Surah Fussilat

In the discourse that Allah sent down in response to what Utbah said, no attention whatever was paid to the proposals that were made to the Prophet ﷺ. What he had said was, in fact, an attack on the Prophet’s ﷺintention and intellect. His assumption was that as there was no possibility of his being a Prophet ﷺand the Qur’an being Allah’s Revelation, inevitably the motive of his invitation must either be the desire to obtain wealth and political power, or, God forbid, he had lost his reason. In the first case, he wanted to make a bargain with the Prophet ;ﷺin the second, he was insulting him when he said that the Quraysh chiefs would have him cured of his madness at their own expense. Obviously, when the opponents come down to such absurd things, no gentleman would like to answer them, but would ignore them and say what he himself had to say.

Therefore, ignoring what Utbah said, this Surah makes antagonism its subject of discussion, which the unbelieving Quraysh were showing stubbornly and wickedly in order to defeat the message of the Qur’an. They would say to the Prophet ﷺ, “You may try however hard you try: we would not listen to you. We have put coverings on our hearts and we have closed our ears. There is a wall between you and us, which would never let us meet together.”

They had given a clear notice to the Prophet ﷺto the effect, “You may continue your mission of inviting the people, but we would go on opposing you as hard as we can to frustrate your mission.”

For this object they had devised the following plan. Whenever the Prophet ﷺor a follower of his would try to recite the Qur’an before the people, they would at once raise such a hue and cry that no one could hear anything. They were desperately trying to misconstrue the verses of the Qur’an and spread every kind of misunderstanding among the people. They misconstrued everything and found fault even with the straightforward things. They would isolate words and sentences from their right context, from here and there, and would add their own words in order to put new meanings on them so as to mislead the people about the Qur’an and the Messenger who presented it.

They would raise strange objections, a specimen of which has been presented in this Surah. They said, “If an Arab presents a discourse in Arabic, what could be the miracle in it? Arabic is his mother tongue. Anyone could compose anything that he pleased in his mother tongue and then make the claim that he had received it from Allah. It would be a miracle if the person would suddenly arise and make an eloquent speech in a foreign tongue which he did not know. Then only could one say that the discourse was not of his own composition but a revelation from Allah.” Here is a resume of what has been said in answer to this deaf and blind opposition:

1. The Qur’an is most certainly the word of Allah, which He has sent down in Arabic. The ignorant people do not find any light of knowledge in the truths that have been presented in it plainly and clearly, but the people of understanding are seeing this light as well as benefiting by it. It is surely Allah’s mercy that He has sent down this Word for the guidance of man. If a person regarded it as an affliction, it would be his own misfortune. Good news is for those who benefit by it and warning for those who turn away from it.
2. If you have put coverings on your hearts and have made yourselves deaf, it is not the Prophet’s ﷺjob to make one hear who does not want to hear, and the one who does not want to understand, understand forcibly. He is a man like you; he can make only those to hear and understand, who are inclined to hear and understand.
3. Whether you close your eyes and ears and put coverings on your hearts, the fact, however, is that your Allah is only one God, and you are not the servant of anyone else. Your stubbornness cannot change this reality in any way. If you accept this truth and correct your behaviour accordingly you will do good only to yourselves, and if you reject it, you will only be preparing your own doom.
4. Do you have any understanding as to whom you disbelieve and with whom you associate others in divinity? It is with regard to that Allah Who has created this limitless universe, Who is the Creator of the earth and heavens, from Whose blessings you are benefiting on the earth, and on Whose provisions you are being fed and sustained. You set up His mean creatures as His associates and then you are made to understand the truth you turn away in stubbornness.
5. If you still do not believe, then be aware that a sudden torment is about to visit you, the like of which had visited the ‘Aad and the Thamud, and this torment also will not be the final punishment of your crimes, but there is in addition the accountability and the fire of Hell in the Hereafter.
6. Wretched is the man who gets as company such satans from among men and Jinn, who make his follies seem fair to him, who neither let him think aright himself nor let him hear right from others. Yet on the Day of Reckoning when their doom overtakes them, each one of them will say that if he happened to get hold of those who had misled and deceived him in the world, he would trample them under his foot.
7. This Qur’an is an unchangeable Book. You cannot defeat it by your plotting and falsehoods. Whether falsehood comes from the front or makes a secret and indirect attack from behind, it cannot succeed in refuting it.
8. Today, when this Qur’an is being presented in your own language so that you may understand it, you say that it should have been sent down in some foreign tongue. But had We sent it in a foreign tongue for your guidance, you would yourselves have called it a joke, as if to say, “What a strange thing! The Arabs are being given guidance in a non-Arabic language, which nobody understands.” This means that you, in fact, have no desire to obtain guidance. You are only inventing ever new excuses for not affirming the faith.
9. Have you ever considered that if it became established that the Qur’an was really from Allah, then what fate you would meet by denying it and opposing it so vehemently as you do?
10. Today, you do not believe, but soon you will see with your own eyes, that the message of this Qur’an had pervaded the whole world and you have yourselves been overwhelmed by it. Then you will come to know that what you were being told was the very truth.

Besides giving these answers to the opponents, attention has been paid to the problems which the Believers and the Prophet ﷺhimself were facing in that situation of active resistance. Not to speak of preaching the message to others, the Muslims were even finding it difficult to follow the way of the Faith. Anyone about whom it became known that he had become a Muslim, life would become an agony. As against the dreadful combination of the enemy and its all-pervading power, they were feeling utterly helpless and powerless. In this state, in the first place, they were consoled and encouraged, as if to say: “You are not, in fact, helpless and powerless, for any person who believes in Allah as his Lord and adheres to this belief and way of life resolutely, Allah’s angels descend on him and help and support him at every stage, from the life of this world till the Hereafter.” Then they were encouraged with the consolation, “The best man is he who does good, invites others to Allah and proclaims firmly that he is a Muslim.”

The question the Prophet ﷺhad at that time was as to how he should carve out a way of preaching his message when he had to face such heavy odds on every side. The solution he was given to this question was, “Although apparently the obstacles seem to be impossible, the weapon of good morals and character can smash and melt them away. Use this weapon patiently, and whenever Satan provokes you and incites you to use some other device, seek refuge in Allah.”