Surah Al-Haj 22:73-78 - Quran Translation Commentary

(22:73) O people! A similitude is struck, so listen to it carefully. Surely, those you call upon other than Allah shall never create a fly,¹²⁴ even if they were to join forces to that end.¹²⁵ And, if the fly should t away something from them, they will never be able to retrieve it from it. Feeble indeed: the seeker and the sought (after).¹²⁶

(22:74) They esteem not Allah with the estimation that is His due. Surely, Allah is All-powerful, All-mighty.¹²⁷

(22:75) Allah chooses messengers from among the angels, and from among men;¹²⁸ surely, Allah is All-hearing, All-seeing.

(22:76) He knows what is before them and what is behind them. And to Allah return the affairs.¹²⁹

(22:77) Believers! Bow down, prostrate yourselves, worship your Lord,¹³⁰ and do good (deeds), haply you will prosper.¹³¹

(22:78) And strive in Allah,¹³² with a striving due to Him.¹³³ He chose you.¹³⁴ And He has not placed in the religion¹³⁵ any constriction¹³⁶: the faith¹³⁷ of your (fore-)father Ibrahim.¹³⁸ He¹³⁹ named you Muslims earlier,¹⁴⁰ and in this (Qur’an also); so that the Messenger might be a witness over you and you witnesses over mankind.¹⁴¹ Therefore, observe the Prayer (assiduously), Pay the Zakah and hold fast to Allah.¹⁴² He is your Guardian, an excellent Guardian and an excellent Helper.¹⁴³

Commentary

124. Although literally yastuuna means to attack or seize hard, the translation as “strike” or, alternatively, “seize by the hand” reflects the understanding of the first few generation scholars as in Ibn Jarir.

Why do the unbelievers behave in this manner? Sayyid asks. It is because they lack proofs and evidences for what they are doing. So, they must meet the truthful statements with physical force to annihilate it.

125. The fly has been chosen for this example, for four reasons: its worthlessness, its weakness, its repugnance, and its abundance (Qurtubi).

The beauty of the similitude apart, the Qur’anic statement throws a challenge that can never be answered.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Bible of the Western world, offers four definitions for life. This should tell us something about the confusion among the scientists over the issue. The problem is that life is not something that can be isolated: say in a test tube. It can only be seen in action, operating from behind living systems. What is it in reality, whether of the higher type as in humans, or of the lower type as in other biological organisms – after the soul has been denied existence – is something no scientist knows and will never know.

The central character of life is that it continues, or in the language of the biologists, replicates. But why, no one has any clue. Atoms, after all, which are life’s basic constituents, do not replicate (i.e., reproduce itself) under any circumstance. But cells replicate: from one to two, two to four, four to eight, and so on. In so doing they defy the law of conservation. Living systems defy another law of nature: that of entropy. This law demands greater and greater disorder with the passage of time. But, in complete contrast, and against all odds, living systems get better organized with time.

For the biologists, the clue to life is in the arrangement of atoms within the cells. They arrange themselves in a certain order within it, all by themselves, to continue with their functions and to replicate themselves, that is, produce a true copy of themselves. And that arrangement is extremely complicated. But, outside of a living organism, the same atoms, placed in a test tube, in same proportions, do not arrange themselves in the same order. Why not? Because, as the biologists would say, the command is missing. So where is the command centre? The search for an answer has put the scientists on a trail that gives no sign of termination. Indeed, so many pathways are opening up that all men on earth might have to turn biologists, to follow all the pathways to find out what, if anything is there, at the end of the trail. As a scientist points out, “Where one gene carried out a particular function ten years ago, now there are a hundred. Where once, not so long ago, there was one cell type in the retina, now there are fifty. Where there was once one neurotransmitter in the brain, now there are hundreds. Biology is caught up in an ongoing complexity revolution, which is surely one of the most extraordinary events in the history of modern science. The phenomenal nature of the complexity revolution that currently pervades every field of biology is an increasing source of comment among researchers in various fields. The general reaction is one of amazement at the ever-greater depths of complexity revealed as biological knowledge advances.” (Michael J.Denton, Nature’s Destiny, The Free Press, New York, 1998, p. 343).

