Surah Al-A'raf 7:85-93 - Quran Translation Commentary

(7:85) And to Madyan¹²¹ (We sent) their brother Shu`ayb.¹²² He said, ‘My people! Worship Allah, you have no god other than He.¹²³ Surely, there has come to you a clear sign from your Lord.¹²⁴ So give full measure and weight, and defraud not the people of their commodities.¹²⁵ And spread not corruption in the land after its ordering.¹²⁶ That is better for you if you will believe.

(7:86) And squat not in every path, threatening¹²⁷ and hindering from Allah's way those who believe in Him,¹²⁸ seeking to make it crooked.¹²⁹ And recall when you were few, then He multiplied you; yet behold, what was the end of the corrupt people.

(7:87) And, if there be some among you, who have believed in what I have been sent with, while some others do not believe, then have patience until Allah judges between us. Indeed, He is the best of judges.'

(7:88) Said the chiefs of those of his people who waxed proud, ‘We shall surely expel you O Shu`ayb and your fellow believers from our town, or you should return to our religion.'¹³⁰ He asked, ‘Even though we detest?

(7:89) We would have forged a lie against Allah if we returned to your religion after Allah delivered us from it. It is not for us to return to it¹³¹ unless our Lord were to so will.¹³² Our Lord embraces all things in His knowledge.¹³³ In Allah we place our trust. O our Lord! You decide between us and our people by truth. You indeed are the best of those who decide.'¹³⁴

(7:90) Said the chiefs of those of his people who had disbelieved, ‘If you follow Shu`ayb, surely, you will be the losers.'¹³⁵

(7:91) Whereupon an earthquake seized them and by morning they lay fallen prostrate in their dwellings.¹³⁶

(7:92) As if those who had rejected Shu`ayb never flourished therein. Those who rejected Shu`ayb, they were the losers.¹³⁷

(7:93) He turned away from them saying, ‘My people. Surely, I conveyed to you the messages of my Lord and sincerely counseled you. How should I then grieve for an unbelieving people?'¹³⁸

Commentary

121. Several commentators have reported that Madyan was the name of one of the sons of Ibrahim by his third wife Qaturah. The place of his settlement acquired his name. Majid writes: "Now known as Maghair Shu`aib, the city was situated on the Red Sea coast of Arabia, south east of Mount Sinai. ‘Madyan was a station of the pilgrim route from Egypt to Mecca, the second beyond Aila (Elath) ... the place is still known as the "cave of Sho`aib." It had considerable rivers, which have been described by Sir R. Burton' (EBr. XVIII, p. 419, 11th ed.). It is bounded on the north by Lat. 290 29' and on the south by Lat. 270 39'. In other words it extends from the bed of the Gulf of Akaba, and down the eastern shore of the Red Sea for about two hundred miles in all' (Marston, The Bible is True)."

Yusuf Ali writes: "Madyan" may be identified with "Midian". Midian and the Midianites are frequently mentioned in the Old Testament, though the particular incident here mentioned belongs to Arab rather than to Jewish tradition. The Midianites were of Arab race though, as neighbors of Canaanites, they probably intermixed with them. They were a wandering tribe: it was Midianite merchants to whom Joseph was sold into slavery, and who took him to Egypt. Their principal territory in the time of Moses was in the north east of the Sinai Peninsula, and east of the Amalekites. Under Moses the Israelites waged a war of extermination against them: they slew the kings of Midian, slaughtered all the males, burnt their cities and castles, and captured their cattle (Num. xxxi, 7 11). This sounds like total extermination. Yet a few generation afterwards, they were so powerful that the Israelites for their sins were delivered into the captivity of the Midianites for seven years: both the Midianites and their camels were without number: and the Israelites hid from them in "dens ... caves, and strongholds" (Judges vii. 1 6). Gideon destroyed them again, (Judges vii. 1 25), say about two centuries after Moses. As the decisive battle was near the hill of Moreh, not far south of Mount Tabor, we may localize the Midianites on this occasion in the northern parts of the Jordan valley, at least 200 miles north of the Sinai Peninsula.

