff.).

Lit., "a small band": Zamakhshari, however, suggests that in this context the adjective qalilun is expressive of contempt, and does not necessarily denote "few in numbers".

Thus the Qur'an illustrates the psychological truth that, as a rule, a dominant nation is unable really to understand the desire for liberty on the part of the group or groups which it oppresses, and therefore attributes their rebelliousness to no more than unreasonable hatred and blind envy of the strong.

This is apparently an allusion to the honourable state and the prosperity which the children of Israel had enjoyed in Egypt for a few generations after the time of Joseph - i.e., before a new Egyptian dynasty dispossessed them of their wealth and reduced them to the bondage from which Moses was to free them. In the above passage, Pharaoh seeks to justify his persecution of the Israelites by emphasizing their dislike (real of alleged) of the Egyptians.

This parenthetical sentence echoes the allusion, in 7:137, to the period of prosperity and honour which the children of Israel were to enjoy in Palestine after their sufferings in Egypt. The reference to "heritage" is, in this and in similar contexts, a metonym for God's bestowal on the oppressed of a life of well-being and dignity.

See 20:77 and the corresponding note 61. Cf. also the Biblical account (Exodus xiv, 21), according to which "the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided".

Lit., "the others"

From various indications in the Bible (in particular, Exodus xiv, 2 and 9), it appears that the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea took place at the north-western extremity of what is known today as the Gulf of Suez. In those ancient times it was not as deep as it is now, and in some respects may have resembled the shallow part of the North Sea between the mainland and the Frisian Islands, with its total ebbs which lay bare the sandbanks and make them temporarily passable, followed by sudden, violent tides which submerge them entirely.

See note 6 on verses 8-9.

I.e., to the kind of people spoken of in verses 3-8 of this surah.

The particle bal at the beginning of the sentence expresses astonishment. Thus, evading a direct answer to Abraham's criticism of idol-worship, his people merely stress its antiquity, forgetting as Zamakhshari points out - that "ancient usage and precedence in time are no proof of [a concept's] soundness". Razi, for his part, states that the above verse represents "one of the strongest [Qur'anic] indications of the immorality (fasad) inherent in [the principle of] taqlid", i.e., the blind, unquestioning adoption of religious concepts or practices on the basis of one's uncritical faith in no more than the "authority" of a scholar or religious leader.

Lit., "grant me a language of truth among the others" or "the later ones". For alternative interpretations of this phrase, see note 36 on 19:50.

Cf. l9:47-48.

Sc., "by letting me see my father among the damned" (Zamakhshari).

Or: "beside God". Whenever the relative pronoun ma ("that which" or "all that which") is used in the Qur'an with reference to false objects of worship, it indicates not merely inanimate things (like idols, fetishes, supposedly "holy" relics, etc.) or falsely deified saints, dead or alive, but also forces of nature, real or imaginary, as well as man's "worship" of wealth, power, social position, etc. (See also 10:28-29 and the corresponding notes.)

Lit., "into it".

Cf. 2: 24 - "the fire whose fuel is human beings and stones" - and the corresponding note 16. The "hosts of Iblis" are the forces of evil ("satans") frequently mentioned in the Qur an in connection with man's sinning (see note 10 on 2:14, the first half of note 16 on 15:17, as well as note 52 on 19:68; also cf. 19: 83 and the corresponding note 72).

Lit., "while they quarrel with one another".

Lit.,"yet none but those guilty ones (al-muidm un) have led us astray": cf. 7:38, 33:67-68. 38:60-61 and the corresponding notes.

Lit., "would that there were a return for us". See also 6:27-28 and the corresponding note.

Sc., "and He may grant forgiveness to whomever He wills".

See note 47 on 11:27.

