Худ 11:7–12

Another manifestation of the all-encompassing knowledge and perfect power of Allah Ta` ala has been mentioned in the second verse (7) - ` And He is the One who created the heavens and the earth in six days and (before creating these) His throne was on water.'

This tells us that water was created before the creation of the heavens and the earth. As for the elaboration of the creation of the heavens and the earth in six days, it has appeared in Surah Ha Mim as-Sajdah (also called Surah Fussilat). There it has been said that the earth was created in two days, mountains, river streams, trees and means for the sustenance and survival of living creatures in two days, then, the seven heavens in two days - 41:9-12).

According to Tafsir Mazhari, heavens mean everything high and above and the earth means down and below. Day is the measure of time which, after the creation of the heavens and the earth, is from sunrise to sunset - although, at the time of the creation of the heavens and the earth, neither did the sun exist nor its rising and setting.

It was also within the perfect power of Allah Ta` ala to create all these things in the flash of a moment but, in His infinite wisdom, He has made the system of this world gradual which is suitable for human temperament.

The purpose of the creation of the heavens and the earth has been identified at the end of the verse by saying: لِيَبْلُوَكُمْ أَيُّكُمْ أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا (So that He might test you as to who among you is better in deed).

This tells us that the creation of the heavens and the earth was not the main purpose. The fact is that these were created for human beings who act right, do better and, along with it, also make the best use of what has been placed therein to run their lives. Finally, it is expected of them that they would ponder over these and would not miss to recognize their Master and Lord (the Malik, the Rabb).

The outcome is that human beings are the real purpose of the creation of the heavens and the earth. However, human beings are not all alike. Among them there are those who believe and have faith. Then, even among the later, there is someone, a man or a woman, who is the best in deeds. And it goes without saying that, among the progeny of Sayyidna Adam (علیہ السلام) the best in deeds is our Rasul, on him the blessing of Allah, and peace. Therefore, it is correct to say that the real purpose of creating the entire universe is to bless it with the generous presence of the Holy Prophet ﷺ (serving as a model right through the Last Day). (Mazhari)

There is something we should also take note of. Allah Ta` ala said: أَحْسَنُ عَمَلًا (who among you is better in deed). He has said nothing about the number of deeds. From here we learn that Allah Ta'ala favors the quality of deed more than He does the abundance or profusion or fre-quency of good deeds such as, Salah, Sawm, Tilawah of Qur'an and Dhikr of Allah. This beauty or excellence of deeds has been expressed through the word: اِحسَان (ihsan) in Hadith. Essentially, it means the doing of a deed for the good pleasure of Allah alone with no worldly motive attached to it. Then, it is also necessary to do it in a way that is liked in the sight of Allah. This way has been demonstrated by the Holy Prophet ﷺ through his conduct and he has made it necessary for his community to follow his Sunnah. In a nutshell, we can say that a little done with total sincerity and according to Sunnah is better than a lot more done with none, or less of the two.

Described in the seventh verse is the condition of those who denied that there was to be a Last Day and a Hereafter. Like chronic deniers of the truth, when they do not understand (or do not want to under-stand) something, they would dismiss it as nothing but magic.

In the eighth verse, an answer has been given to people who doubted the warnings of punishment given by prophets, peace be on them. Not willing to believe them, they used to ask them if they were true, and if they were, why the punishment they warned them of would not come?

Commentary

In the verses appearing above, it has been confirmed that the Holy Prophet ﷺ is a Messenger of Allah and an answer has been given to those who engineer doubts about it. At the beginning, in the first three verses (9-11), an instinctively bad human habit has been mentioned with an instruction to Muslims that they should stay away from it.

That man is naturally fickle-minded and haste-prone, and that he tends to be consumed by his immediate condition and puts all concerns of the past and future out of his mind, has been described in the first two verses (9, 10). It has been said: If We let man taste a blessing and then take it back, he loses courage and hope and turns ungrateful. And if We let him taste a blessing after he has suffered from some hardship, he forgets all about his suffering and starts bragging and boasting.

