(Revealed before Hijrah)
According to overwhelming scholarly opinion the Surah was revealed in the 5th year of the Call, shortly after the first Emigration to Abyssinia which took place in the month of Rajab of that year. In the preceding Surah the truth of the Qur’anic revelation and that of the Divine claim of the Holy Prophet was sought to be established by a fleeting reference to biblical prophecies and natural phenomena. In this Surah the same subject has been dealt with in a very exquisite and forceful style. It is stated that the Holy Prophet is a Divine Messenger par excellence and that he has been commissioned by God as humanity’s last and infallible guide and preceptor.
The Surah opens with citing the falling of An-Najm as an evidence in support of the Divine claim of the Holy Prophet. The Prophet, having been initiated into Divine mysteries, and having drunk deep at the fountain of Divine grace and knowledge and of Divine realisation, attained to the highest peak of spiritual eminence to which a human being can conceivably rise. Then he became filled to the fullest extent with the milk of human kindness, love and sympathy, and having been thus spiritually equipped, was appointed to preach Divine Unity to a world given to the worship of gods, made of wood and stone. The Surah then gives very strong, solid and sound arguments from human reason and history, and from the insignificant beginnings of man, in support of the doctrine of the Oneness of God and condemns idolatry in forceful terms. This foolish practice, it declares, is born of lack of true knowledge and rests on baseless conjecture which 'avails naught against truth.' Next, it says that idolaters should have learnt from the life-stories of Abraham, Moses and other Prophets that idolatrous beliefs and practices have always landed the idolaters into moral and spiritual ruin. It further says that every man will have to bear his own cross and to render account of his actions to God Who is the Final Goal of all. The Surah closes on a note of warning to disbelievers that if they persisted in rejecting the Divine Message, they would meet with a sad fate as did the people of Noah and ‘Ad and Thamud tribes, and that it was inevitable that falsehood will perish and nothing could avert it.