021- AL-ANBIYA
THE PROPHETS
Al-Anbiyāʾ
Al-Anbiyāʾ, a Makkan sūrah (Q), receives its name from the many stories of prophets told in it. The first section recounts the various accusations of falsehood and expressions of incredulity directed at the Prophet by the Quraysh (vv. 1–10) and offers a reminder that peoples before him had been destroyed and could do nothing to stave off their punishment (vv. 11–15). The impossibility of God taking a consort or having a child and the absurdity of more than one divinity in the universe are explained (vv. 16–29), followed by a section asking human beings to contemplate the cosmos (vv. 30–33). Human beings are reminded that all souls will taste death and will then be judged (vv. 34–47). After a brief mention of Moses and Aaron (vv. 48–50), a longer account of Abraham is given that includes his ruse of blaming the largest of his people’s idols for destroying the smaller ones to show them how empty their worship was and the attempt by his people to burn him alive in retaliation (vv. 51–73).
After mentioning Lot (vv. 74–75) and Noah (vv. 76–77), the sūrah narrates a story of David and Solomon in which David’s judgment is overturned by that of his son (vv. 78–82). This is followed by accounts of Job (vv. 83–84); Ishmael, Idrīs, and Dhu’l-Kifl (vv. 85–86); Jonah (vv. 87–88); and Zachariah, John, and Mary (vv. 89–91). The last part of al-Anbiyāʾ addresses the end of the world and the coming of the Hereafter. A reminder of the tendency of religious communities to fragment when their members disagree among themselves is followed by an account of the coming of Gog and Magog, the ultimate end of idolaters and their idols in Hell, and the destruction of the cosmos and its renewal for the righteous (vv. 92–104). The sūrah ends with a statement that the Prophet is a mercy to all creation, and a reminder both that he has given fair warning of what is to come and that he does not know when the final doom will come to pass (vv. 105–12).
(source: “The Study Quran” a new translation and commentary by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
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