(Revealed before Hijrah)
This Surah was also revealed at Mecca. The preceding Surah had ended with the statement that God alone knows when a particular people are to rise or fall and that He alone provides for the physical needs of man and for his moral and spiritual requirements. The present Surah opens with the declaration that God being the Lord of all the worlds, in His hands lie all those means upon which the progress and prosperity of nations and individuals depend and He alone controls those causes that lead to their decline and downfall.
The main theme of the Surah is the ultimate triumph of Islam. It opens with a strong repudiation of the disbelievers’ charge that the Qur’an is a forgery and the Holy Prophet an impostor. The Prophet, it says, is not an impostor because impostors never succeed in their missions, but the cause of the Holy Prophet is daily advancing by leaps and bounds; neither is the Qur’an a forgery because it has been revealed in the fullness of time and in accordance with the demands of truth and justice and fulfils all the moral and spiritual needs and requirements of man and because also the whole universe seems to be working in support and furtherance of its Message. The Surah then makes a little digression and makes a prophecy that after its initial phenomenal progress Islam will receive a temporary set-back; a comparative eclipse of a thousand years which will be followed by a second renaissance, as a result of which it will regain its pristine glory and will march on its course of uniform success. Next, the Surah gives a beautiful illustration how from a very insignificant beginning Islam will grow in strength, expand and spread and will become a mighty force. The illustration is taken from the insignificant birth of man from mere clay. Towards its close the Surah sums up its central theme and adds that the advent of the Holy Prophet is not anything novel. Just as in the physical world when the earth becomes parched and scorched God sends down rain and it begins to vibrate with a new life, in the same way in the spiritual realm, when mankind gropes and flounders in spiritual darkness, a Divine Messenger is raised and the spiritually dead receive a new life through him.