Al-Ahzab 33:43–48

هُوَ الَّذِي يُصَلِّي عَلَيْكُمْ وَمَلَائِكَتُهُ (He is such that He and His angels send blessings to you. 33:43) It means that when you have become used to dhikrullah in abundance and have become regular in recounting the perfections of Allah morning and evening, Allah would honor you and respect you by bestowing His Blessings and by the angels supplicating for you.

The word 'Salah' has been used in this verse for Allah Ta’ ala as well as for the angels but the applicable meaning are different. For Allah it means His bestowing blessings, and for angels who have no volition on their own, it means their supplication to Allah to bestow His blessings.

Sayyidna Ibn ` Abbas ؓ has stated that Salah from Allah is blessing, from angels it is prayer for forgiveness and from humans it is supplication. The word Salah carries all the three meanings.

تَحِيَّتُهُمْ يَوْمَ يَلْقَوْنَهُ سَلَامٌ (Their greeting, the Day they will meet Him, will be, "Salam" - 33:44). This is the explanation of the Salah that is sent to believers from-Allah. It means that the day they would meet Allah, they will be respectfully addressed by Him with the word, 'Salami i.e. (Assalamu ` alaykum) . The day of meeting Allah according to Imam Raghib, would be the Doomsday; some other leading exegetes say that it would be when they enter Paradise and they would receive Salam from Allah Ta’ ala as well as from the angels; and yet other scholars consider it to be the day of death when they would leave the whole world to be present before Allah as stated by Sayyidna ` Abdullah Ibn Masud ؓ that when the Angel of Death goes to a believer to extract the spirit of life out of him, he gives him a message that his Lord has sent to him Salam. The word 'meeting' is true in all the three cases. Therefore there can be no objection or contradiction in the traditions, because Salam from Allah Ta’ ala is sent on all the three occasions.

Note

This verse has proved that when Muslims meet each other, their greeting should be assalamu ` alaykum whether from the older to the younger or from the younger to the older.

Special Attributes of the Holy Prophet ﷺ

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِنَّا أَرْ‌سَلْنَاكَ شَاهِدًا وَمُبَشِّرً‌ا وَنَذِيرً‌ا ﴿45﴾ وَدَاعِيًا إِلَى اللَّهِ بِإِذْنِهِ وَسِرَ‌اجًا مُّنِيرً‌ا ﴿46﴾

O prophet, We have sent you as a witness and a bearer of good news and a warner and as one who calls (people) towards Allah with His permission, and as a luminous lamp. (33:45-46)

The text here reverts to the special perfect attributes of the Holy Prophet ﷺ . Five attributes have been mentioned here - 'Shahid', 'mubashshir', "nadhir', da` i ila Allah'. 'siraj munir'. 'Shahid' (a witness) means that the Holy Prophet ﷺ will be a witness of the ummah on the Day of Judgment according to a hadith narrated by Sayyidna Abu Said al-Khudri ؓ and reported by Bukhari, Nasa` i and Tirmidhi. It is mentioned in some parts of that Hadith that on the Day of Judgment when Sayyidna Nuh (علیہ السلام) will be presented before Allah, he will be asked whether he had conveyed Allah's Message to his Ummah. He will reply that he did. Then his Ummah will be presented and they will deny having received any message of Allah. Then Sayyidna Nuh (علیہ السلام) will be asked whether he has any witness to his claim of having conveyed the message of truth, and he will reply that Muhammad and his Ummah are witnesses. Some narrations have it that he will present the Ummah of Muhammad ﷺ as witness and this Ummah will give evidence in his favour. At this, the Ummah of Sayyidna Nuh (علیہ السلام) will argue 'How can they, who were not even born at that time, give evidence in our case?'

Now the Ummah of Muhammad ﷺ will be asked to substantiate their evidence and they will answer that no doubt they were not born at that time but they were told about it by their Holy Prophet ﷺ in whom they believe and trust. At this time the Holy Prophet ﷺ will be asked to give testimony regarding the veracity of his Ummah's statement.

Briefly, the Holy Prophet ﷺ through his testimony, will confirm and verify the statement of his Ummah that, of course, he had given them that news.

Another general meaning of being a witness for the Ummah may be that the Holy Prophet ﷺ will give evidence about the good and bad deeds of all the individuals of his Ummah. And this evidence would be on the basis that the deeds of the Ummah are presented before the Holy Prophet ﷺ every morning and evening daily; some narrations state that the deeds are presented once a week. The Holy Prophet ﷺ thus recognizes each and every individual of his Ummah by their deeds and as such he will be made witness for the Ummah on the Doomsday. (Ibn al-Mubarak from Sa'id Ibn al- Musayyab, Mazhari)

'Mubashshshir' means bearer of good news, and as such the Holy Prophet ﷺ is the announcer of the good news of Paradise for the righteous people of his Ummah.

'Nadhir' means the one who warns; thus the Holy Prophet ﷺ also puts the fear of Allah's punishment in the hearts of his Ummah in case they violate or disobey the injunctions of Shari'ah.

