Essence of the Holy Qur’an — Page 107
107 Chapter 55 Ar-Ra h m a n F B P (Revealed before Hijrah) Date of Revelation and Context Being the 6th of the special group of the S u rahs , which begin with Q a f and end with Al-W a qi‘ah, and which were revealed, more or less at the same time at Mecca, in the early years of the Call, this S u rah has close resemblance with other members of the group in the subject-matter, and deals like them with the basic principles of Islam—Divine attributes, particularly with God’s Unity, with Resurrection and Revelation. In S u rah Al-Qamar instances were given of the peoples of some Prophets of antiquity with whom the Arabs were quite familiar and who were punished for rejecting the Divine Message, and then the pagan Quraish were asked, would they not benefit from the sad fate of those peoples and accept the Qur’ a nic Message which was so easy to understand and to follow? The present S u rah also gives the reasons why the Qur’ a n was revealed. Subject-Matter The S u rah opens with the Divine attribute— Ar-Ra h m a n , signifying that after having created the universe, God created man, the apex and crown of all creation, and that his creation was the result of God’s Ra h m a niyyah (Beneficence). After man’s creation God revealed Himself to him through His Prophets and Messengers, because he could not attain the sublime object of his creation and fulfil his high destiny without being guided to his great goal by Divine revelation. Prophethood found its most complete and perfect manifestation in the person of the Holy Prophet Muhammad to whom God gave the Qur’ a n, the last and final code of Divine Laws for the guidance of the whole of humanity for all time. But God’s gifts to man did not end with his creation. He made the whole universe subservient to him. The heavens with all the celestial bodies, and the earth with all its treasures, the deep seas and high mountains, were all created for his sake. Over and above all that God endowed him with great intellectual and discretionary powers so that by sifting the right from the wrong he might follow Divine guidance and thus attain the object of his creation. But man seems to be so constituted that, instead of benefiting from the endless vistas of spiritual progress and development opened up to him by the Gracious, Beneficent and Merciful Providence, in his conceit and arrogance he ignores and defies Divine Laws and consequently brings down upon himself God’s displeasure. The disobedience and defiance of Divine Laws, the S u rah hints, will assume a most heinous form in some time to come (which seems to be the present time) and man will then be visited with such destructive and annihilating Divine punishment as he had not known before. But whereas