Essence of the Holy Qur’an — Page 62
62 Chapter28 Al-Qa s a s 9 : (Revealed before Hijrah) Date of Revelation and Context By common agreement the S u rah was revealed at Mecca. According to ‘Umar bin Muhammad it was revealed while the Holy Prophet, during the Hijrah , was on his way to Medina. The verse, He Who has made the teaching of the Qur’ a n binding on thee will most surely bring thee back to thy ordained place of return (v. 86), clearly shows that the Holy Prophet was yet in Mecca when he was told that at first he would have to leave Mecca as a fugitive and then would come back to it as a conqueror. The preceding S u rah had ended with the verse, So whoever follows guidance, follows it only for the good of his own soul; and as to him who goes astray, say, I am only a Warner, which meant that no force would be allowed to be used in the propagation of the teachings of the Qur’ a n. It was to establish truth of this Qur’ a nic claim that the present S u rah was revealed. Subject-Matter The present is the third and last of the Chapters which belong to the Ta S i n M i m group. These three Chapters open with the same abbreviated letters and, therefore, possess a striking similarity in the subject-matter. They all begin with the important subject of the revelation of the Qur’ a n and end with the same subject. In Chapter 26th much space is devoted to the presentation by Moses of his Message to Pharaoh. In Chapter 27th pride of place is given to the manifestation that Moses saw of the Divine Glory and Majesty and to the spiritual experience which he had in the blessed Valley of T uw a. In the present S u rah , however, the different phases of Moses’s life have been treated in greater detail than perhaps in any other S u rah —his being taken out of the sea in a miraculous manner, his infancy and childhood, his youth, his Hijrah and his Call—the implication being that the Holy Prophet, who was the like of Moses, would also have to go through similar experiences, though under different conditions and in different circumstances. The S u rah opens with an account of the pitiable condition of the Israelites under Pharaoh—how by his policy of ruthless exploitation and suppression he sought to kill in them all manly qualities and how when their humiliation had reached its nadir, God raised Moses and through him brought about their emancipation by drowning Pharaoh and his mighty hosts in the sea before their very eyes. After the account of Moses’s life-story, the S u rah refers to the prophecies that are found in the Bible about the Holy Prophet and proceeds to tell the Quraish that if they accepted him, they would enjoy all those spiritual and material blessings