'One who calls people to' Allah' means that the Holy Prophet ﷺ calls his Ummah to believe in Allah's Being, Oneness and obedience. The act of calling towards Allah has been qualified by the phrase 'with His permission'. It means that the Holy Prophet ﷺ calls and invites people towards Allah with His permission. This condition is an indication that preaching and inviting towards Allah are very difficult tasks which cannot be performed successfully without Allah" permission and help.

سِرَاج (Siraj) means lamp and مُنِیر ('Munir' ) means luminous. The fifth attribute of the Holy Prophet ﷺ ، has been stated that he is a luminous lamp, and some are of the view that 'luminous lamp' refers here to the Qur'an. But the context suggests that this is also an attribute of the Holy Prophet ﷺ .

Qadi Thana'ullah has stated in Tafsir Mazhari that "the Holy Prophet's ﷺ function of calling towards Allah pertains to his speech and outward acts, his attribute of being a 'luminous lamp' pertains to his blessed heart. Just as the sun illuminates the whole world, in the same way, the hearts of the faithful become illuminated by the radiant light of his heart. That is why the noble companions who were the beneficiaries of his company in this world are superior and more exalted than the whole of the Ummah, because their hearts were illuminated and graced by his heart directly; the rest of the Ummah received this radiant light indirectly through the noble companions and their successors and so on."

It can also be said that all prophets, specially the Holy Prophet ﷺ ، after having passed away from this world are alive in their graves. Their life in barzakh (transition between death and the Day of Resurrection) is much more superior than the transit-life of common people, the reality of which is known to Allah Ta’ ala only. However due to this life, the hearts of all Muslims would keep on receiving the radiant light of his blessed heart, and the share of each individual would be in accordance with the intensity of love and reverence he has towards the Holy Prophet ﷺ and the abundance of Salah (durud) he offers to him.

The radiant light of the Holy Prophet ﷺ has been metaphorically described as a 'lamp', even though his inner radiance is far brighter than the sun. This is because the sun illuminates only the surface of the world, whereas his blessed heart illuminates the inside of the whole world and the hearts of the faithful. The reason for this simile appears to be that obtaining advantage from the light of a lamp is voluntary and available all the time easily, whereas approaching the sun is well-nigh impossible and its light is not available all the time.

The attributes of the Holy Prophet ﷺ ، as stated in the Holy Qur'an, are also mentioned in Torah as reported by Imam Bukhari that Sayyidna ` Ata' Ibn Yasar says that one day when I met Sayyidna ` Abdullah Ibn ` Amr Ibn al-As ؓ asked him to tell me the attributes of the Holy Prophet ﷺ as stated in Torah. He said, "of course, I will tell you. By Allah! some of the attributes of the Holy Prophet ﷺ mentioned in the Qur'an are also there in Torah" And then he quoted the following extract.

إِنَّا أَرْ‌سَلْنَاكَ شَاهِدًا وَمُبَشِّرً‌ا وَنَذِيرً‌ا وَّحرُزًا لِّلاُمِّیّینَ ، اَنتَ عبدِی وَ رَسُولِی سَمَّیتُکَ المُتَوَکَّلَ ، لَیسَ بِفَظِّ وَّلَا غَلِظِ وَّلَا سَخَِّ فی الاسوَاقِ وَ لَا یَدفَعُ اَلسَّیَّٔۃِ بِالسَّیَّٔۃِ وَ لٰکِن یَّعفُو وَ یَغفرُو لَن یَّقبِضَہ، اللہُ تَعَالٰی حَتَّی یُقِیمَ بہِ المِلَّۃَ العوجَآِء بَان یَّقُولُوا لَا اِلٰہَ اِلَّا اللہُ وَ یَفتَحُ بِہٖ اعینا وَ اذاناً صُمَّا وَّقلوباً غُلفاً

"0 Prophet! We have sent you as a witness, as a bearer of glad tidings, as a warner and as a refuge and protection for the illiterate Arabs. You are My slave and messenger. I have named you "mutawakkil' (i.e. one who trusts in Allah). You are neither ill-tempered nor hard natured nor one who raises noise in the markets; you do not repay wickedness with wickedness, rather you forbear and forgive. Allah Ta’ ala would not recall you from the world till He has straightened out the crooked Ummah through you and they start saying 'la ilaha illallah'. Allah would open up unseeing eyes, un-hearing ears and locked-up hearts through you".

The Holy Qur'an, after attributing the above qualities to the Holy Prophet ﷺ ، is asking him to carry on his functions, that is, to give the good news to the faithful that they are going to receive great bounties and mercy from Allah and not to obey the desires of the infidels and hypocrites. It was, though, not possible for the Holy Prophet obey the infidels and the hypocrites or to give up preaching and inviting people, yet there was a chance that, in order to avoid people's sarcasm and taunts, he might have inclined to avoid marrying Sayyidah Zainab ؓ that was, in fact, a practical demonstration of the divine rule of Shari'ah. This has been alluded to as obeying the infidels and hypocrites. He was further directed not to mind any vexation that he may receive from the infidels and hypocrites (as he did) and also not to worry about physical harm afflicted by them, but in case such a thought crosses his mind, he was directed to trust in Allah, because Allah is enough to put all matters right - He will protect him from all harms, and if an apparent harm is caused during preaching, it is a gain in reality, and is not against the promise of protection and putting things right.