(Revealed before Hijrah)
A large majority of Muslim scholarly opinion is inclined to place the revelation of the Surah in the middle or the late middle Meccan period. The Surah seems to derive its title from v. 42 where the falsity and futility of polytheistic beliefs are illustrated by a beautiful simile that these beliefs, being frail and brittle like a spider’s web, cannot stand intelligent criticism. The preceding Surah had ended on the note that the Holy Prophet will come back as a victor and conqueror to his native town, Mecca, from where he had been driven out as a friendless fugitive, a price being placed on his head. The present Surah opens with a warning to believers that long and hard work; and hardships and privations patiently borne, are the sine qua non of a successful life.
The Surah continues to develop the theme that great favours and blessings which are to be bestowed upon believers in this and the next life will not be conferred upon them unless their belief is put to a severe test. They will have to pass through the crucible of fire and blood to deserve them. It is only by true and sincere repentance and by turning to God with a humble and contrite heart and by bringing about real and abiding reformation in one’s life that one can earn God’s forgiveness and become entitled to Divine boons and bounties. Reverting to the subject of the persecution of believers the Surah proceeds to say that they should allow no amount of hardships and privations to stand in the way of their serving the cause of Truth, and are forcefully exhorted to place their loyalty to God above the loyalty to their parents when the two loyalties clash and conflict. Then brief references are made to the life-stories of the Prophets Noah, Abraham, Lot and some other Divine Messengers, to show that persecution can never arrest or retard the progress of the true Faith and that compulsion in matters of religion never pays, and a people cannot be compelled permanently to continue to subscribe to views forcibly imposed upon them. The Surah further says that polytheistic beliefs, being as frail as a spider’s web, cannot stand intelligent and searching criticism. The disbelievers, therefore, have no reason or justification to continue to hold idolatrous beliefs when a book like the Qur’an which fully meets all the moral needs and requirements of man and is eminently fitted to raise him to the highest moral summits has been revealed. The Surah further disposes of an oft-quoted objection of disbelievers that the Qur’an has been composed by the Holy Prophet; on the contrary, it is presented as the greatest Divine miracle in answer to the disbelievers’ demand for Signs and miracles. Towards its close believers are consoled and comforted with the assurance that if they remained steadfast under the persecution to which they are being subjected a great and bright future lies before them. The Surah ends on the note that believers will have to take up the sword in defence of Islam and to conduct vigorous Jihad against the forces of evil. But the real Jihad, it says, does not consist in killing and being killed, but in striving hard to win the pleasure of God and in preaching the Message of the Qur’an.