"This and the previous destruction under Moses were local, and mention no town or Midian. In later times there was a town Madyan on the east side of the Gulf of `Aqaba. It is mentioned in Josephus, Eusebius, and Ptolemy: (Encyclopedia of Islam). Then it disappears from geography. In Muslim times it was a revived town with quite a different kind of population, but it never flourished. The Midianites disappeared from history."

Nonetheless, there is no hadith to lend certainty to above statements.

122. Shihab has said that two different Shu`aybs have been mentioned in the Qur'an; one the Prophet, and the other, the father in law of Musa (Alusi).

Ibn Hibban has a long hadith narrated by Abu Dharr which says that "Four (prophets) were from the Arabs: Hud, Salih, Shu`ayb and Muhammad" (Manar).

Yusuf Ali writes: "Shu`aib belongs to the Arab rather than to Jewish tradition, to which he is unknown. His identification with Jethro, the father in law of Moses, has no warrant, and I reject it. There is no similarity either in names or incidents, and there are chronological difficulties... If, as the commentators tell us (rather, some of them: Au.), Shu`aib was in the fourth generation from Abraham, being a great grandson of Madyan (a son of Abraham), he would be only about a century from the time of Abraham, whereas the Hebrew Bible would give us a period of four to six centuries between Abraham and Moses. The mere fact that Jethro was Midianite and that another name, Hobab, is mentioned for a father in law of Moses in Num x. 29, is slender ground for identification. As the Midianites were mainly nomad tribes, we need not be surprised that their destruction in one or two settlements did not affect their life in wandering sections of the tribe in other geographical regions. Shu`aib's mission was apparently in one of the settled towns of the Midianites, which was completely destroyed by an earthquake (vii. 91). ... The name of the highest mountain in Yemen, Nabi Shu`aib (11,000 ft.) has probably no connection with the geographical territory of the nomad Midianites, unless we suppose that their wanderings extended so far south from the territories mentioned (earlier)."

123. Sayyid Qutb writes: "The humans started on their journey as those rightly guided believing in One God. Soon they lost their moorings, to stumble into ignorance, misguidance and polytheism. This happened, and keeps happening all the time, because of the fact that complex dispositions have been placed in their souls; as well as because of factors external to them, which they encounter as they interact with each other. Then come the Messengers confirming the very truths on which they were, before they lost their orientation. As a result of the Messengers coming to them, those who must meet with their destruction are destroyed and those who have to thrive, thrive. Those who thrive are the ones who return to the original truth. They are the ones who have known that their god is One God. To this One God they surrender themselves wholly. They are the people who treated their Messenger's call in all seriousness:

‘My people! Worship Allah, you have no god other than He:' This is the first layer of truth over which the rest of the religion of Allah is laid, and the truth which every Messenger repeated throughout the ages. Every Messenger who was commissioned, started off with this Word, addressing the people who had been put off the Word, so that they forgot it, lost it, and declared partners to Allah despite differences in the kind and class of deities (they devoted themselves to) and despite the differences in the nature of the ignorance they succumbed to. However that be, it is on the basis of this Word that the struggle ensues between truth and falsehood. It is on the basis of this Word that Allah either seizes those who disbelieve in it or delivers those who believe in it... And the Qur'an uses the same words to express what the countless Messengers said, despite the differences in dialects: ‘My people! Worship Allah, you have no god other than He.' This is to impress the universality of the truth, expressed through the ages, a truth so universal that it could be expressed in very simple words."

He continues down the lines:

"The central point of emphasis of every call to the Truth was a single, simple statement: Man's submission to his Lord alone, the Lord of the Worlds and to none else. That is because this declaration of submission to Allah, and the denial of all other false claimants to divinity, is the first principle and the foundation stone without which nothing in the life of the human beings can be set aright. We can notice that after making this statement, the Qur'an did not mention much of what else the call of the Messengers constituted. That is because every detail of the religion after the statement of this cardinal principle is traced back to this principle. It cannot be extrapolated over it. The importance of this foundation rule has been expressed by the Qur'an which dealt with it first and foremost, singling it out for mention while speaking about the caravan of faith .. rather, through and through the Qur'an. We might also remind ourselves, as we said in the note on the chapter Al `Imran, that this is the main subject of the Makkan revelations, as it has been the subject of the Madinan revelations whenever legal points or details of the guidance were to be enacted.