This is obviously a retort to the unbelievers' suggestion (elliptically implied here) that those "abject" followers of Noah had declared their faith in him, not out of conviction, but only in order to gain some material advantages. Noah's answer embodies a cardinal principle of Qur'anic ethics and, hence, of Islamic Law: No human being has the right to sit in judgment on another person's faith or hidden motives; whereas God knows what is in the hearts of men, society may judge only by external evidence (az-zahir), which comprises a person's words as well as deeds. Thus, if anyone says, "I am a believer", and does not act or speak in a manner contradicting his professed faith, the community must consider him a believer.

Lit., "thou wilt surely be among those who are stoned [to death)".

Or: "decide Thou with a [clear] decision between me and them". My choice of the primary significance of iftah ("lay open", i.e., the truth) has been explained in note 72 on the last sentence of 7:89.

The story of Noah and his people, as well as of the Deluge, is given in greater detail in 11:25-48.

For the message specifically alluded to here, see verses 111-115, as well as note 50 above.

See 7:65 and the corresponding note 48.

The noun ayah, which primarily denotes "a sign" or "a token", evidently refers here to the ancient Semitic custom of worshipping the tribal gods on hilltops, which were crowned to this end by sacrificial altars or monuments, each of them devoted to a particular deity: hence my rendering of ayah, in this particular context, as "altars" (in the plural).

The meaning could be either "hoping that you might live in them forever", or "that you might gain immortal renown for having built them".

The term jabbar, when applied to man, as a rule denotes one who is haughty, overbearing, exorbitant and cruel, and does not submit to any moral restraints in his dealings with those who are weaker than himself. Sometimes (as, e.g., in 11:59 or 14:15) this term is used to describe a person's negative ethical attitude, and in that case it may be rendered as "enemy of the truth". In the present instance, however, stress is laid on the tyrannical behaviour of the tribe of 'Ad, evidently relating to their warlike conflicts with other people: and in this sense it expresses a Qur'anic prohibition, valid for all times, of all unnecessary cruelty in warfare, coupled with the positive, clearly-implied injunction to subordinate every act of war - as well as the decision to wage war as such - to moral considerations and restraints.

Lit., "with all that you know" or "that you are [or "might be"] aware of".

Lit., "the innate habit of the earlier people (al-awwalin)". The noun khuluq denotes one's "nature" in the sense of "innate disposition" (tabi'ah) or "moral character" (Taj al-'Arus); hence the use of this term to describe "that to which one clings", i.e., one's "innate habit" or "custom", and, in a specific sense, one's religion (ibid.).

The message referred to here is contained in verses 128-130, which point out the three cardinal sins resulting from man's inordinate striving for power: worship of anything apart from God, self-admiring search for "glory", and cruelty or harshness towards one's fellow-men.

For the story of Salih and the tribe of Thamud, see 7:73 and the corresponding note 56; also, the version appearing in ii: 61-68.

Lit., "of what is here", i.e., on earth. In the original, this question has a direct form, thus: "Will you be left secure...?", etc. (See also note 69 below.)

See note 59 on 7:74.

Tabari: "... that is to say, 'with an indication (dalalah) and a proof that thou art to be trusted as regards thy claim that thou hast been sent to us by God'."

Cf. the second paragraph of 7:73 - "This she-camel belonging to God shall be a token for you - and the corresponding note 57, which explains that the "token" spoken of by Salih was to consist in the manner in which the tribe would treat the animal.

Lit., "on a day appointed", which may mean either "each on a day appointed" (i.e., by turns), or, more probably - because more in consonance with the tribal customs of ancient Arabia - "on the days appointed for the watering of camels": implying that on those days the ownerless she-camel should receive a full share of water side by side with the herds and flocks belonging to the tribe.

Lit., "they became regretful". For my rendering of 'aqaruha as "they cruelly slaughtered her", see note 61 on 7:77.

In my opinion, the specific message alluded to here relates, in the first instance, to the individual person's emotional reluctance to visualize the limited, transitory character of his own life on earth (hinted at in verses 14~l49 above) and, hence, the judgment that awaits everyone in the life to come; and, secondly, to the element of compassion for all other living beings as a basis of true morality.

The story of Lot and the sinful people among whom he lived is narrated in greater detail in 11:69-83.