In other words, man is given to hurry things, takes the present as everything, does not bother to refer to the past or show concern for the future, therefore, a suffering after a blessing makes him lose hope and slide into ungratefulness. He never thinks that Allah who blessed him first could bless him again. Similarly, if one gets comfort after suffering, then he, rather than recall his past suffering, turn to Allah and be grateful to Him, starts waxing more proud and arrogant. In that state, he forgets his past and goes about thinking that Allah's blessings were his right, he has to have these, and that he remains under the impression that this was how he would continue for the rest of his life. So heedless he becomes that it just does not occur to him that the way the days of suffering did not continue any more, the same thing could hap-pen to the days of comfort and they too could vanish.

Such is the state of human worship of the present and so tragic is the penchant for forgetting the past and the present that a power-hungry man would not even blink to raise the edifice of his power on the blood and dust of another man of power. Always looking up, he would never look down to recall that this had been the fate of the man of power before him. Sad ends and ill fates make no effect on him for power in the present tastes good.

When people start worshipping the present and elect to remain drunk with the state they are in, that is high time for Books of Allah and His Messengers to come. When they do, they bring the lesson-oriented events of the past into sharp focus for heedless man to see things in this perspective and have a little concern for what would happen to them in the future. The lesson they teach is: Ponder over the changing conditions of the universe you are in and get to know the power working behind these - great sermonizers from the Lord!

A perfect believer, in fact, a perfect human being is one who is able to perceive the hidden Power behind every change, revolution, sorrow and comfort, ignore their transitory phases, dismiss their material causes as the sole explanation. The mark of an intelligent person is that he looks at the originator or causer of causes more than he would look at causes, and it is with Him alone that he would relate to as firmly as possible.

In order to make such perfect models of humanity distinct from those having common human temperament, it was said in the third verse (11): إِلَّا الَّذِينَ صَبَرُ‌وا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ (except those who are patient and do good deeds). It means that people exempted from this common human frailty have two qualities: صَبر Sabr (patience) and al-Amal as-Salih (good deeds).

The word: صَبر (sabr) is used to convey a much wider range of meanings in the Arabic language, much wider than conveyed by its translation as ` patience' in English. The real meaning of صَبر Sabr is to tie, check, stop or hold back. In the terminology of the Qur'an and Sunnah, to hold the desiring human self back from going for the impermissible is Sabr. Therefore, the sense of صَبر Sabr (patience) includes abstention from all sins and doings counter to the dictates of the Shari` ah and al-Amal as-Salih (good deeds) covers all that is obligatory (fard), necessary (wajib), Sunnah and recommended (mustahabb). The verse now comes to mean that there are people who will not be affected by common human weaknesses. This will happen because they would have faith in Allah and they would fear the reckoning of the Last Day of Qiyamah. They will abstain from everything disliked by Allah and His Rasul and race towards every deed that brings their pleasure.

At the end of this very verse, also identified there is the recompense of these perfect human beings: أُولَٰئِكَ لَهُم مَّغْفِرَ‌ةٌ وَأَجْرٌ‌ كَبِير (Those are the people for whom there is forgiveness and a great reward - 11)

At this place, it should be noted that the Holy Qur'an uses the word: اَذَقنَا (adhaqna: We give them a taste of) for blessing and suffering both. By this device, it was indicated that real blessing and suffering is that of the Hereafter. Neither is the comfort of the mortal world the whole of it, nor is its suffering the whole of it. Instead of that, it should be taken at the level of tasting and sampling so that human beings could have some idea of the blessings and sufferings of the Hereafter. Therefore, neither are the comforts of this world something to be happy about unnecessarily, nor are its sufferings something to grieve about too much. If you were to think, this whole world is, to borrow a commercial term, only a showroom of the Hereafter with sample displays of comfort and suffering.

