Surah Al-Humazah 104:1-9 - Quran Translation Commentary

1.In the last verse of the previous Surah (Al- Asr) those qualities were described which guaranteed to save man from the loss in the Hereafter and for the success in the next world. These qualities are the characteristics of the character of the faithful people, but for the lovers of this world they are not at all important, and particularly those persons who are lovers of wealth consider people of righteous character as most insignificant. They even insult them and subject them to disrespect and slander. The pride of wealth creates meanness in them. They falsely accuse them of being concerned with the Hereafter only. They make fun of their religious activities and whenever they get a chance they taunt them.

At the time of the revelation of this Surah this was the condition of the sardars of Quraish. They were proud of their wealth. Those persons who did not care for the worldly wealth and were busy working for the success in the Hereafter were subjected to scandal-mongering by them. They considered such persons as of no significance. According to them, wealthy people were only worthy of honour. They used to taunt them and make fun of them on account of their simple and righteous living. Here these activities of theirs have been criticized and reproached.

With reference to the context, the reprehensible act of slandering and taunting the faithful people is considered the posture and attitude of the miserly capitalists, as is clear from the verse that follows, but it does not mean that this act is indulged into only by the rich people, but the main idea of the verse is that whoever would indulge in this activity he would be preparing for his own ruin. In Surah Taubah the taunting by the hypocrites is mentioned, which they used to indulge into against the charities of the faithful people. The poor believers, whatever little they used to earn, from that they used to spend in the cause of Allah. They could not afford to spend big amounts in this way, but the hypocrites used to taunt them and make fun of them:

“Those who slander such of the believers as give themselves freely to (deeds of) charity, as well as such as can find nothing to give except the fruits of their labour, and throw ridicule on them.”—,(At-Taubah-79).

The explanation of the special aspect of the verse with reference to the context has been given above, As regards its general aspect, it is to insult those whom the Shariah has asked to be respectable to, and to be slanderous about them, to find faults with them and to hurt their feelings these are the manifestations of bad habit, which would earn adverse consequences in the Hereafter, even if the person indulging in these acts may be a Muslim.

It should be noted that in the olden days the methods employed for fault-finding and taunting were: making signs with the eyes while passing, to point with fingers, to pass remarks; to call bad names, and particularly saying uncomplimentary things in poetry, etc. But in the modern times, new methods have been invented, e.g. cartoons, satirical writings, humorous or witty dramas, satirical columns in the newspapers which have become the most popular entertainment in today’s journalism, and all these things have now become a regular art. All these things are the modern and improved forms of ‘humazah. and ‘lumazah’ (slandering and taunting), when through their means those persons may be maligned and ridiculed whom the Shariah has commanded to respect.

2.That is: This is the pride of wealth, that has created in them this mentality that they consider poor people as of no significance and mean, that they ridicule those who have established the correct relationship with their Lord and have graced their lives with virtuousness.

The lovers of wealth are always thinking about money. The greedy capitalists are busy all the time in trying to increase their capital. Their heart is always in their business and their mind in their accounts. Their entire attention is directed towards one goal, that is how to increase their capital and how can they enhance their bank balance. Their hankering after money keeps them worried so much that they have neither the time to think about God and the Hereafter nor are they psychologically prepared for listening to any advice in this respect. Their increasing greed does not allow them to pay the dues of the poor from the wealth God has given them, and they sit on their treasures like the proverbial snakes.

In the Injeel also the love for wealth has been very effectively condemned:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6: 19-21)

“You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

3.This is the reflection of the psychology of a capitalist. He considers his wealth as the capital of his life, and the way of living which he adopts shows as if he is going to live in this world for ever, and that he would never die.

Since wealth is the means of getting worldly pleasures and luxuries, the rich people are under an illusion that their riches is life-giving for them and is instrumental for their survival, although there is neither the power of life nor the power of survival in wealth. If it could have the power to give life, then it could have provided internal peace to men, while this is the thing which the rich persons lack most, and generally their lives are a bundle of worries. However; by leading the life of righteousness man does get internal peace. It is, therefore, clear that the thing which provides eternal life to man is righteousness, and not wealth. This reality has been described in Quran at various places. In the Injeel it has been described in this way that man does not live by bread alone but he lives by the word of God (Matthew 4:4), and the fact is that a man’s wealth does not even go up to his grave, where is the question of giving him eternal life. But even to day man’s mentality about wealth is the same which it was in the past, that is instead of regarding wealth to be a means of getting worldly goods and spending it for righteous causes, he considers it as a means of his survival and goes on hoarding it, and then there is no limit to this hoarding. After becoming a millionaire, he wants to become a billionaire and thence a trillion aire, when in the society there are innumerable people who are unable to get even the bare necessities of life, and a very large number of virtuous acts and deeds cannot be performed for want of funds.

In short Quran condemns this tendency of hoarding money except that man may keep the money for meeting his own needs and that of his dependents.

4.This is the denial of such thinking of the lovers of money which has been described above.

5.In the text the word ‘Hutamah’ has been used, which means that which breaks to pieces and crushes. This is the name of Hell. This quality of the hell has been mentioned as opposed to the condemned habit of slandering and taunting, mentioned in Verse No.1. The idea is to show that the man who damages the honour of the sincere slaves of Allah, the hell will crush to pieces the honour of such a man and for insulting and disrespecting the faithful persons it will break him to pieces.

It is worth noting that as against “Humazah” and “Lumazah” (slandering and taunting) the use of the word ‘Hutamah’(which breaks to pieces) has not only created a similarity of the word sounds but there is also an appropriateness in their meanings, and this is just an ordinary example of the eloquence and miraculous effect of the holy Quran.

6.There is a hint in being flung into the hell that the realisation about the pride on account of wealth will come to him at the time when he will be flung into the hell with the hate, which he deserves.

7.This question is to give an idea of the destructive power of the hell.

8.This is the explanation of ‘Hutamah’ which Allah Himself has given.

9.Points to the fact that to those hearts which nursed the love of wealth and riches instead of the love of Allah, the fire of Hell will leap up to them, and the eternal pain which man will feel when the fire will enter his heart cannot be surmised even by the state of pain of the patient of heartdisease.

10.That is: They will be surrounded by the outstretched, long columns of fire.