Another unresolved question is, how did life begin? A chicken is out of an egg (a pack of living cells). The egg was from a chicken. That chicken was from an egg. It goes on backward for ever. A tree is from a seed (a pack of living cells). The seed was from a tree. And that tree was from a seed. It goes on backward endlessly. How did it begin? If, it began by chance, then, the question is, why does it not come into existence again? Why is it now only replication of a previously existing life? Why do we not observe a spontaneous generation of life anywhere on the planet anymore? There are no answers. A recent book (A.G. Cairns-Smith, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998) which deals with this question is titled, “Seven Clues to the Origin of Life.” Needless to mention that none of the seven clues gives any clue about how life started. Another scientific work on the topic (Paul Davies, Touchstone pub. 1999) clearly admits the miraculous nature of life by calling his book “The 5th Miracle – the Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life.” Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickrmasinghe, leading scientist of the twentieth century, speculated, and provided plentiful evidences, though not conclusive, that life could not have originated on the earth at all. They argued that the first living organism must have arrived from deep space! (Our Place in the Cosmos, Phoenix, 1993).

But most scientists are not looking deep into space for clues to the origin of life. They are looking at biological organism right here on the earth. From the external organs, they went into the internal, e.g., heart, brain, kidneys and so forth. They found that they consisted of the primary unit, the cell. When the cell was opened up under the microscopes it was found to be an industry, that would spread over several miles on earth, if the same functions were required to be performed by the kinds of machinery that man uses. From the cell they went into the nucleus because the machinery seemed to be working automatically, independent of the brain. Now, since automatic work by molecules is unimaginable, the command must be coming from some place. Perhaps the nucleus. So the nucleus was opened up to discover that it was the DNA strands that issued the commands, if not for all cell activity, then at least for the manufacture of proteins. Subsequently it was found that the DNA consisted of tiny molecules called nucleotides (3 to 4 billions of them). They assembled themselves following a certain pattern, and which made up the DNA. However, neither the DNA nor the nucleotides issued the commands for the construction of the large biological body. That was done by genes which were few nucleotides here, few there, spread all over the DNA strand, that somehow coordinated between themselves to issue the commands. What are nucleotides, the basic unit of the genes, made up of? They are averagely some thirty atoms of different elements grouped in a certain way. So, now the scientists stare at the life-less atoms dancing before them, and do not know where to go next. Meanwhile, life goes on, without a definition.

Let alone a fly, which is made up of hundreds of millions of cells, man cannot create even a single cell. Indeed, the project cannot take off. Why? Because, man will need to isolate atoms before he can assemble them. But ordinarily, atoms cannot be isolated. So there ends the matter How pertinent therefore, the following hadith of the Sahihayn (as noted by Ibn Kathir) which says,

قَالَ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ وَمَنْ أَظْلَمُ مِمَّنْ ذَهَبَ يَخْلُقُ كَخَلْقِي فَلْيَخْلُقُوا ذَرَّةً أَوْ لِيَخْلُقُوا حَبَّةً أَوْ شَعِيرَةً

“Allah said, ‘Who can do greater wrong than one attempting to create like My creation. So, let them then create an atom, or a grain, or a grain of barley” (Au.).

126. Ibn `Abbas has said that the allusion by the seeker is to the idols and the sought after is the fly, which if it snatches away something from the idols, they cannot retrieve it. Others have thought that the allusion is to worshippers of idols and the idols themselves respectively (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Kathir).

The Fly

The fly’s mention in the Qur’an in this context is simply amazing. For, although the plain meaning was always there, namely, if a fly takes away something, it is almost impossible to identify and seize it to regain what it took away; but modern science adds to our amazement that a fly does not take away anything whole. When it sits on a food particle, it first drops its saliva on to the material to be consumed, dissolves it with its enzymes, and then sucks up the liquid through the long trunk-like proboscis into its abdomen. Thus, there is no way anyone can retrieve, even in laboratory conditions, what a fly takes away.

