Hud 11:91–123

In a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, Shu‘ayb has been called the orator among the prophets (khatib al-ambiya’). He used to explain facts to the people of his community in their own understandable language in the most effective manner. Then, why did they not understand what he said? The reason for this was that the mindset of the community had been so vitiated that their way of thinking was quite different from that of Shu‘ayb. Therefore, what he had to say seemed incomprehensible. The community was engrossed in obeisance to human beings whereas Shu‘ayb called upon them to do obeisance to the one and only God. They were under the impression that belief in saints or great ones was enough for their salvation. But Shu‘ayb’s dictum was that salvation can be attained only through the belief in the one God and the performance of good deeds. The community members thought that since they considered themselves believers, they really were believers. Shu‘ayb said however, that a believer was one who was so by God’s assessment. In the eyes of the community salat (prayer) was merely a sort of ineffective formal supplement. Shu‘ayb declared, on the contrary, that salat was a reckoner of man’s life, his income and expenditure. The community thought that Faith was merely a spiritless acceptance, whereas he said that faith was that which was acquired by a live consciousness. In this way, a barrier had developed between Shu‘ayb and the community when it came to understanding his true and straightforward words. ‘Were it not for your clan, we would have stoned you.’ This statement reveals the great extent to which Shu‘ayb’s community had grown insensitive and become immersed in the love of outward, showy con-cerns. The truth of the matter was that when Shu‘ayb exposed the religious pretensions of the communi-ty, its members became his enemies. At that time he had no crowds surrounding him to deter them from attacking him. He did not possess wealth and status with which to impress his listeners. He had at his command only the strength of Truth and reasonableness, but with such people Truth and reasonableness did not carry any weight. In these circumstances, they would have certainly made a fatal attack on him, had it not been for the fear of tribal revenge. In the tribal era, the killing of a member of a tribe meant that, according to tribal custom, the entire tribe would rise to avenge that killing. This fear restrained Shu‘ayb’s community from taking any extreme step, just as in the present age people remain safe from the mischief of miscreants, because the latter fear that if they commit a crime, they will have to face the police force and the courts.

The people of Shu‘ayb’s community considered themselves Lords of Midian, taking things which had been given to them for the purpose of putting them to the test as their inalienable right. With all this in mind, they planned aggressive measures against Shu‘ayb. They even threatened to banish him and his companions from their land ( 7:88 ). But in the land which they considered their very own and of which they had become landlords, a terrible earthquake with horrifying tremors erupted at God’s behest; as a result of which, the whole region was destroyed. They were annihilated in their own domain, as if they had never existed. However, those members of the community who had accepted Shu‘ayb’s word, and had become his companions, were saved by special divine intervention.

Moses presented his call to the Truth in the best possible manner and to the greatest possible extent. He not only struck Pharaoh and his companions dumb, but also showed them a clear outward proof of his veracity in the shape of the miracle of the staff. Even so, the community of Pharaoh still sided with him and were not ready to support Moses. The reason for this was that, in their eyes, power and worldly goods were all-important; and they did not find Moses in possession of any of these things. They were no doubt amazed at what he had to say but, when they compared Moses with Pharaoh, they found in the former a lack of resources and material belongings, while in the latter they saw pomp and glory. This comparison became decisive for them; and in spite of Moses’ arguments and miracles, they were not ready to leave Pharaoh and go along with Moses. Those who, in this world preferred to be with one who possessed things of material greatness, will be placed alongside that individual, even in the Hereafter, but unlike the position in this world, this will be bad company, because in the Hereafter he will have been shorn of all his assets. Now his existence will be a symbol of dishonour and destruction. He will take his adherents to the same fire to which he was destined by God as result of his leading others astray.

In ancient chronicles events relating to Kings and military generals have been mentioned but events relating to prophets and their communities find no place therein. History as written by man has omitted those very things which, in the eyes of the Creator, were most worthy of mention. However, the Quran describes at great length the dawah work performed by the prophets and the reactions of their addressees to the call. Other matters have been ignored by the Quran as being of no importance. Of the areas destroyed during the age of prophethood, some are still in existence, for example, Egypt, which was the domain of Pharaoh. However, there were communities like that of Hud and Lot whose settlements along with their inhabitants were completely obliterated. Only a few signs of these are still extant in the shape of ruins or artefacts uncovered by excavations. The destruction of these settlements seems to be an act of tyranny. But viewed in the context of the reason for its happening, it will appear to be consistent with reality: it was the outcome of their evil deeds—the punishment meted out to them after their having sinned. Whenever a man indulges in arrogance and transgression, he does so on the strength of some notion. He considers some things or beings as supports and thinks that they will continue to be so in difficult times. But these supports will be such for only so long as God gives them leave. When, according to the law of God, the period of respite ends and God announces His final verdict, then man will come to know that the assumptions which, in his foolishness, he had made about his ‘supports’ were all false.

