The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 2) — Page 515
however, rejects this meaning of the word because it mentions only two groups of people, viz. the dwellers of Paradise and the inmates of Hell. There is no mention of any third group or class of people. The Quran thus lends no support to the interpretation of the word as the place for a people of a middling spiritual status, nor can any internal evidence of the verses in which this word occurs be adduced in support of this interpretation. The Quran depicts the people of (A'raf) as at one time addressing the dwellers of Paradise and at another time talking to the inmates of Hell, and their spiritual knowledge has been declared to be so great that they can recognize the dwellers of Paradise by their special marks and also the inmates of Hell by the latter's particular signs. They rebuke and upbraid the inmates of Hell and pray for the inmates of Paradise (7:47, 49, 50). Can a person who himself is hanging, as it were, in a state of uncertainty between Paradise and Hell, be so presumptuous as to assume an air of superiority as the people of A'raf have been shown to do. The fact is that the people of (A'raf) are the Prophets of God, who will occupy a very high spiritual station on the Day of Judgement and will pray for the dwellers of Paradise and rebuke and reprimand the inmates of Hell. And because the present Surah is the first among the Quranic Surahs in which the life-stories of the Prophets have been dealt with at some length, it has been given the name in consideration of the very high spiritual station of God's Messengers. Moreover, the very construction of the word supports this inference. is the plural of (urf) which means a high and elevated place (Lane). Similarly (urf) means that spiritual realization which a man has through his unsullied nature, acquiring it by the help of God-given intellect and the testimony of his inner self. So means those teachings of which the truth is established by rational arguments and the testimony of human nature; and, as the teachings of Prophets possess all these qualities, they (the Prophets) alone deserve this spiritually high position, and thus be rightly called i. e. the people of (elevated places). Their high spiritual station signifies that, apart from the special favours of God, they take their stand on the solid rock of the testimony of human nature and intellect. Such a lofty position is indeed beyond the attainment of ordinary men. In short, the chapter A'rāf is so called because in it illustrations have been given from the lives of those eminent men of very high spiritual status who in the past have taught mankind eternal truths in accordance with the demands of human nature and human intellect, whom the men of this world resisted and sought to bring low, but whom the jealous God did not allow to be debased but, on the contrary, raised to a very exalted position. Subject Matter Spiritually, this Surah serves as a kind of t (intervening link) 955