(Revealed before Hijrah)
The Surah was revealed at Mecca, probably at the time at which the preceding Surah was revealed. In that Surah Muslims were told that like the Israelites they will be given wealth, power, prosperity and prestige and that if in the heyday of their glory and greatness they consigned God to oblivion and abandoned themselves to a life of luxury and ease, they will draw upon their heads His wrath as did the Israelites before them. In the present Surah they are promised honour and eminence through the Qur’an whose commandments they should not fail to observe.
The Surah opens with the declaration that all praise belongs to God Who is the Originator of the heavens and the earth. The declaration implies that being the Creator of the universe God has not only provided for the physical needs of man but also for his moral and spiritual needs, and that for this purpose He has created angels through whose instrumentality He controls the physical universe and conveys His Will to men. It further says that since the creation of man God has been sending Prophets and Messengers to convey His Will and that now He has decreed to bestow His mercy upon mankind in the form of the Qur’an. After this announcement of the bestowal of Divine mercy upon man he has been warned not to reject it, as this will entail grave consequences. The Surah proceeds to draw a moral lesson from the quite insignificant beginning of man, that Islam will, from a humble start, grow into a mighty organization. It further compares it to a sea whose water is sweet which slakes the thirst of spiritual wayfarers. Next, it observes that Islam is no novel phenomenon. Alternate periods of spiritual light and darkness continue to come over the world as day follows night and vice versa. After a long period of darkness and cessation of revelation, the sun of Islam has risen to illumine the dark world and God has decreed to bring into being a new creation and a new order of things through its teachings. Through the Qur’an God will give eyes to the blind and ears to the deaf and the dead will also receive a new life, but those who will deliberately shut the avenues of their hearts and refuse to listen to the Divine Call will incur spiritual death. The Surah then invites attention to the study of the physical phenomenon which bears a striking resemblance to a similar phenomenon in the spiritual realm. When rain falls on dry and parched land, it begins to bloom, blossom and vibrate with a new life, and crops, flowers and fruits of varying hues, tastes and forms, are brought forth. The water that comes down in the form of rain is the same but the crops and fruits are different. Similarly, the same water of Divine revelation produces different results among men of different natures and moral aptitudes. While on the one hand it produces highly righteous and God-fearing men, on the other, a community of vicious and wicked men also comes into being who carry on relentless fight against the cause of truth. This fight between the devotees of truth and the forces of darkness invariably ends in one inevitable result—the triumph of truth over falsehood. Towards its close the Surah brings home to idolaters the untenability of their position and warns them that if, in spite of the falsity and futility of their beliefs and practices, they continued to stick to them, Divine punishment will overtake them, though God is very slow in punishing and continues to grant respite to sinners till by persisting in their perverse attitude they shut upon themselves the doors of His mercy.