Overview (Verses 37 - 39)

Who Needs Miraculous Evidence?
 
The sūrah then refers to the unbelievers’ request that a sign in the form of something supernatural be sent down to the Prophet. It points out that such a request betrays ignorance of God’s law and the mercy He shows them by not responding to their request. Were they to continue with their rejection after a supernatural sign is given them, they would be destroyed.
 
What they requested was a physical miracle such as those given to earlier messengers. They were not satisfied with the permanent sign embodied in the Qur’ān, which heralds the ultimate stage of mankind’s maturity. It makes a final address to man’s mature mind. Moreover, its significance is not limited to the generation that sees it, as is the case with material miracles; its miraculous message will continue to address the human intellect until the Day of Judgement.
 
As they made their requests for a miracle, they overlooked the divine law which brought immediate punishment to those who continued to deny divine messages after a miraculous sign had been given them. They simply did not appreciate God’s kindness by not responding to their request, when He knew that they would continue to deny Him, as earlier people had done. That would have sealed their fate. God wanted to give them an extended chance to believe in Him. Those who continue to reject faith may have children who grow up as believers. Needless to say, they did not thank God for His grace in giving them such an extended chance.
 
The sūrah mentions their request and comments that most of them do not know what it entails or the reason for its rejection. It states that God is certainly able to give them the miraculous sign they want, but His wisdom and grace have stopped the woeful doom that is certain to follow: “They say: ‘Why has no sign been sent down to him from his Lord?’ Say: God is well able to send down any sign, but most of them are devoid of knowledge.” (Verse 37)
 
The Qur’ān then begins another gentle approach to awaken their senses, inviting them to reflect on the numerous pointers to faith which they see all around them: “There is not an animal that walks on earth and no bird that flies on its wings but are communities like your own. No single thing have We left out of the book. Then to their Lord shall they all be gathered.” (Verse 38)
 
Human beings are not the only residents of this universe, so as to consider that they come into existence by sheer coincidence, or that human life is meaningless. There are numerous creatures in the world and they all have their lives regulated in a way that indicates careful planning and elaborate design. Moreover, they all confirm the oneness of the Creator and the consistency of His law of creation.
 
All animals that walk on earth, be they insects, reptiles, or vertebrates and all flying creatures, including every winged insect or bird, and indeed every living creature, belong to a community which shares certain characteristics and a particular way of life, just as human beings do. God has not left any type of His creation without providing it with an elaborate plan to organize its existence and without taking account of what it does with its life. At the end, all creatures are gathered to their Lord for judgement.
 
This short verse, which makes an all-important statement about life and the living, has a strong effect on our hearts as it describes God’s complete supervision, elaborate planning, total knowledge and superior power. We cannot elaborate here on each of these aspects, because such elaboration is beyond the scope of this work. What we need to say is that directing our attentions to the system of creation, God’s management and knowledge of them and His ultimate gathering of them to Himself, is much greater than providing physically miraculous signs, seen only by one isolated generation.
 
This round concludes with a statement that God’s will and law remain operative when people choose either to follow His guidance or to go astray: “Those who deny Our revelations are deaf and dumb, groping along in darkness. Whomever God wills, He lets go astray; and whomever He wills, He guides along a straight path.” (Verse 39)
 
This is indeed a reiteration in a new form, using a different scene, of what has been stated earlier in this passage concerning the fact that only those who listen attentively will respond, while those who are dead can make no response. Those who deny God’s signs which are present all over the universe, and who also deny God’s revelations, do so because their receptive faculties have been knocked out of order. They are deaf, unable to hear; dumb, unable to speak; groping in total darkness, unable to see. This is not a description of their physical status, because they indeed have eyes, ears and mouths. It is rather that their faculty of comprehension is not working, which makes their senses of no value, as if they cannot receive or transmit any signal. This is an apt description because God’s revelations have their own inherent effect, if they are only properly received. Only a person whose nature has been corrupted turns away from them because he is no longer able to benefit by guidance or rise to the higher level of life which divine revelations promote.
 
God’s will is seen to work behind all this. It is God’s will which has determined that this particular species of creation, known as man, has the dual ability to follow guidance or go astray, according to his own free choice, not as a result of any compulsion. This is how God lets whomever He wills go astray and how He helps whomever He wills follow the straight path. His will helps everyone who strives to implement divine guidance, while it abandons and lets go astray anyone who stubbornly rejects guidance. It does no injustice to anyone.
 