In the present world, the opportunity to live and to settle is available to man for the sole reason that he has to be put to the test. Those who continue to deny the truth even after the conclusion of the preaching process by the prophets, lose their right to remain on God’s earth any further. That is why God destroyed the rejecters of the Prophet ( 29:40 ). Mostly this destruction took place in the form of the severest natural calamities. For example, cyclones, floods or earthquakes which, under normal conditions, remain within a limit, were made to wreak havoc to an unlimited extent. Such destruction of communities as took place in the past were called ‘climatic pulsation’ by the scholars of geographic history, as if whatever happened was the result of a geographical upheaval. However, they are unable to explain why such ‘climatic pulsations’ (changes) occurred only in the past and why these do not occur now, after the end of the period of prophethood. The fact is that these events were not merely geographical events in the simple sense. They were manifestations of God’s will. This proves that the system of the present world is based on justice. Here, according to the law of nature itself, a transgressor will perforce receive punishment for his transgression, while the righteous one will receive a reward for his just behaviour. To call these events ‘climatic pulsation’ amounts to consigning them to the geographical realm. On the contrary, if these are treated as forms of divine retribution, they can teach great lessons about the fear of God and create anxiety about the Hereafter. The events that occurred during the age of the prophets, were, so to say, small signs prior to the advent of the great Doomsday. In these cases it so happened that those who denied the truth were given respite for some period. Thereafter, God’s verdict was made manifest and all were destroyed. Only those were saved who, being the supporters of the truth, were treated as favoured in the eyes of God. Others who were, in the assessment of God, arrogant and, therefore, disfavoured, were directly afflicted by God’s retribution; so much so that the recommendations of the prophets could not save them, as proved by the examples of Noah and Abraham.

What has been mentioned in the Quran as being of the utmost importance, and has been the most often repeated, is that human beings will not be spared the final reckoning, but after death will be presented in God’s court. There everybody will be consigned either to Paradise or to Hell, according to his performance in this world. The reason for giving this point so much importance and repeating it so often is the ‘doubts’ which people have. People see that there are countless individuals on the earth who do not carry out God’s instructions; there are countless individuals who act independently of God’s instructions; many persons live self-centred lives instead of God-oriented lives, without any loss to themselves; all of them are still successful. Here, apparently, it is nowhere to be seen that those loyal to God receive special rewards and those disobedient to God have to face punishment. For this reason, people start entertaining doubts. They are unable to believe that people are destined to meet any fate other than what they have gone on witnessing with their own eyes. Here the Quran states that people’s upholding of untruth is not because they had studied the problem from every aspect and had found untruth reasonable. It was rather because of their adherence to customs and tradition instead of being open to arguments and reasonableness. If, in spite of this, they are not faced with the result of their actions, it is because of the respite they are given for being tested; for the life on earth before death is a life of trial. So, to make the test valid, the opportunity is given to man here till the time of his death to say whatever he likes and to do whatever he likes. Death marks the end of this period. Death means that man is transported from the place of testing to the place of judgement. There everyone will receive whatever he actually deserves and everyone will lose whatever he had assembled around himself without deserving it.

This means that the addressees of the Book given by God to Moses had diverse opinions about its statements. Some of them rejected them and some of them accepted them. (at-Tabari). Whenever a statement is made, a man has two alternatives—one is to make the correct interpretation of it and the other is to make the wrong interpretation of it. If the hearers are really serious, they will inevitably arrive at the one correct interpretation. Their seriousness will guarantee their unity of opinion. On the contrary, if they are not serious, they will not give the statement any importance and will interpret it differently according to their own individual thinking. One will say this and the other will say that. In this way their levity will lead them to differences of opinion. This happened in the case of all the prophets. God has nevertheless tolerated this, because He has created the present world as a place for the performance of deeds and the coming world as a place for reward or retribution. That is the way of God. That is why people are given full respite here. The present state of affairs is entirely due to this respite being given so that human beings may be tested and not due to God being under any compulsion.

