Surah Al-Haj 22:49-57 - Quran Translation Commentary

52. Never have We sent a messenger or prophet ⁸⁸ before you, but when he desired (good), Satan tampered with His desire.⁸⁹ But Allah abolishes that which Satan casts forth. Then Allah confirms⁹⁰ His revelations. And Allah is All-Knowing, Wise;⁹¹

53. So that He may make that which Satan casts forth a temptation for those whose hearts are diseased and hardened”⁹²— verily the wrong-doers have gone far in opposition.

54. And so that those to whom knowledge has been given may know that this is the truth from your Lord, so they should believe in it and their hearts should submit humbly to Him:⁹³ Verily Allah guides the faithful to the straight path.

55. And those Who disbelieve will never cease to doubt it until the Hour of Doom overtakes them on a sudden, or the punishment of the Woeful Day descends upon them.⁹⁴

56. The sovereignty on that day⁹⁵ will be Allah’s. He will judge between them. So those who believed and performed good acts will be in Gardens of Delight.

57. While those who disbelieved and belied our revelation, for them will be a shameful punishment.

Commentary

85.That is: My task is only to warn you of the adverse consequence of disobeying Allah. “Thereafter it is your job to accept it or reject it.

86. That is: In the Hereafter the provision for eating and drinking, etc. which mankind will get in the Paradise will not only be very nice and good, but it will be served with honour.

87. This statement was made concerning the idolaters of that time, but there is no dearth of Muslims in the present day who, in view of their worldly and political benefits, strive their every nerve to denigrate the Quranic commands and teachings. It is not right to say that whatever is said in Qur’an concerning the idolaters, etc., should be considered to be reserved specifically for them only, but those are statements of principle, and it is equally reprehensible for a Muslim to adopt an idolatrous practice as it is for a Non-Muslim.

88.There is no difference between a prophet and a messenger from the viewpoint of office, however there is some difference from the viewpoint of responsibility. Every prophet is a messenger, but his responsibilities are greater than that of a prophet. Prophet Muhammad (Sallal Lahu Alaihi Wa Sallam) was a messenger as well as a prophet. For further explanation see Surah Maryam, Note No.71.

89. Every messenger and prophet desires that the truth which he has received from God should be accepted by the people, but when he presents his dawah, Satan by his interjections creates misgivings and doubts in the hearts of the people about this dawah, and prompts them to oppose it. In this way Satan thwarts the desire of the prophet and puts spokes in the wheel of his plan. Something like this also happened with the last prophet. Muhammad (Sallal Lahu Alaihi Wa Sallam). On the one hand it was his heartfelt desire that his nation should embrace his faith and by accepting the dawah of truth be worthy of Allah’s blessings, and on the other hand the attitude of his nation was that it was not at all ready to tolerate his dawah, so much so that it forced the prophet to migrate from Makkah. On this occasion the Prophet is being comforted and he is being informed that what happened with him was not a new thing; every prophet was treated in the like manner.

90.That is: Allah creates such situations that the interjections made by Satan are eliminated and truth comes out as clean as the moon that comes out from behind the clouds, bright and shining. This statement of Qur’an proved to be true in every word. The doubts that were created as a result of Satanic interjections were removed, and the true religion appeared so clear and shining that there was no dust and dirt of doubt over it.

91. The idea behind stating these two attributes of Allah is to hint at the point that whatever happened with the prophet was not without a redeeming feature. In whatever way Allah deals with His prophet, it is based on knowledge and wisdom. Therefore, be sure that Allah will raise good against the evil created by Satan.

The meaning of the ayah which we have stated above is not only in accordance with the reference to context but it is also in consonance with other similar references found at other places in Qur’an. But some commentators, relying on an invented hadith, explained the meaning of this ayah thus: when Prophet (Sallal Lahu Alaihi Wa Sallam) was reciting Surah An-Najm before the idolaters, in which idolatry is decried, Satan at that time caused complimentary words in favour of the idols to be uttered by him. This was Satan’s interjections, which were later on cancelled, as mentioned in the subsequent ayah.

This narrative has been made by Ibn Jarir Tabari in his well known and oldest commentary, “Al-bayan” without screening the narrative. After this other commentators, hadith-narrators, and scholars took strong exception to this and declared it invented and false. Accordingly Imam Razi has dealt with this topic in detail in his commentary and has stated that this story is invented (Tafseer Kabir , Vol.23,p.5l).