A human being may follow guidance or may allow himself to go astray: both possibilities are part of his nature. Both directions have been created by God’s will. Similarly, the consequences that follow upon a person’s choice to follow one way or the other are also determined by God’s will which is active, absolute. Reckoning, judgement and reward are based on man’s choice of the course he follows. That choice is of his own making, although the ability to choose either has been planted in him by God’s will.

A System Bearing No Comparison
 
Having looked at this passage, we need to take a short pause to point out the extent of the directives it contains to all advocates of God’s message throughout all generations. These directives transcend the historical occasion which required them to be issued. They delineate a system of advocating God’s faith that applies to all advocates, free of all constraints of time and place. We cannot, in this commentary, speak about this system in detail. We will only indicate its main features.
 
The road the advocates of Islam have to follow is tough and full of hardship. Although God will undoubtedly grant victory to the truth, this victory comes at the time God, in His wisdom, chooses. Moreover, God keeps the timing of this victory to Himself, giving no information of it to anyone, not even His Messenger. The hardship along this road has two basic sources. The first is the denial and rejection with which the message of Islam is confronted at the beginning, as well as the harm inflicted on its advocates. The second source is the natural human desire felt by every advocate to guide people to the truth he himself has experienced, his enthusiasm to support the truth and his desire to see it victorious. Contending with this desire is no less difficult than facing up to denial, rejection and the infliction of harm.
 
We see in this passage how the Qur’ān tackles both aspects. It states that those who reject this faith and try to suppress it know full well that they are only called upon to follow the truth. They realise that the Messenger who conveys it to mankind tells the truth. Nevertheless, they refuse to respond. Indeed they persist, for certain ulterior motives, in their stubborn rejection. They realize that this truth has an intrinsic evidence to support it: it addresses human nature which responds to it positively once it is alive and receptive: “Only those that can hear will surely answer.” (Verse 36) Those, on the other hand, who oppose the truth have dead hearts and they themselves are “deaf and dumb, groping along in darkness”. (Verse 39) The Messenger cannot make those who are dead or deaf hear. An advocate of the truth is not required to bring the dead back to life. This is something only God can do. On the other hand, God is certain to grant victory to His message. But that victory comes at the right time, according to God’s law and by His will. God’s law cannot be precipitated or changed with regard either to the certainty of ultimate victory, or to its timing. God does not hasten things simply because the advocates of His message, or even His messengers are made to endure rejection, harm and suffering. Indeed, an advocate of God’s cause is required to submit himself to God’s will, without trying to precipitate it. He is also required to show patience in the face of adversity and to demonstrate his certainty of the ultimate victory.
 
The Qur’ān also defines the role of God’s Messenger, as also successive generations of advocates of Islam. All that is required of them is to convey God’s message and to follow the road God has chosen for them, despite the hardships they may have to face. People’s responses to the same are beyond their terms of reference. People follow guidance or error in accordance with a divine law that will never change, even to accommodate God’s Messenger’s desire to get some of those whom he loves to follow the guidance he brings them from God. Nor will this law change as a result of his distress at what is done by those whom he must confront. His own person is not considered here. He will not be accountable for the number of those who follow guidance as a result of his efforts. He is judged on the basis of his efforts and his obedience of his instructions. What happens to people afterwards is determined by their Lord: “Whomever God wills, He lets go astray; and whomever He wills, He guides along a straight path.” (Verse 39) “Had God so willed, He would have gathered them all to [His] guidance. Do not, therefore, allow yourself to be one of the ignorant.” (Verse 35)
 
As we have already explained, an advocate of God’s message may not act on the suggestions of people whom he addresses nor can he force the divine method. He must not try to adapt Islam to his own liking. The unbelievers used to request miracles, as was expected at their time. Such requests are mentioned in several places in this sūrah and in other sūrahs as well: “They say: ‘Why has not an angel been sent down to him?’“ (Verse 8) “They say: ‘Why has no sign been sent down to him from his Lord?’“ (Verse 37) “They swear by God most solemnly that if a miracle be shown to them they would believe in it.” (Verse 109) 