Our amazement is however doubled when we learn that fly is the pet animal of the biologists. For a hundred years they have depended on it to conduct genetic research. In fact, no biology book in general, and a genetic book in particular, can go without the mention of the fruit fly. Biologically known as Drosophila, it is as ubiquitous in biology books as it is in the gardens. More is known about the fruit fly than is known about any other animal. At the genetic level, humans know more about the fly than about the humans, because of the research conducted at hundreds of research centers over the globe. Scientists have received prizes and awards for working on the fly. In 1993, Thomas Hunt Morgan, American biologist and geneticist, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of “hereditary transmission mechanisms in Drosophila”. Again, in 1995 Edward B. Lewis of the California Institute of Technology, Eric F. Wieschaus of Princeton University, and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard of the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany, shared the Nobel Prize for research into the genetic basis of embryonic development in the fruit fly. The results, according to the Nobel committee, “achieved a breakthrough that will help explain congenital malformations in man.”

There are several reasons why the fruit fly has been so popular with the biologists. These are ubiquitous insects that collect together in large numbers on the fruits. There are some 90,000 species of them. They breed very rapidly. Another advantage with them is that for some unknown reason they have giant-sized and, therefore, readily visible chromosome (DNA) making it easy to examine their structure during cell division. A biologist writes:

“This insect turned out to be ideal for many genetic studies and has been widely used in laboratories all over the world throughout the twentieth century.. The first reason they were chosen for study is that they are easy to keep and breed. Each fly is only an eighth of an inch long (3mm), and they produce a new generation in two weeks, each female laying hundreds of eggs at a time. A colony of Drosophila can be kept alive and well in almost any old glass container” (John Gribbin, In Search of the Double Helix, Penguin books, 1995, p.57-58).

Another factor that favored the fly was that it has only four Chromosome strands (as against 23 for human), which rendered research studies much easier to conduct. Two of these DNA strands are truly massive, with no similar example from any other biological organism. Its sperms are 6 cm/2.4 inch long (1,200 times longer than human sperm and 4 times its total body length). Its testes take up 50% of its abdominal cavity and it produces fewer than 20 sperm cells at a time. Without this amazing characteristic, the fly would never have been chosen for research. This is the reason why the entire genome sequence for the fly was produced before it could be produced for any other animal. Accordingly,

“More data have been collected concerning the genetics of the vinegar fly than have been obtained for any other animal. Drosophila chromosomes, especially the giant ones in the salivary glands of mature larvae, are used in studies involving heritable characteristics and are the basis for gene action” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, art., Vinegar Fly).

In short, a challenge flies directly into the faces of the modern scientist: “Here is something you have been working on for a hundred years, and which you understand scientifically better than any other living body. How about producing something similar to what you know so well, and, especially at the genetic level, which happens to be the key to life and activity?”

They could also consider: is it simply coincidence that the fly was chosen for the challenge. Could Prophet Muhammad have written these Qur’anic lines? (Au.)

127. What Hasan and Farra’ have said about this ayah can be put paraphrased in the following words: The worshippers of false gods did not give Allah, their Creator His due in terms of honor, respect, obedience, and attribution to Him what He should alone be attributed to. Akhfash has said however that it means that the people have not known Him in the manner He should be known. Alusi then discusses the issue of humans trying to know, understand and comprehend Allah’s existence, Essence and Attributes, and states at the beginning `Ali’s opinion that to make an attempt of this sort is Ishraak (to be suggesting gods other than Allah). Indeed, Imam Ghazali, Juwayni, the Sufis and philosophers have all agreed that it is impossible for humans to know Allah. Alusi then follows up with a long discourse too complicated to be presented here and maybe out of place in a simple work of this nature. We register this for the specialists.

128. That is, Allah chooses of the men and angels for conveyance of His messages whom He will; as He said elsewhere (6: 124),

{اللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ حَيْثُ يَجْعَلُ رِسَالَتَهُ } [الأنعام: 124]

Allah knows where to place His Messages” (Ibn Kathir).

129. To paraphrase ayah 75 and 76: To the objection raised about choosing Muhammad for delivering the Message, the answer is, it is Allah who chooses messengers from among the angels, as well as from among men. He is All-hearing, All-seeing, who knows all about them and all about His creations including the chosen Messengers, through His Powers and Attributes. In fact, He knows what went before the rejecters as well as what is to follow. Further, it is to Allah that the affairs are returned for decision, judgment, and issue of new commands (based on Thanwi).