As is evident from 7:83, 11:81, 27:57 and 29:32-33, the old woman was Lots' wife - a native of Sodom - who chose to remain with her own people instead of accompanying her husband, whom she thus betrayed (cf. also 66:10).

See 11:82 and the corresponding note 114.

Or, in the past tense: "dire was the rain upon those who had been warned" - in which case this sentence would refer specifically to the sinful people of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, it is much more probable that its purport is general (see note 115 on the last sentence of 11:83). Zamakhshari's interpretation of the above sentence is analogous to mine.

See note 67 on the first sentence of 7:85. The story of Shu'ayb and the people of Madyan (the 'wooded dales") is given in greater detail in 11:84-95.

Cf. surah 7, note 68.

An allusion to the ephemeral character of man's life on earth and by implication to God's judgment.

Lit., "that thou art indeed one of the liars".

This may refer either to the physical darkness which often accompanies volcanic eruptions; and earthquakes (which, as shown in 7:91, overtook the people of Madyan), or to the spiritual darkness and gloom which comes in the wake of belated regrets.

With this refrain ends the cycle of seven stories showing that spiritual truth in all its manifestations - whether it relates to an intellectual realization of God's existence, to a refusal to regard power, wealth or fame as real values, or to the virtues of compassion and kindness towards all that lives on earth - has at all times been unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of mankind, and has always been submerged under the average man's blindness and deafness of heart. The very repetition of phrases, sentences and situations in all of the above stories - or, rather, in the above versions of these oft-narrated stories - tends to bring home to us the fact that the human situation as such never really changes, and that, in consequence, those who preach the truth must always struggle against human greed, power-hunger and proneness to self-adulation.

Thus the discourse returns to the theme enunciated at the beginning of this surah, namely, the phenomenon of divine revelation as exemplified in the Qur'an, and men's reactions to it.

According to almost all the classical commentators, the expression ar-ruh al-amin (lit., "the faithful [or "trustworthy"] spirit") is a designation of Gabriel, the Angel of Revelation, who, by virtue of his purely spiritual, functional nature, is incapable of sinning and cannot, therefore, be other than utterly faithful to the trust reposed in him by God (cf. 16:50). On the other hand, since the term ruh is often used in the Qur'an in the sense of "divine inspiration" (see surah 2, note 71, and surah 16, note 2), it may have this latter meaning in the above context as well, especially tn view of the statement that it had "alighted from on high upon the heart" of the Prophet.

See 14:4 - "never have We sent forth any apostle otherwise than [with a message] in his own people's tongue" - and the corresponding note 3. That the message of the Qur'an is, nevertheless, universal has been stressed in many of its verses (e.g., in 7:158 or 25:1). The other prophets mentioned in the Qur'tn who "preached in the Arabic tongue" were Ishmael, Hud, Salih and Shu'ayb, all of them Arabians. in addition, if we bear in mind that Hebrew and Aramaic are but ancient Arabic dialects, all the Hebrew prophets may be included among "those who preached in the Arabic tongue".

Lit., "in the scriptures (zubur, sing. zabur) of the ancients" (see surah 21, note 101). This interpretation of the above verse - advanced among others by Zamakhshari and Baydawi (and, according to the former, attributed to Imam Abu Hanifah as well) - is in full consonance with the oft-repeated Qur'anic doctrine that the basic teachings revealed to Muhammad are in their purport (ma'ani) identical with those preached by the earlier prophets. Another, more popular interpretation is, "... this [Qur'an] has been mentioned [or "foretold") in the earlier scriptures" (see in this connection note 33 on 2:42 and - with particular reference to a prediction made by Jesus - note 6 on 61:6).

I.e., for those who disbelieve in the prophethood of Muhammad.