The Qur’ānic directive in this passage makes it clear to God’s Messenger and the believers that they must not entertain any desire to have a miraculous sign given to them, regardless of its type. The Prophet is told in plain terms: “If you find it so distressing that they turn their backs on you, seek, if you can, a chasm to go deep into the earth or a ladder to the sky by which you may bring them a sign. Had God so willed, He would have gathered them all to [His] guidance. Do not, therefore, allow yourself to be one of the ignorant. Only those that can hear will surely answer. As for the dead, God will bring them back to life, then to Him shall they return.” (Verses 35-36) Those believers who entertained the desire to have the unbelievers’ request for a sign granted, when those unbelievers vowed that they would certainly believe once they saw such a sign, have been told: “Miracles are in the power of God alone. How can you tell that even if one is shown to them, they may still not believe? We will turn their hearts and eyes away [from the truth] since they did not believe in it the first time. We shall leave them to blunder about in their overweening arrogance.” (Verses 109-110) The believers should know that those who deny the truth do not lack a sign nor is it true that they cannot find evidence to support the truth. The believers also know that this religion follows a set pattern which does not change. It is far too sublime to modify its methods in accordance with the desires of those who make whatever suggestions come into their heads.
 
This leads us to the wider implication of this Qur’ānic directive which is not limited to any particular period of time, or concerned with a particular incident or suggestion. Times change, and so do people’s desires and suggestions. The advocates of the divine faith must not allow themselves to be swayed by people’s desires. Indeed, it is the tendency to respond to other people’s suggestions that makes some of the advocates of Islam in our time try to shape the Islamic faith into a theory similar to man-made ones. These, as we know, are shown, with the passage of time, to be full of defects and contradictions. It is the same desire which makes some advocates of Islam try to fashion the Islamic system into a theoretical system or draft laws regulating certain situations of modern jāhiliyyah that have nothing to do with Islam. They do this in order to counter what people say about Islam to the effect that it is merely a faith that has nothing to do with the practical affairs of society. Some of the advocates of Islam try to provide people with such theoretical drafts while the people themselves continue to follow their own ways, unwilling to implement God’s law or abide by it. All such attempts are contemptible and must not be entertained by any advocate of Islam.

Overview (Verses 37 - 39)

Who Needs Miraculous Evidence?
 
The sūrah then refers to the unbelievers’ request that a sign in the form of something supernatural be sent down to the Prophet. It points out that such a request betrays ignorance of God’s law and the mercy He shows them by not responding to their request. Were they to continue with their rejection after a supernatural sign is given them, they would be destroyed.
 
What they requested was a physical miracle such as those given to earlier messengers. They were not satisfied with the permanent sign embodied in the Qur’ān, which heralds the ultimate stage of mankind’s maturity. It makes a final address to man’s mature mind. Moreover, its significance is not limited to the generation that sees it, as is the case with material miracles; its miraculous message will continue to address the human intellect until the Day of Judgement.
 
As they made their requests for a miracle, they overlooked the divine law which brought immediate punishment to those who continued to deny divine messages after a miraculous sign had been given them. They simply did not appreciate God’s kindness by not responding to their request, when He knew that they would continue to deny Him, as earlier people had done. That would have sealed their fate. God wanted to give them an extended chance to believe in Him. Those who continue to reject faith may have children who grow up as believers. Needless to say, they did not thank God for His grace in giving them such an extended chance.
 
The sūrah mentions their request and comments that most of them do not know what it entails or the reason for its rejection. It states that God is certainly able to give them the miraculous sign they want, but His wisdom and grace have stopped the woeful doom that is certain to follow: “They say: ‘Why has no sign been sent down to him from his Lord?’ Say: God is well able to send down any sign, but most of them are devoid of knowledge.” (Verse 37)
 
The Qur’ān then begins another gentle approach to awaken their senses, inviting them to reflect on the numerous pointers to faith which they see all around them: “There is not an animal that walks on earth and no bird that flies on its wings but are communities like your own. No single thing have We left out of the book. Then to their Lord shall they all be gathered.” (Verse 38)
 
Human beings are not the only residents of this universe, so as to consider that they come into existence by sheer coincidence, or that human life is meaningless. There are numerous creatures in the world and they all have their lives regulated in a way that indicates careful planning and elaborate design. Moreover, they all confirm the oneness of the Creator and the consistency of His law of creation.
 