130. That is, worship Allah, and none other than Him (Razi).

131. Difference in opinion has prevailed over a second Sajdah at this point. A hadith – in Abu Da’ud and Tirmidhi - has been in fact reported. It says, Surah al-Hajj has been given preference over (others) with two prostrations. So, whoever did not offer two prostrations, might not recite the two.” However, Tirmidhi has rated the hadith as unsound, although there doesn’t seem to be a strong reason for treating it so (Ibn Kathir).

The Hanafiyyah however do not see a Sajdah at this point. That is because (apart from the weakness of the hadith: Au.), their point is, whenever Allah mentioned ruku` and sujud together, then the Sajdah is Sajdah of Salah and not Sajdah of Tilawah (recitation) - Zamakhshari. An example is the ayah (3: 43) which says,

{يَا مَرْيَمُ اقْنُتِي لِرَبِّكِ وَاسْجُدِي وَارْكَعِي مَعَ الرَّاكِعِينَ} [آل عمران: 43]

“O Maryam. Stand (in Prayers), prostrate yourself, and bow down with those who bow down” where too no Sajdah Tilawah is required (Shafi`).

132. This includes all kinds of jihad: Jihad with one’s self, with one’s possessions, with the pen, jihad against one’s own base self, jihad against Satan, jihad against the unbelievers, jihad against the rebels, and jihad against the deviants (Shabbir).

Mawdudi comments: “Jihad does not simply mean fighting and war. The word denotes: ‘to strive, to exert to the utmost.’ The words jihad and mujahid imply the existence of forces of resistance against whom it is necessary to wage a struggle. Moreover, the stipulation that jihad should be fi sabil Allah (in the way of God) makes it clear that there are forces of resistance which obstruct people from serving God and pursuing His good pleasure, and that it is necessary to engage in strife and struggle to overcome them.

“As for the purpose of jihad, it is to remove the forces obstructing man from following the Way of God so that one may be able to serve God in an adequate manner, exalt His Word, and subdue unbelief and rebellion against Him. The first and foremost target of this struggle should be one’s own self which always prompts one to rebel against God’s commands and distracts one from belief and obedience. Unless one conquers one’s own self within, one cannot fight against the forces without.”

133. Ibn `Abbas has said that battling in Allah’s cause without fear of the critic is to be striving in His cause in the manner required (Ibn Jarir). Others have said that to fight the enemies of Islam in the manner the first generation Muslims fought, is to be striving in the manner required.

In other words, strive to the best of your strength and ability: the exact amount depending upon every man’s abilities, knowledge, propensities, etc. Hence Allah said in the following ayah, “He has not placed any constriction in the religion (Ibn al-Qayyim in Badaai` al-Tafsir).

134. That is, Allah chose you for His religion, in order that you help Him (in its establishment on the earth) – Zamakhshari. In the words of Majid, “(He chose you) as the testifiers, promulgators and standard-bearers of the Divine message.”

135. “Religion” has been used here in its widest Islamic sense. Majid quotes from one of Asad’s books: “Whereas all other religions failed in becoming cultures and became cults instead, Islam succeeded, because it did not content itself with defining the relations between man and the unseen but boldly stepped into the sphere of practical life and its everyday problems, - of bread and sexual relations, of politics and trade and finance – and thus removed the barriers between Caesar’s and God’s domain.”

136. The translation of the word haraj as “constriction” has the authority of Ibn `Abbas as in Ibn Jarir.

What it means is that the religion of Islam has been made easy. For example, Prayers have been shortened in journeys, or at times of fear, or allowed without facing the Qiblah when on a vehicle, or offering from a sitting posture when overtaken by illness, etc. Hence the Prophet’s words to Abu Musa al-Ash`ari and Mu`adh ibn Jabal while sending them to Yemen,

بَشِّرَا وَيَسِّرَا وَعَلِّمَا وَلاَ تُنَفِّرَا

“Give good news and make it easy; teach and do not repel.”

He also said,

بُعِثْتُ بِالْحَنِيفِيَّةِ السَّمْحَةِ

“I have been sent with the easy monotheistic way” (Ibn Kathir).

