(Revealed before Hijrah)
This Surah, like the preceding one, belongs to the early Meccan period. It is also called Al-Insan. Towards the end of the preceding Surah it was stated that man’s creation from an insignificant fluid and his development into a full-fledged human being, endowed with great natural powers, leads to the inescapable inference that his life has a Divine purpose to serve and that the Great God Who created him from a sperm-drop possesses the power to give him a new life after he is dead. The present Surah constitutes an extension of the same theme, viz. that man has been gifted with wonderful natural capabilities to rise to great spiritual heights. Its opening verses remind him of his insignificant beginning and of his having been endowed with reason and understanding, in order that, following the path shown to him by God’s Prophets, he may make interminable spiritual progress and thus achieve the object for which he has been created. But when Divine Teachers appear to guide men to God, some of them reject God’s Message and incur His displeasure, while others, more fortunate, respond to the Divine Call and earn Heavenly blessings. The Surah, then, gives a beautiful description of the Divine favours which are bestowed upon the righteous believers in this world and in the Hereafter, referring briefly also to the kind of punishment which the disbelievers receive here and will receive in the Hereafter for their wilful rejection of the Divine Message. It fittingly closes with the observation that God has revealed the Qur’an, to guide man to the path which leads to the Lord and Creator of all creation, but he can derive no benefit from it unless he conforms his will to the Will of God.