"This religion holds a basic truth, and it follows a specific method that it adopts to present that basic truth. And the method it adopts has no lack of clarity in its presentation. It is upon us therefore, to know the basic truth which this religion has presented to us, as it is also important that we adhere to the method that was adopted to present this religion. This method consists in presentation, emphasis, repetition, prominence, and singling out of the truth concerning the Oneness of Divinity.

"The stories that are presented in these passages depict for us the nature of faith and of unfaith residing in the human soul. Consequently, repeatedly it depicts through examples those hearts that are susceptible to belief. It also depicts repeatedly the examples of those hearts that are prone to disbelief. Those who believed in their Messengers had no pride in their selves against submission to Allah and obedience to His Messengers. They were not surprised at all that one of their own men was chosen to warn them or give them glad tidings. In contrast, those who disbelieved in their Messengers did that out of pride that they harbored in their hearts. They were too arrogant to give up the authority they had usurped and hand it over back to the One it belonged Allah, whose is the Creation, and whose is the Command. They were not ready to listen and obey to someone who happened to be no more than ‘just one of them.' They were the top brasses, the ruling classes, the eminent men of authority in their nations. This solves the enigma: the root cause of rejection. It involves the central question concerning the ‘rule' and the ‘authority.' The elites of the nations that were addressed knew immediately upon receiving the message, what ultimately was the demand contained in the simple sentence: ‘O my people. Worship Allah. You have no god besides He,' and, ‘I am a Messenger from the Lord of the Worlds.'

“They realized that submission to the idea of Oneness of Divinity, and comprehensiveness of Lordship meant, first and foremost, revocation of their own authority and its restoration to none other than the true Law giver, the Lord of the Worlds. This is what they opposed tooth and nail, until they met with their destruction. The love of power led them to the situation that neither the first nor the last of them would profit from the call, to the extent that they should run headlong into destruction ... headlong into Hell fire. The attitude of those who rejected the call as the following stories tell us follow a law that does not alter: people's heedlessness to Allah's signs and deviation from His path .. Allah's warning through His Messenger, their arrogance against submission to Him, and Him alone .. deceptions caused by the material well being .. making fun of the warnings delivered and arrogantly seeking the hastening of punishment .. rebellion, threatening of the believers and targeting them with oppression... and, in contrast, the patience of the believers and their consistency in holding fast unto the faith.

"To be sure, falsehood cannot tolerate the existence of truth, even if truth decided to live in a corner away from any contact with falsehood, waiting for Allah's intervention and victory. Falsehood does not accept this situation. Rather, it will follow the truth, chase it across, and challenge it to a duel. Shu`ayb had said, ‘If there be some among you who have believed in what I have been sent with, while some who do not believe, (yet no punishment descends) then have patience (and wait) until Allah judges between us. And He is the best of judges.' But they would not accept to wait. They could not bear to see the truth in existence and a group of people living by its light, not ruled by their authority and beyond the authority of the false gods. Therefore: ‘Said the chiefs of those of his people who waxed proud, ‘We shall surely expel you O Shu`ayb and your fellow believers from our city, or you should return to our religion.' At this point Shu`ayb voiced his decision, refusing to accept what falsehood was offering. He asked, ‘Even though we detest (the return)? We would have forged a lie upon Allah if we returned to your religion after Allah delivered us from it.'

"This detail we offer, in order that those who are engaged in inviting to the truth should realize that their struggle with falsehood has certain repercussions and consequences that cannot be avoided, and that they would gain nothing from avoiding contacts with it. Falsehood will not let them in peace, until they have given up their religion wholly and returned to their religion after Allah delivered them from it. And, noticeably, they were delivered from the punishment merely by virtue of their rejection of the Lordship of false gods, and submission to One Allah... Thus, (for those of the older times) there was no escape from the struggle, from patience in its face, from the endurance until victory, and their re assertion – time and again - of trust in Allah, worded by Shu`ayb as: ‘In Allah we place our trust. O our Lord! You decide between us and our people by truth. You indeed are the best of those who decide.' Thereafter, the Sunnah of Allah took over, as has the Sunnah of Allah always been taking over .. through and through human history."

Quotation from Sayyid Qutb ends here.