Mawdudi adds: “This proclaims that the believers are free from all the unjust shackles forged by the theologians, priests, and lawyers of previous religious communities. It is declared here that no longer are there any restrictions that obstruct intellectual progress, nor any restraint in the practical affairs of man’s life which impede the growth of culture and civilization. This because they have been provided with a body of practicable laws. While adhering to this one may make as much progress as one wants.”

Asad also has a useful note to offer: “The absence of any ‘hardship’ in the religion of Islam is due to several factors: (1) it is free of any dogma or mystical proposition that might make the Qur’anic doctrine difficult to understand or might even conflict with man’s innate reason; (2) it avoids all complicated rituals or system of taboos which would impose undue restrictions on man’s everyday life; (3) it rejects all self-mortification and exaggerated asceticism, which must unavoidably conflict with man’s true nature .. ; and (4) it takes fully into account the fact that ‘man has been created weak.’”

We can end with Yusuf Ali’s remark: “The Jews were hampered by many restrictions, and their religion was racial. Christianity, as originally preached, was a hermit religion: ‘sell whatsoever thou hast’ (Mark x. 21), ‘take no thought for the morrow’ (Matt. Vi. 34). Islam, as originally preached, gives freedom and full play to man’s faculties of every kind.”

In the above statement we might note the words, “Islam, as originally preached..” (Au.).

137. The fat-ha on millah gives rise to two possible meanings in conjunction with the previous verses. (1) “(He has not placed any constriction in your religion), but rather, has placed ease and comfort just as it was in Ibrahim’s faith.” (2) “(Bow down, prostrate yourselves .. and) hold fast unto Ibrahim’s faith” (Ibn Jarir).

138. According to Ibn `Abbas, Qatadah, Mujahid and Dahhak, as in Ibn Jarir, and with his backing, the pronoun “huwa” is for Allah. That is, “Allah named you Muslims.”

The above is supported by a hadith in Nasa’i. The Prophet said,

من دعا بدعوى الجاهلية فأنه من جثا جهنم قال رجل يا رسول الله وإن صام وصلى قال نعم وإن صام وصلى فادعوا بدعوى الله التي سماكم الله بها المسلمين المؤمنين عباد الله

“Whoever invited by appealing to pre-Islamic era, will be a crawler on his knees in Hellfire.” A man asked, “Even if he prayed and fasted?” He replied, “Yes, even if he prayed and fasted. Therefore, call by Allah’s Call who named you in this as Muslims: believers, Allah’s slaves” (Ibn Kathir).

The report about the crawler is in Tirmidhi, who rated it sound, as well as in Ibn Hibban, Tabarani, Hakim, Ibn Khuzaymah and others (Shawkani).

An off chance exists that the pronoun “he” is for Ibrahim. He had prayed to Allah at the time of the construction of the Ka`bah that He create out of his progeny “a nation, muslimah (surrendered) unto Him” (2: 128) - Shabbir and others.

139. It might be noted, Thanwi writes, that although followers of other Prophets were also on the religion of Islam, no other but the followers of Prophet Muhammad have been called as Muslims in the Qur’an. Others were referred to as Jews, Christians, nation of Nuh, nation of Saleh, etc.

140. Mujahid said that the word “earlier” alludes to earlier Scriptures (Ibn Jarir).

141. The allusion is to the Muslims bearing witness on the Day of Judgment against the previous peoples, to the fact that Prophets and Messengers were sent to them, and Prophet Muhammad then testifying that he delivered his own message to them, i.e., the Muslims (Ibn Jarir).

One might look for more details at verse 143 of Surah al-Baqarah (Au.).

Sayyid comments: “So long as this Ummah adhered to these principles and applied them to its life, it remained an example to the rest of the world. But when it deviated and rejected the principles, it lost the position of leadership. Allah pushed it back to become a tail-follower of the caravan of nations where it will remain until it returns to the role that Allah chose for it.”

142. That is, when Allah blessed you with such blessings as above, you should in response observe the Prayer assiduously, Pay the Zakah and hold fast to Allah (Thanwi).

143. That is, whenever you hold fast unto Him, He will help you against yourself and against Satan, the two enemies that never depart from a person, -whose enmity is more harmful than that of external enemies (Ibn al-Qayyim, Badaai` al-Tafsir).