Sc., "and in consequence have become Muslims": for instance, 'Abd Allah ibn Salim, Ka'b ibn Malik and other learned Jews of Medina in the lifetime of the Prophet, Ka'b al-Ahbar the Yemenite and a number of his compatriots during the reign of 'Umar, and countless others throughout the world who embraced Islam in the course of centuries. The reason why only learned Jews and not learned Christians as well are spoken of in this context lies in the fact that - contrary to the Torah, which still exists, albeit in a corrupted form - the original revelation granted to Jesus has been lost (see surah 3, note 4) and cannot, therefore, be cited in evidence of the basic identity of his teachings with those of the Qur'an.

As the Qur'an points out in many places, most of the Meccan contemporaries of Muhammad refused in the beginning to believe in his prophethood on the ground that God could not have entrusted "a man from among themselves" with His message: and this in spite of the fact that the Qur'an was expressed "in the clear Arabic tongue", which they could fully understand: but (so the argument goes) if the Prophet had been a foreigner, and his message expressed in a non-Arabic tongue, they would have been even less prepared to accept it - for then they would have had the legitimate excuse that they were unable to understand it (cf. 41:44).

I.e., not to take root in their hearts, but to "go into one ear and out of the other". As regards God's "causing" this to happen, see surah 2, note 7, and surah 14, note 4.

I.e., a second chance in life.

For this sarcastic demand of the unbelievers, see 6:57 and 8:32, as well as the corresponding notes; also verse 187 of the present surah.

Lit., "unless it had its warners by way of a reminder": see 6:131, 15:4, 20:134, and the corresponding notes.

During the early years of his prophetic mission, some of Muhammad's Meccan opponents tried to explain the rhetorical beauty and persuasiveness of the Qur'an by insinuating that he was a soothsayer (kahin) in communion with all manner of dark forces and evil spirits (shayatin).

The conjunctive particle fa at the beginning of this sentence (rendered here as "hence") evidently connects with verse 208 above. As shown in note 94 below, the whole of the presen passage is addressed to man in general.

A believer is morally obliged to preach the truth to all whom he can reach, but obviously he must begin with those who are nearest to him, and especially those who recognize his authority.

For an explanation of the metaphorical expression "lower thy wing" rendered by me as "spread the wings of thy tenderness" see 17:24 and the corresponding note 28. The phrase "all of the believers who follow thee" shows that (contrary to the assumption of most of the commentators) the above passage is not addressed to the Prophet - since all who believe in him are, by definition, his followers, and vice versa - but to everyone who chooses to be guided by the Qur'an, and who is herewith called upon to extend his loving kindness and care to all believers who may "follow" him, i.e., who may regard him as spiritually or intellectually superior or more experienced. This interpretation also explains verse 213 above: for whereas the exhortation contained in that verse is meaningful with regard to all who may listen to or read the Qur'an, it would be meaningless with reference to its Prophet, for whom the principle of God's oneness and uniqueness was the unquestionable beginning and end of all truth.

According to Mujahid (as quoted by Tabari), this means "wherever thou mayest be". Other commentators take it to mean "when thou standest up for prayer", but this seems to be too narrow an interpretation.

I.e., among the believers. as contrasted with those who "disobey thee" (see verse 216 above).

The term affak which literally denotes "a great [or "habitual"] liar", has here the meaning of "one who lies to himself": this is brought out in the next verse. which Stresses the psychological fact that most of such self-deceivers readily lie to others as well.

Lit., "most of them are lying".

An allusion to the fact that some of the pagan Arabs regarded the Qur'an as a product of Muhammad's supposedly poetic mind. (See also 36:69 and the corresponding notes 38 and 39.)

The idiomatic phrase hama fi widyan (lit., "he wandered [or "roamed"] through valleys") is used, as most of the commentators point out, to describe a confused or aimless and often self-contradictory play with words and thoughts. In this context it is meant to stress the difference between the precision of the Qur'an, which is free from all inner contradictions (cf. note 97 on 4:82), and the vagueness often inherent in poetry.

Thus the Qur'an makes it clear that a true believer may fight only in self-defence: cf. 22:39-40, the earliest reference to war as such, and 2:190-194, where the circumstances making war fully justified are further elaborated.

Lit., "by what [kind of] turning they will turn".