The initial response to a call for the Truth is that it is ignored. Thereafter opposition starts and then it soon goes beyond all limits. This is a very critical situation for the call-givers. At that time the believers begin to consider different ways of thinking. One way is to become irritated and to imagine that, with the help of force, they should clash with those on whom theoretical reasoning had proved ineffective. The other way is to amend their message suitably in order to make it acceptable to the addressees, by omitting those portions which displease them. The first way amounts to going to extremes, while the second means compromising with falsehood, and both of these are equally wrong in the eyes of God; especially the second approach (i.e. amendment of the message in order to make it acceptable) which amounts to a sin, because that which is most desired by Almighty God is the unequivocal declaration of Truth, and in the case of compromises, there cannot be any such declaration. Whenever obstacles arise in the path of giving the call to the Truth, the call-giver should turn towards God as much as possible, because He, being Omnipotent, is the sole and certain means of solving all problems.

Here ‘generation before you’ means previous People of the Book, i.e. believing communities. A community faces ruination when the worldly good things given by God to its people with the purpose of developing feelings of gratitude in them, become instead a source of lust and create the urge to seek after material things. Under these circumstances, the tasks which need to be carried out for the reformation of the Muslim community are known in the terminology of the Islamic law as al-Amr bi’l-Ma‘ruf wa’n-Nahy ‘an al-Munkar, that is, exhorting righteousness and preventing individuals from indulging in sinful acts. This admonition specifies the responsibility placed on a Muslim with regard to his immediate neighbours. This means that in a Muslim society, there should always be some individuals who should remind Muslims of God and the Hereafter, who should keep a watch on people’s morals and who should try to keep them on the right path in all their dealings. The non-existence of such righteous individuals in a community is generally for one of two reasons—either the whole community has morally deteriorated and there is not a single righteous person left in it. Or else, there may still be certain righteous people, but due to the all-pervasive evil, they may not be able to find the courage to open their mouths. They may be afraid that if they spoke the Truth, they would lose the respect of their community. In both the above-mentioned cases, the community loses God’s esteem and becomes liable to be afflicted by God’s retribution in one form or the other.

In our world, there are innumerable creatures besides human beings. All these creatures follow the one fixed path of nature at all times. Similarly, God could have created human beings as compulsory followers of the straight path too. But this is in no way God’s scheme with regard to human beings. God’s plan was that they would be so created that they should, of their own accord, be able independently to make correct moral choices. The difference in the world of human beings (i.e. some of them adopting one way and others adopting an other way) is, in fact, due to this special plan of God. This plan was certainly a risky one, because it meant that many people had the opportunity to misuse their freedom and thus make themselves liable to be cast into hell. But, with the help of this very plan, such noble souls could be chosen as could be treated as deserving the special grace of God. God has blessed the entire universe with His bounties. Now, God devised this plan so that He might give His creatures the benefit of His grace, saying, ‘You are entitled to this.’ God’s grace will be granted to that person whose consciousness is so alert that he recognizes in the power given to him by way of testing him his real powerlessness. Such a person will be able to see through the veil of human power and have a glimpse of God’s power behind it. Such perceptiveness takes away the capacity for arrogance in a man. So much so that, when God grants him His Grace saying, ‘This is your entitlement,’ in his awareness of reality he cries out, ‘O God! This is also a manifestation of Your grace, otherwise my deeds have no value.’

The events in the lives of the prophets have been narrated in the Quran, so that the later dayees should learn a lesson from them. In these events the preacher sees that their addressee-communities quarrelled with them, abused them by giving a twist to their straightforward discourses, subjected them to all sorts of hardship and rejected them as if they had no value at all. But, finally God helped them and their word carried the day. All the attacks of their opponents failed. The different fates of the believers and unbelievers became manifest in their initial form in this world itself, and will appear in their most perfect form in the Hereafter. With the help of these examples, the call-giver acquires the confidence, based on history, that there is no question of his being disappointed by or being terrified of the difficulties faced by him while calling for the Truth. Such difficulties always arise in dawah work, but he knows that he too will finally be successful, just as success was achieved by all the previous prophets.