124. The words, "Surely, a clear sign has come to you from your Lord" imply that Shu`ayb presented them a miracle as a sign. Every Prophet is given a miracle specific to him as a proof of his authenticity. If he does not present any miracle, then he is a false Prophet, although, in this instance the Qur'an did not tell us what that miracle was (Zamakhshari).

The miracle that our Prophet was given was the Qur'an. The Prophet said:

مَا مِنَ الأَنْبِيَاءِ مِنْ نَبِىٍّ إِلاَّ قَدْ أُعْطِىَ مِنَ الآيَاتِ مَا مِثْلُهُ آمَنَ عَلَيْهِ الْبَشَرُ وَإِنَّمَا كَانَ الَّذِى أُوتِيتُ وَحْيًا أَوْحَى اللَّهُ إِلَىَّ فَأَرْجُو أَنْ أَكُونَ أَكْثَرَهُمْ تَابِعًا يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ

"There has not been a Prophet but he was given a miracle on the strength of which people could believe in him. I have been given the Revelation revealed to me as the miracle, and, consequently, I hope to have the largest number of followers on the Day of Judgment" (Manar).

125. The textual word "bakhs" would include not only weighing less, but, by implication, all kinds of fraud such as theft, deceit, and various kinds of commercial and other malpractices (Razi).

Alusi and Thanwi have pointed out that "bakhs" would also include withholding from a man of status what is rightfully due to him, of the nature of respect he deserves to be shown, concealment of his religious merits, and so forth, neglected because of a disease suffered by many "men of knowledge."

126. Razi thinks that the "ordering" referred to is that of abundant provision made available to them by Allah. But Zamakhshari thinks the allusion is to the ‘order’ established by the previous Prophets.

Also see note 89 above.

127. There are two interpretations of the words, "And squat not on every road threatening:" First, it refers to those who rejected Shu`ayb, threatening to assault anyone who believed in him. Second, the reference is to their crime of waylaying people, for, they were robbers too (Ibn Jarir).

128. The words, "And squat not on every road threatening and hindering from Allah's path those who have believed in Him," were perhaps never so well applicable to anyone, as they are applicable in our times to the anti Islamic forces within Muslim polity, who hold a pervert pen in their hand, and to the forces in non-Muslim polity, who hold a gun in their hand (Au.).

129. These are the three ways by which the spread of truth is hindered: (i) threatening those who have embraced the truth with violence, (ii) preventing fresh ones from embracing it (e.g., by rewarding them for non acceptance), and (iii) endeavoring to prove it crooked unto the rest (Razi).

130. The address was to Shu`ayb as well as his followers, of whom the latter had been on the religion of their people. However, if it is assumed that it was Shu`ayb alone who had been addressed, then, in the words of Majid: "A reference to the old faith in the case of the Prophet Shu`aib can only mean that he, before he began to preach, was taken for an infidel by his countrymen, and not that he was really so; for a Prophet according to the teachings of Islam can, at no period of his life, be an infidel."

131. Sayyid Qutb writes: "So what has the contemporary jahiliyyah to say about the rightly guided ones? ... What has it to say about the woman who will not display her flesh? What has it to say about the young man who turns away in disgust from cheap flesh? The Jahiliyyah actually refers to the purity and chastity of the two as reactionary, backwardness, and stagnancy! It does everything possible through its media, press, and all means of communication, to bring them back and sink their purity and chastity into the mire in which it itself has sunk."

132. Suddi has said that since Allah (swt) does not approve of shirk, there was no chance that they should be returned to paganism (Ibn Jarir).

Some others have said that the words in question are in the same vein as someone saying: "I will not do it unless the raven turns white," meaning, since the raven will not turn white, I am not going to do it.

Another implication is: "Our faith in Allah is so strong that there is no power unless it was the power of Allah Himself that can force us abandon our religion" (Au.).

133. Jiba'i has been reported as explaining the meaning as: "If Allah willed, He could place some wisdom in the devotion to the deities since ‘our Lord embraces all things with His knowledge,' and, following that, He would order us to serve them, in which case, of course, we would comply" (Razi).