Allama Ibn Katheer writes :

“ All the narratives of this story are ‘mursal’ (disconnected) and I have not seen that anywhere it has been narrated with continuity of the narrators.” -(Tafseer Ibn Katheer, Vol. 3, page 229)

And Allama Aloosi writes in his Tafseer Roohul Ma’ani :

“Many researchers have declared this story as unacceptable. Baihaqi writes that this story is not proved by judging from the intellectual point of view. And Qazi Ayaz writes in his Ash-Shifa that it is sufficient to consider this story unreliable by the very fact that none of the authentic people -Sihah Sitta - (the six authentic hadith narrators) has narrated it, nor has any reliable narrator narrated it with an authentic, sound and continued source. On the contrary it interested only those commentators and historians who have interest in every unusual and sensational narrative and who extract every authentic and unauthentic narrative from the books and it is in ‘tune’. When Imam Muhammad bin Ishaq, editor, As- Siratun Nabaviyah, was asked about this story, he replied that it was invented by the zindiq (disbelievers).” -(Roohul Ma’ani, Vol. VI, P. 177).

Allama Aloosi, after dealing with this story in a comprehensive manner, and refuting it, has written that it is easier for us to accept that the devil had interjected these words on the tongue of a few narrators than to believe that he had interjected the complimentary words in favour of idols (gharaneeq) on the tongue of the Prophet. -(Roohul Ma’ani, Vol. II, page 182).

Allama Shibli, in his Urdu book of research on the life of the Prophet, Siratun Nabi, writes :

“ Although this story is totally absurd and unspeakable, and many worthy narrators of hadith like Baihaqi, Qazi A’yaz. Allama. Aini, Hafiz Munziri, Allama Navavi, have termed it false and invented, yet it is a pity that a number of narrators have quoted this narrative with sources.” -(Siratun Nabi -Vol. I, page 224).

And Maulana Maududi, in his prestigious commentary, Tafheem-ul-Quran, has dealt with it comprehensively and argumentatively, and has completely smashed this narrative, and in the end he writes :

“God’s refuge from this tradition-worship, which tries to prepare a Muslim to accept such unkind points about Allah’s Book and His prophet merely on the basis of the abundance of the continuity of sources, reliability of the narrators or the tradition.” - (Tafheemul Quran, Vol. III, Page 244).

In fact this narrative is so absurd that to relate it is a burden on our sensibility. For this reason we have not quoted it in full, but considered it sufficient to quote it summarily. This narrative is contrary to the clarifications given in the Qur’an and is an obvious false charge on the Prophet. Therefore, only this point is sufficient to refute it, but those who are traditionworshippers accept even a point ,contrary to the teachings of the Qur’an under one interpretation or the other; they do not like that their favourite narrators be put to blame, even if the personality of the Prophet is being tarnished. Acceptance of the hadith under this standard is absolutely wrong, even if a great expert of the art of hadith narration may strive hard to prove it to be correct., Qur’an is Furqan, the touchstone to judge the purity of authenticity, therefore, any narrative which is proved to be unauthentic by this standard is false and unacceptable. Such narratives cannot be proven right by mixing them in the discussions of the art of hadith-narrating.

And so far as the ayah under commentary is concerned, this point has been mentioned in a general way as to how Satan thwarts the desires of a prophet. It is like the statement which has been mentioned in Surah An’am, ayat Nos.113 and 114, therefore, there is no reason to consider it specific with the Last Prophet (Sallal Lahu Alaihi Wa Sallam), nor is it necessary to take the work ‘tamanna’ to mean something else than its usual meaning (desire), as different commentators have taken it. Furthermore, the story that has been narrated pertains to the period in Makkah and its time of revelation is supposed to be some time after the migration to Ethiopia, while the Surah Hajj was revealed in Madina as is clear from the topics dealt in it, like the commands concerning migration, jihad, and the narration about the Muslims being barred from Hajj. For this reason this ayah has no connection with the theme contained in the said story (complimentary remarks about idols.)

92. Allah causes His prophets to pass through such circumstances so that the doubts which arise in those persons whose hearts have a disease and which have grown hard might put them to a test. By disease is meant the prejudiced and criminal mentality, and hearts being hardened means their inability to accept good counselling and advice. This is the consequence of the criminal mentality. When such persons are tempted due to the doubt created by Satan, they become a prey to his scheming, and the deceit of their heart comes out in the open, and their opposition becomes more severe.

93. That is: Those who do not live in the darkness of ignorance, but walk in the light of knowledge, and see that the atmosphere has become contaminated with doubts and misgiving, realise that it is the mischief and scheming of Satan and that the message of the prophet is truthful. This conflict of truth and falsehood is not unexpected for them, and by seeing this conflict their faith becomes stronger, and their hearts bow down before Allah for they realise that behind this test Allah’s great wisdom is active.

94.Those who are obstinate and firm in their obduracy, are not prepared to accept the message of the Prophet, even if it is supported by a foolproof argument. They will stick to their denial, and their eyes will open only when they will see the Day of Resurrection or the punishment which will be meted out to them for their denial and disbelief. By Woeful Day or the Day of Deprivation is meant the day when they will be deprived of good, i.e. the day of doom.

95. That is: The Doomsday.