Surah Saba (34): Read Online and Download - English Translation

Commentary

عَالِمِ الْغَيْبِ (the knower of the unseen). This is an attribute of the Rabb (Lord) in whose name an oath has been taken in verse 3. At this place, out of the many attributes of Allah Ta’ ala, the attribute of all-encompassing knowledge and the knowledge of the unseen has, perhaps, been mentioned particularly because the text is dealing with the matter of the deniers of the day of Resurrection. The major reason why the disbelievers rejected the inevitability of Qiyamah, the day of doom, was their inability to comprehend how the whole thing would work out. When all human beings die, and become dust, and the particles of this dust get scattered all over the world, they wondered, how would it be possible to collect all these particles, separate the particles belonging to each human being from the particles of all others, and then go on to put the relevant particles back into the frame of everyone's existence? And they took it as impossible because they had very conveniently taken the knowledge and power of Allah Ta’ ala on the analogy of their own knowledge and power! Allah Ta’ ala has told them that His knowledge encompasses the entire universe in a manner that He knows everything in the heavens and the earth to the extent that He also knows where and in what state it is. Not a single particle of what has been created remains outside His knowledge - and this comprehensive and all-encompassing knowledge is hallmark of Allah Ta’ ala. No created entity, whether an angel or prophet, can ever have such an all-encompassing knowledge that no particle of this universe remains outside it. Then, for a Being that has such an all-encompassing knowledge, why would it be difficult to reclaim the scattered particles of a human being from all over the universe, each separate from the other, and reconstitute their bodies from these once again?

لِّيَجْزِيَ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا

(So that He rewards those who believed - 4)

This sentence is connected with the earlier one: لَتَأْتِيَنَّكُمْ that is, al-Qiyamah or the Doomsday is bound to come and its purpose will be to reward believers and to provide for them the best sustenance from Jannah (Paradise).

And in contrast to them stand: الَّذِينَ سَعَوْا فِي آيَاتِنَا (5) i.e. those who made efforts to find faults with Our verses and tried to stop people from believing in them.

The word: مُعَاجِزِينَ which appears immediately after the verse cited above means that this effort by them was as if they would render Us helpless in seizing them and would thus go scot-free from having to be present on the last day of Qiyamah.

The sentence that follows immediately after: أُولَـٰئِكَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ مِّن رِّ‌جْزٍ أَلِيم ; means that these people shall receive punishment, a severe punishment that will be painful.

Verse 6: وَيَرَ‌ى الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْعِلْمَ (34:6) talks about believers in contrast with those who denied the coming of the Qiyamah. The former had put their faith in it and became the beneficiaries of the knowledge given by Allah Ta’ ala to the Holy Prophet ﷺ by revelation.

Reported in verse 7: وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُ‌وا هَلْ نَدُلُّكُمْ عَلَىٰ رَ‌جُلٍ يُنَبِّئُكُمْ إِذَا مُزِّقْتُمْ كُلَّ مُمَزَّقٍ إِنَّكُمْ لَفِي خَلْقٍ جَدِيدٍ (Shall we point out to you a man...). There is a statement of disbelievers who denied the coming of Qiyamah. In an exercise of mockery, they used to say, 'come, let us identify an unusual person for your benefit, a person who loves to tell you how, when you die and become dust, totally powdered into countless particles, even after all that, you will be brought into a new creation - and that you, all reshaped into the form you once were, will be made to stand up alive!'

It is obvious that the person alluded to here is no other but the Holy Prophet ﷺ who used to tell people that Qiyamah will come when the dead will become alive once again, and exhorted people to put their faith in it. All these people who were deriding him knew him perfectly well, but in the present context, they have mentioned him in a manner as if they knew nothing else about him - nothing else but that he tells people about the dead rising alive on the day of Qiyamah. They had purposely elected to refer to him in that manner just to mock and deride him.

The word: مُزِّقْتُمْ (when you are totally torn into pieces) is a derivation from: مزقِ (mazq) which means splitting apart and rendering to pieces, and: كُلَّ مُمَزَّقٍ (kulla mumazzaq: (totally torn) means the disintegration of the human body in a manner that all its particles get dispersed separately. Onwards from here, they take up another mode to comment on his statement relating to the Qiyamah.