134. Sayyid Qutb heavily comes down on non Islamic systems. Here are a few selected passages: "The pain and suffering that accompany an exit from the submission to false gods and entry into that of the true God, however enormous it may be, is yet much lesser and lighter in comparison to the pain and suffering that one has to undergo remaining submitted to the false gods. The pain and suffering contained in submission to the false gods are simply monstrous however attractive the apparent peace, security and tranquility in life, and however abundant the material means. Those pains and sufferings are slow, but long and continuous. The pain is that of the loss of the human ness of humanity, for, in this system, a man is a slave of another man. And what slavery can be worse than that of a man bending down to the laws made for him by another man? What slavery is worse than that of a man whose wishes have to follow the wishes of another man? Of someone who is dependent upon approval and disapproval of another man? What slavery is worse than that a man's reins be in control of another who makes him dance to his tunes?

"The matter does not rest there. People in this kind of slavery sink to greater and greater depths. The powers over them extends with time to, ultimately, some people controlling the finances of another people so that there is no law and no fence by which wealth could be kept out of their reach. The system also takes over the children, bringing them up the way it will devoid of character, morals, values, traditions, and the right concepts, apart from its hegemony over their souls and their everyday lives. It slaughters them at the altars of its carnal desires. Then it lays the foundations of its own power and glory over their skulls and corpses. Ultimately, it becomes the sole master of their honor too so that a father cannot prevent his daughter being sexually exploited by the administrators and perpetrators of the ungodly system: either through outright abduction, as has been happening throughout human history, or, through corruption of their moral values so that they are readily available for everyone's pleasure, preparing them for prostitution under some disguise... Whoever imagines that he, his wealth, his honor, his life and the life of his children are safe under the Satanic system he lives in, is either in a state of delusion, or has lost his sensibilities."

Sayyid's criticism of the non Divine systems as those in which even people's honor is not safe, is, going by historical facts, quite mild. What has actually happened throughout human history would require coinage of new words to describe the horrors. As recently as at the end of the 20th century, 50,000 women were systematically raped by the Christians in Bosnia. Muslim girls as young as thirteen were made to dance naked on table tops to the guffaws of the Christian soldiers around. It might not be said, in reply, that it was an abnormal situation. Far from that, it was a perfectly normal situation for the rest of the Christian world watching the systematic humiliation over the T.V. screens. The normalcy is recorded by the fact that they did nothing to stop it. In fact, the British diplomat sent to work out a peace formula was widely believed to have intentionally delayed it, if not made it impossible to happen. So, it was a perfectly normal situation for them. And, the victims in this case were not foreign to the Western culture. They related themselves to the West and Western culture. So, what the West did to them, was not because they were Muslims, although that was one of the factors, but because women are no worthier than that in its value system.

That was followed by inhuman behavior towards women in Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq. A sixteen year old girl was brought in, and systematically rented for 50 dollars to the American soldiers until she committed suicide. Some British soldiers made horses of women of advanced age, and rode on them in the prison corridors. They have a clever way of doing things. First they do what they want, until exposed. As soon as they are exposed, they say they are sorry about it, and transfer a couple of soldiers away from the crime scenes. Then, after a time, they are back at it.

However, apart from these glorious events in the annals of Western civilization, going back just a century, we come across other horrors practiced in the name of religion. The practice of the Hindu priestly class in the Indian sub continent is a case in point. The Brahmin class had sexual access to every Sudra woman in certain regions of the state of Kerala until the turn of this century. According to some social scientists, the practice of offering a Sudra girl to a Brahmin, for a few nights immediately after marriage, before her nuptial relationship with her husband begins, still survives in certain remote areas of the Southern Indian state: "Another custom peculiar to the Nayar community is ‘sambandam.' Sambandam is cohabitation of Nayar women with Namboodri Brahmins without marriage. A Namboodri being the direct representation of God, his ‘sambandam' with Nayar women is considered to be sacred and divine. If the Namboodri is pleased, God is pleased..." ('Matrilineal System Among Malayalis,' by K.T.Parampil, Caravan, New Delhi, Sept. '67). These practices can be traced back to religious commandments. Manu Shastra, for instance, the most authoritative Law Book of the Hindus, states: "The Brahmin (the priestly caste) can misappropriate the property of the Shudra (low caste Hindus) without hesitation because the latter owns nothing. All his property belongs to his master, that is, the Brahmin" (Manu, 8: 417). The teachings in fact can be traced back to thousands of years old Hindu Scriptures: "Vishnu has said, ‘If a Shudra offers his life, property and wife to the Brahmin, it can be accepted'" (Vishnu, 5:11). Refer to article "Priesthood Holds Progress to Ransom" by Ratan Lal Bansal, Caravan, Jan. 67. Our point here, however, is not the mere criticism of the systems in question, rather to point out, firstly, that in their entire history, if in their wars the Muslims remained quite humane, in peace time too they allowed their populations, Muslim and non Muslim alike, fair amount of freedom to shape their own lives, without coercing them, directly or indirectly, into subservience and slavery to the political or religious classes. Although far from being truly Islamic, the systematic exploitation of the masses has never been the working principle of the states the Muslims set up anywhere in the globe, anytime in history. Secondly, it is to assert that Sayyid Qutb was not at all being an extemist when he criticized the jahiliyy systems in harsh terms (Au.).

