(Revealed before Hijrah)
Date of Revelation and Context
Towards the close of the preceding Surah the disbelievers’ charge that the Holy Prophet was a poet and that satans descended upon him was most effectively refuted and it was stated that satans descended only upon sinful liars and forgers who mixed falsehood with truth, and that hotchpotch of much falsehood mixed with a little truth could never produce any good results. The Surah further said that the poets had no great aim or fixed programme in life, and wandered, as it were, distractedly in every valley and did not practise what they preached. To continue and elaborate the subject the present Surah opens with a firm declaration that the Qur’an is God’s own revealed Word. It explains fully and completely all matters that concern man’s spiritual life and supports its principles and ideals with sound and cogent arguments. According to Ibn ‘Abbas and Ibn Zubair the Surah, was revealed at Mecca. Other Muslim scholars also support this view.
Subject-Matter
Whereas the preceding Surah opened with the abbreviated letters Ta Sin Mim, this Surah begins with the letters Ta Sin, the letter Mim having been omitted. This shows that the subject-matter of this Surah constitutes a continuation of the subject-matter of the preceding Surah though in a little different form. It begins with a brief reference to a vision in which Moses saw a manifestation of Divine Majesty and proceeds to give a somewhat detailed account of David and Solomon in whose reigns the Israelite conquests, power and material glory had attained their zenith. After this, the Surah deals at some length with the two most fundamental and basic religious beliefs—the existence of God and life after death. To support and substantiate the first belief the Surah adduces arguments from nature, man’s inner self and from his collective life. After alluding to the fact that God’s great powers are manifested in the marvellous working of the laws of nature, the Surah advances the acceptance of prayer by God as an invincible argument in support of His existence. Another unanswerable argument given by the Surah is that God reveals Himself to His Messengers and righteous servants and vouchsafes to them the knowledge of the unknown, instances of which are to be witnessed in every age. Next, the Surah deals with Life after death. After briefly pointing to other arguments it advances as one unassailable proof in support of Life after death the great moral and spiritual revolution which the Holy Prophet brought about among his people, and then proceeds to expatiate upon it. The argument begins and develops in this way. The Arabs had completely despaired of their future. They heedlessly wallowed in the quagmire of immoral ways and practices and rejected the Holy Prophet’s Message and refused to believe that they will have to render an account of their deeds in an afterlife. Morally and spiritually they were virtually a dead people. But they received a new life through the Qur’an. The water of Divine revelation descended upon the bleak and barren soil of Arabia and it bloomed and blossomed and pulsated with a new vigorous life, and by acting upon its teachings the Arabs, erstwhile the scum and dregs of humanity, became its leaders and teachers. This marvellous revolution constituted a proof positive of the fact that God, Who could raise a spiritually dead people to a new life, had the power to raise also the physically dead to life again. The Surah closes on the note that God has chosen Mecca to be the Centre for His last Message and that from this town shall emanate a Divine Light which will illumine the whole world.