All animals that walk on earth, be they insects, reptiles, or vertebrates and all flying creatures, including every winged insect or bird, and indeed every living creature, belong to a community which shares certain characteristics and a particular way of life, just as human beings do. God has not left any type of His creation without providing it with an elaborate plan to organize its existence and without taking account of what it does with its life. At the end, all creatures are gathered to their Lord for judgement.
 
This short verse, which makes an all-important statement about life and the living, has a strong effect on our hearts as it describes God’s complete supervision, elaborate planning, total knowledge and superior power. We cannot elaborate here on each of these aspects, because such elaboration is beyond the scope of this work. What we need to say is that directing our attentions to the system of creation, God’s management and knowledge of them and His ultimate gathering of them to Himself, is much greater than providing physically miraculous signs, seen only by one isolated generation.
 
This round concludes with a statement that God’s will and law remain operative when people choose either to follow His guidance or to go astray: “Those who deny Our revelations are deaf and dumb, groping along in darkness. Whomever God wills, He lets go astray; and whomever He wills, He guides along a straight path.” (Verse 39)
 
This is indeed a reiteration in a new form, using a different scene, of what has been stated earlier in this passage concerning the fact that only those who listen attentively will respond, while those who are dead can make no response. Those who deny God’s signs which are present all over the universe, and who also deny God’s revelations, do so because their receptive faculties have been knocked out of order. They are deaf, unable to hear; dumb, unable to speak; groping in total darkness, unable to see. This is not a description of their physical status, because they indeed have eyes, ears and mouths. It is rather that their faculty of comprehension is not working, which makes their senses of no value, as if they cannot receive or transmit any signal. This is an apt description because God’s revelations have their own inherent effect, if they are only properly received. Only a person whose nature has been corrupted turns away from them because he is no longer able to benefit by guidance or rise to the higher level of life which divine revelations promote.
 
God’s will is seen to work behind all this. It is God’s will which has determined that this particular species of creation, known as man, has the dual ability to follow guidance or go astray, according to his own free choice, not as a result of any compulsion. This is how God lets whomever He wills go astray and how He helps whomever He wills follow the straight path. His will helps everyone who strives to implement divine guidance, while it abandons and lets go astray anyone who stubbornly rejects guidance. It does no injustice to anyone.
 
A human being may follow guidance or may allow himself to go astray: both possibilities are part of his nature. Both directions have been created by God’s will. Similarly, the consequences that follow upon a person’s choice to follow one way or the other are also determined by God’s will which is active, absolute. Reckoning, judgement and reward are based on man’s choice of the course he follows. That choice is of his own making, although the ability to choose either has been planted in him by God’s will.

A System Bearing No Comparison
 
Having looked at this passage, we need to take a short pause to point out the extent of the directives it contains to all advocates of God’s message throughout all generations. These directives transcend the historical occasion which required them to be issued. They delineate a system of advocating God’s faith that applies to all advocates, free of all constraints of time and place. We cannot, in this commentary, speak about this system in detail. We will only indicate its main features.
 
The road the advocates of Islam have to follow is tough and full of hardship. Although God will undoubtedly grant victory to the truth, this victory comes at the time God, in His wisdom, chooses. Moreover, God keeps the timing of this victory to Himself, giving no information of it to anyone, not even His Messenger. The hardship along this road has two basic sources. The first is the denial and rejection with which the message of Islam is confronted at the beginning, as well as the harm inflicted on its advocates. The second source is the natural human desire felt by every advocate to guide people to the truth he himself has experienced, his enthusiasm to support the truth and his desire to see it victorious. Contending with this desire is no less difficult than facing up to denial, rejection and the infliction of harm.
 