135. Mawdudi comments: "One should not pass cursorily over the short sentence without reflection. What the leaders of Midian in effect told their people was that Shu`ayb's exhortations to practice honesty and righteousness, and to strictly adhere to moral values, would spell their disaster. They implied that they could not succeed in the business carried on by the people of Midian if they were totally honest and straightforward in their dealings...

"Such attitudes have not, however, been confined to the tribal chiefs of Shu`ayb. People who stray away from truth, honesty, and righteousness, regardless of their age and clime, have always found in honesty a means of great loss. People of warped mentalities in every age have always believed that trade, politics, and other worldly pursuits can never flourish unless resorted to dishonest and immoral practices. Their main objection to the Message of truth in all ages has been that the pursuit of truth spells material doom."

136. The Qur'an has reported several kinds of punishments that visited the people of Madyan. Here it is said that they were destroyed by an earthquake. At another place (11: 94) it is stated that they were destroyed by a huge cry. In yet another place (26: 189) it said that they were seized by the "chastisement of the Day of Shadow." In explanation, some commentators have said that the allusion is to separate instances, involving two people: one, of Madyan and the other, of Aykah. Others have thought that it was one nation destroyed by several kinds of chastisement descending upon them together. For example, Ibn `Abbas has said that before their destruction Allah sent down severe heat that left the unbelievers restless in their homes. Then, after a couple of days a piece of cloud appeared in the sky casting its cooling shadow on the land. People gathered under it for relief. When they had all gathered thereunder, the earth shook and a huge cry seized them so that, moments later, they all lay dead. If this version is accepted then Thanwi points out the textual word "Dar" would have to be understood (not in the sense of dwellings, rather) in the sense of "the land," as in the Arabic terms, "Dar al Islam," "Dar al Harb," etc. It cannot also be ruled out, adds Shafi`, that various tribes (spread over a vast area) received various kinds of punishments.

137. According to Thanwi, the verse should be rendered as: "As if those who had rejected Shu`ayb (and threatened to expel him from the town, had themselves) never flourished in those (towns). Those who rejected Shu`ayb, (and had told the believers that they would be the losers) ... (themselves) ended up the losers."

(Although some commentators believe that the people of Madyan and the As hab al Aykah were one and the same: Au.), Ibn `Asakir and Ibn Is haq have reported `Ikrimah and Suddi of the opinion that Shu`ayb was the only Prophet to be sent to two nations. He was first sent to the people of Madyan. When they rejected they were destroyed by a terrible cry. Thereafter, he was sent to the people of Aykah (the word means "forest": Shafi`), who also rejected him and were destroyed when Allah (swt) seized them on the "day of the shelter (yawm al zullah)" Shawkani.

Ibn `Asakir has another report from Ibn `Abbas to the effect that the Masjid al Haram has no more than two graves: one that of Isma`il, which is in Hijr and the other of Shu`ayb which is in front of the Hajr al Aswad (Shawkani). However, to the writer's knowledge, the authenticity of the report has not been checked, nor it is there in any known hadith collection (Au.).

138. The choice of the phrase "an unbelieving people" (in the words "How should I then grieve for an unbelieving people"), instead of the simpler, "How should I grieve for the unbelievers," have the message hidden that the mass of the unbelievers in question did not deserve to be shown any mercy (Alusi, Thanwi).