Surah An-Naml 27:1-14 - Quran Translation Commentary

7. When Moosa told his household: “Surely, I have seen a fire; I will bring some news from there, or will bring to you a borrowed flame so that you may warm yourselves.”⁸

8.And when he came near a voice called out to Him: “Blessed is He who is in this fire and round about it! Immaculate is Allah, the Lord of the Worlds ! ⁹

9.”O Moosa : Verily, it is I, Allah, the Mighty, the Wise.

10. ”And cast down your staff: ” Then when he saw it writhing as if it were serpent, he turned his back and fled, and did not turn to look¹⁰ back. “O Moosa! Do not fear, verily, the messengers are never afraid in My presence.¹¹

11.”Except him who has done wrong and afterwards has changed evil for good. Then verily I am Forgiving, Merciful.¹² ”

12. And Put your hand into your bosom, it will come out white but unhurt.¹³ (This is) among nine signs,¹⁴ (with which) you go to Firaun and his people. Verily they are wicked people.”¹⁵

13. But when Our open signs came to them, they said: “This is plain magic.”

14. And they denied them because of their evil and arrogance, though their souls were satisfied of their truth.¹⁶ So see what was the end of the evil-doers:¹⁷

Commentary

1. These are separate alphabetical letters, and as stated earlier, they hint at the specific topics of the Surah.

‘Ta’ hints at ‘Tair’ (bird), whose mention made in the ayah No. 16 that their speech was taught to Prophet Sulaiman. ‘Seen’ hints at Sulaiman and also at Saba (Sheba), who are mentioned in the ayat Nos. 16 and 22, respectively.

2. That is: What is Qur’an, a clear and manifest book and these are its ayat. The message of Qur’an and its teachings are so plain and clear that whoever would listen to it or read it, would understand its purpose and meaning.

Non-Arabic knowing people can get this benefit from its translation, provided the translation is correct. As for its commentaries, their utility cannot be ignored or denied, but it is not proper to think that without the commentaries the Qur’an cannot be understood. Not a few non- Muslims merely read its translation and were blessed with the treasure of faith !

3. For explanation, please see Surah Baqarah Note.” Nos. 7 and 10.

4. When a man denies the Hereafter, then this world becomes his goal, as a result of which his acts go astray. But since his objective is the material world, then evil acts also seem attractive and beautiful to him. This is the reason why today in the name of fashion, originality and progress filthy morals and worst conduct are being exhibited. When the line of thinking is wrong, then the line of action will also be wrong, and the standard of likes and dislikes also gets wrong. This psychology is quite in accordance with Allah’s Law of Straying, therefore, it has been termed as: We have made their acts seem attractive to them.

5. As a result of the denial of the Hereafter, man is deprived of the right path, and also of the wealth of belief. Then wandering here and there is his fate. Look at humanity today, how it is wandering aimlessly. Someone is running towards communism, and some other towards nationalism. Some one is making the unity of religions as the basis of removal of differences and some other is making his culture as the basis of unity. Some one is trying to promote communalism, while the other one is trying to separate religion from politics. Some have no leisure from destructive activities while others are presenting the worst example of terrorism. In short after denying the Hereafter, there has remained no single axis of man’s activities.

6. The nation or the community, to whom Allah’s messenger conveys His message direct, rejects it, then that nation or community is visited by such a terrific punishment from Allah that it is totally obliterated from the page of existence, but those who receive the message indirectly, and they do not accept the message and persist in their denial of the Hereafter, they receive their punishment in the world according to their desert. Today in the various corners of the world the occurrence of catastrophes and calamities are taking place with so much frequency and such abundance that never before such happenings were seen.

7. The topics of the Qur’an are a witness to the point that is not a human composition, but it is the word of the One and Only Allah, the Wisest and the All-Knowing, for in it are hidden treasures of matchless examples of wisdom and guidance.

8. For explanation, please see Surah Taha Note No.9.

9. The fire which was seen by Prophet Moosa was not the fire that burns, otherwise he would have taken some torch or flame from it. It was an extraordinary fire, under the garb of which the blissful personage of Allah had addressed him.

Around this fire there might have been angels, as appears from the mode of address, and whose presence was a means of blessing and auspiciousness.

Prophet Moosa was travelling. The night was dark and cold. The pathway was in darkness. In such circumstances a voice from the Unseen would easily disturb a person and in such conditions it was not easy to keep calm and undisturbed, and that is why the voice from the Unseen first reassured him that the voice was from that blissful Being who is the Lord of the Universe and in that sacred piece of land angels have descended, which is absolutely good. The whole environment has been made secure from Satan and his evil.