The fourth verse (12) has been revealed about a particular event. What happened was that the Mushriks of Makkah placed a host of demands before the Holy Prophet One of these was, ` our idols have been maligned in this Qur'an, therefore, we cannot believe in it. So, you should either bring some other Qur'an, or improve it by making alterations in it:;i ائْتِ بِقُرْ‌آنٍ غَيْرِ‌ هَٰذَا أَوْ بَدِّلْ (Bring a Qur'an other than this, or change it - Yunus, 10:15) '. (Al-Baghawi, Mazhari)

Another demand they came up with was, ` we are to believe in your prophesy only when some treasure, like the treasures of the kings of the world, is sent down for you and which you dole out to everyone around. Or that some angel descends from the heavens and hangs out with you everywhere testifying that you were a Messenger of Allah in all certainty.'

The Holy Prophet ﷺ felt the pinch of these absurd, even disrespectfully audacious demands in his heart. The reason was that he was mercy for all the worlds. It was not possible for him to leave them to their fate and take out the hope that they might someday believe from his heart. Nor was it possible for him to fulfill their absurd demands. To begin with, these demands were based on bland irrationality. If idols, idol-worship and things like that are not called what they are, what would become of right guidance and how would it be done? And then this brain wave of demanding a treasure from a prophet was a loud miss-match with his mission. They had simply taken the station of a prophet on the analogy of the status of a king. Similarly, it is not the practice of Allah Ta'ala that He would create conditions under which people were materially compelled to start professing the Faith. Otherwise, the whole world is within His power and control. Who could dare profess a belief, and act according to it, against the will of Allah Ta` ala? But, it is in His infinite wisdom that He has made this world a place of test. No material means are used here to compel people to do something good or to abstain from something bad. Certainly, what is done here is through Scriptures and Apostles. Lines are drawn between virtue and vice. Good and bad are separated. The outcome of each is explained. That is how people are invited and exhorted to do what is right and abstain from what is evil. And if some angel were to be miraculously attached to a prophet to attest to the veracity of his word, it would have posed problems. When no one believed it, he would have faced cash punishment on the spot. In that case, this would have been a modality of compelling people to believe. This kind of belief would have not been believing without seeing which is the essence of belief and faith, nor would there be any choice left for man to make which is the essence of his deed. As for the demands of those people, they were, no doubt, absurd and audacious. But, there is another aspect to it. The very act of making such demands proved that these people were grossly unaware of the status and reality of a messenger and prophet of Allah. They saw no difference between Allah and His Messenger. They even took the messenger to be absolutely powerful like Allah, therefore, they demanded that he should do for them what could not be done by anyone other than Allah.

In brief, when the Holy Prophet ﷺ became very sad because of such demands, this verse was revealed to comfort him and to revitalize his thinking. Addressing him first, it was said: Would you - surrendering to the pressure of these people - leave out some part of the Qur'an, sent by Allah, which they do not like, such as a part where it talks about the utter helplessness of idols? Would you, then, still be disturbed in the face of such demands? The introduction of the statement in verse 12 with the word: aW (la'allaka: Is it then expected of you) does not mean that something like that could be expected of him actually. Instead, the purpose is to establish that he was free from such things. He would not leave out any part of the Qur'an in consideration of their insistence, nor does he have to be sad, concerned and straitened over their demands. The reason is that he has been sent from Allah as nadhir, as one who warns people against what is harmful for them, then, Allah takes care of the rest for He is powerful over everything. Nadhir has been mentioned here particularly because those being addressed were kafirs, and kafirs deserve nothing but warning against the consequences of their deeds. Otherwise, the Holy Prophet ﷺ is not simply nadhir, one who warns, he is bashir too, one who announces glad tidings for people who do good deeds. In addition to what has been said here about the mission of a nadhir, we should understand that, in reality, nadhir is a person who warns out of love and affection against what is evil and harmful. Therefore, in a way, the sense of bashir, a giver of glad tidings, is included in the sense of nadhir, a giver of warning.