Surah An-Nahl: Verse 58 - وإذا بشر أحدهم بالأنثى ظل... - English

When news is brought to one of them, of (the birth of) a female (child), his face darkens, and he is filled with inward grief! (58)

Commentary

In these verses, two peculiar traits of the disbelievers of Arabia have been censured. To begin with, they would take the birth of a baby girl to be so bad that they would go about hiding from people to avoid being disgraced before them. This predicament would then throw them into a fix as to what they should do about it. Should they swallow their pride, em-brace the disgrace of becoming the father of a baby girl and resign to the disaster with patience, or just ditch it alive into the dust and get rid of it? Then, on top of it, they had turned so irrational that the child they did not like to have as their own, that they would be audacious enough to attribute to Allah Almighty by declaring that the angels were His daughters!

(58)