We see in this passage how the Qur’ān tackles both aspects. It states that those who reject this faith and try to suppress it know full well that they are only called upon to follow the truth. They realise that the Messenger who conveys it to mankind tells the truth. Nevertheless, they refuse to respond. Indeed they persist, for certain ulterior motives, in their stubborn rejection. They realize that this truth has an intrinsic evidence to support it: it addresses human nature which responds to it positively once it is alive and receptive: “Only those that can hear will surely answer.” (Verse 36) Those, on the other hand, who oppose the truth have dead hearts and they themselves are “deaf and dumb, groping along in darkness”. (Verse 39) The Messenger cannot make those who are dead or deaf hear. An advocate of the truth is not required to bring the dead back to life. This is something only God can do. On the other hand, God is certain to grant victory to His message. But that victory comes at the right time, according to God’s law and by His will. God’s law cannot be precipitated or changed with regard either to the certainty of ultimate victory, or to its timing. God does not hasten things simply because the advocates of His message, or even His messengers are made to endure rejection, harm and suffering. Indeed, an advocate of God’s cause is required to submit himself to God’s will, without trying to precipitate it. He is also required to show patience in the face of adversity and to demonstrate his certainty of the ultimate victory.
 
The Qur’ān also defines the role of God’s Messenger, as also successive generations of advocates of Islam. All that is required of them is to convey God’s message and to follow the road God has chosen for them, despite the hardships they may have to face. People’s responses to the same are beyond their terms of reference. People follow guidance or error in accordance with a divine law that will never change, even to accommodate God’s Messenger’s desire to get some of those whom he loves to follow the guidance he brings them from God. Nor will this law change as a result of his distress at what is done by those whom he must confront. His own person is not considered here. He will not be accountable for the number of those who follow guidance as a result of his efforts. He is judged on the basis of his efforts and his obedience of his instructions. What happens to people afterwards is determined by their Lord: “Whomever God wills, He lets go astray; and whomever He wills, He guides along a straight path.” (Verse 39) “Had God so willed, He would have gathered them all to [His] guidance. Do not, therefore, allow yourself to be one of the ignorant.” (Verse 35)
 
As we have already explained, an advocate of God’s message may not act on the suggestions of people whom he addresses nor can he force the divine method. He must not try to adapt Islam to his own liking. The unbelievers used to request miracles, as was expected at their time. Such requests are mentioned in several places in this sūrah and in other sūrahs as well: “They say: ‘Why has not an angel been sent down to him?’“ (Verse 8) “They say: ‘Why has no sign been sent down to him from his Lord?’“ (Verse 37) “They swear by God most solemnly that if a miracle be shown to them they would believe in it.” (Verse 109) 

The Qur’ānic directive in this passage makes it clear to God’s Messenger and the believers that they must not entertain any desire to have a miraculous sign given to them, regardless of its type. The Prophet is told in plain terms: “If you find it so distressing that they turn their backs on you, seek, if you can, a chasm to go deep into the earth or a ladder to the sky by which you may bring them a sign. Had God so willed, He would have gathered them all to [His] guidance. Do not, therefore, allow yourself to be one of the ignorant. Only those that can hear will surely answer. As for the dead, God will bring them back to life, then to Him shall they return.” (Verses 35-36) Those believers who entertained the desire to have the unbelievers’ request for a sign granted, when those unbelievers vowed that they would certainly believe once they saw such a sign, have been told: “Miracles are in the power of God alone. How can you tell that even if one is shown to them, they may still not believe? We will turn their hearts and eyes away [from the truth] since they did not believe in it the first time. We shall leave them to blunder about in their overweening arrogance.” (Verses 109-110) The believers should know that those who deny the truth do not lack a sign nor is it true that they cannot find evidence to support the truth. The believers also know that this religion follows a set pattern which does not change. It is far too sublime to modify its methods in accordance with the desires of those who make whatever suggestions come into their heads.
 
This leads us to the wider implication of this Qur’ānic directive which is not limited to any particular period of time, or concerned with a particular incident or suggestion. Times change, and so do people’s desires and suggestions. The advocates of the divine faith must not allow themselves to be swayed by people’s desires. Indeed, it is the tendency to respond to other people’s suggestions that makes some of the advocates of Islam in our time try to shape the Islamic faith into a theory similar to man-made ones. These, as we know, are shown, with the passage of time, to be full of defects and contradictions. It is the same desire which makes some advocates of Islam try to fashion the Islamic system into a theoretical system or draft laws regulating certain situations of modern jāhiliyyah that have nothing to do with Islam. They do this in order to counter what people say about Islam to the effect that it is merely a faith that has nothing to do with the practical affairs of society. Some of the advocates of Islam try to provide people with such theoretical drafts while the people themselves continue to follow their own ways, unwilling to implement God’s law or abide by it. All such attempts are contemptible and must not be entertained by any advocate of Islam.