From this a reality has come to light that prophethood is not a thing that can be attained by one’s efforts, but that it is an honourable office which Allah bestows on any one whom He wills and when He wills. As prophet Moosa was blessed with prophethood in the state of unawareness, similarly Prophet Muhammad (Sallal Lahu Alaihi Wa Sallam) was also blessed with Prophethood in the Cave of Hira in the state of unawareness. The sudden be stowing upon of the prophethood is the argument in favour of the authenticity of the prophets, for a man who makes a false claim of prophethood, he makes mental, academic and practical preparation for the same.

As for the question how Prophet Moosa recognised the voice from the Unseen to be that of God; then first of all a creature cannot be totally unable to recognise his creator’s voice. Whenever its Lord will call it, it would immediately recognise His voice. Secondly the inner sense of a prophet-a pure and clean soul-has a firm belief in his heart that it is the voice of my Lord, or that it is a revelation that has come down from Him.

Thirdly, at the time of the revelation of the God’s word the ambience is made so clean that Satanic promptings do not enter the mind and the heart feels fully satisfied. And fourthly the revelation on account of its topic and wordings, itself becomes a proof of its own authenticity.

And the wording of ‘Immaculate is Allah’ show that even though the voice is coming from inside the fire, but Allah’s being is free from it and he cannot be limited or confined to anything, or that He cannot be amalgamated or dissolved into anything. He is gracing the throne of. ‘Arsh’, and He is nearer to his slave than his jugular vein. Then he is also in the heaven and the earth, as mentioned in the Qur’an at another place:

“And Allah is in heavens and also on the earth.” -(An’-am-3)

And as the meaning of His being in the heaven and the earth is not His being dissolved in the skies and the earth, in the same way His saying to Moosa: ‘Blessed is He who is in this fire’ does not mean that He has a physical body which is inside this fire. His very attribute is that there is nothing like Him. Therefore, it is not correct to think of Him on the lines of the creatures, it would be plain straying. In the material world we observe that in the mirror a man’s image is seen, while the man is not inside the mirror. And today on the T.V. screen a man’s image or photo is seen, his voice is also heard, while he actually is not inside the T.V. When this is the case of the material world, then how can one deny God’s being matchless, bodyless and homeless:

10. This was on account of the human weakness. Seeing the snake writhing, he was frightened.

11. That is: When Allah selects someone for prophethood and calls him in His presence, there is no reason for him to be afraid. He remains secure and safe from every evil and trouble in His presence, therefore, the snake which was seen by Prophet Moosa will not cause any harm or trouble to him.

12. As for the fear that might have remained on account of some past fault, he has been reassured that now that he has adopted a virtuous line of action, he would not be questioned for that. This was a hint of forgiveness which was granted for the murder that was involuntarily committed by Prophet Moosa in the past, the detail of which has been narrated in the Surah Qasas.

13. This was the second miracle which was granted by Allah to Prophet Moosa. For explanation, please see Surah Taha Note No.23.

14. For the details of the nine signs please see Surah Bani Israil Note No.132

15. Firaun and his people have been called wicked or the evil-doing people, although Prophet Moosa had not yet conveyed to them Allah’s message. The reason is that they were not totally unaware of the prophetic teachings, because Prophet Yusuf (Joseph) had left deep impressions of his teachings in Egypt, and however corrupt Bani Israil might have been, they were after all Muslims (believers), and therefore, through them hints, teachings, guidance, in one way or the other, might have been reaching them. And this is a basic point that human nature knows open evils, and sins, e.g. oppression excesses, immorality, conceit, pride, and transgression against one’s Lord, etc. But Firaun and his community had suppressed the voice of their nature and adopted the attitude of tyranny and sinning, therefore, they deserved to be called wicked and evil-doing.

From this a point of principle becomes manifest that those who adopt the path of committing sin against the commands of Allah are bound to be called wicked and evil-doing, whether the message of Allah had been conveyed to them or not.

16. That is: They were convinced that the signs which Prophet Moosa was showing were miracles and that not magic and that in reality he was the Prophet of Allah. In spite of this conviction the thing that prevented them from accepting Islam were their pride and evil intention. Evil ideas keep a man from accepting truth and pride does not let him condescend to acknowledge the reality.

From this it also becomes clear that the main thing is accepting the faith by heart, and that no faith can be said to be reliable without the acceptance by heart.

17. The details of this end have been narrated in Surah Yunus, Surah Taha, and Surah Shu’ara.