The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 113
PT. 12 HŪD CH. 11 أَمْ يَقُولُونَ افْتَرَاهُ قُلْ فَأْتُوا بِعَشْرِ Do they say, “He has forged. 14 it?' Say, ‘Then bring ten سُوَرٍ مِثْلِهِ مُفْتَرَيْتٍ وَ ادْعُوا مَن Chapters like it, forged, and call اسْتَطَعْتُمْ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ on whom you can beside Allah, if you are truthful. ’1395 صدِقِينَ "2:24; 10:39; 17:89; 52:34-35. to deliver the Message, whatever it might be? Again, did he not know that God had clearly spoken to him saying He Himself was "Guardian over all things"? So the words, thou art now perhaps going to abandon part of that which has been revealed to thee, contain only a vain hope on the part of the disbelievers that the Prophet might give up part of his revelation; they do not at all find any intention or readiness on his part to do so. Do not these critics know that when at Mecca a deputation of the Quraish waited on the Holy Prophet and asked him to give up preaching against their idols and threatened to crush him and his tribe in case he refused to do so, the prompt answer he gave was that even if they put the sun on his right and the moon on his left he would not swerve a hair's breadth from the teachings which God had given him? Could he, whom the threats or cajolery of the Quraish at a time when he was extremely weak could not induce to give up his preaching, have become unnerved by these silly objections as to become ready to conceal a part of the Divine Word? the lie to such an inference, for it contains a challenge to the world to produce ten Surahs like any ten Surahs of the Quran. If there had been any doubt in the Prophet's mind concerning any portion of the Quran, could that very portion possibly have been followed by a challenge like this? This challenge shows that he believed in the truth of every word of the Quran with a conviction firm as a rock. 1395. Commentary: a This verse corroborates the interpretation put on the previous one. The latter gave two answers to the disbelievers' vain hope that the Holy Prophet might abandon portion of the Quran for fear of their objections, viz. : (1) that the Holy Prophet was only a Warner; he did not lay claim to Godhead that he might be required to have with him treasures and angels; (2) that he was only the bearer of a Message from God and his duty was confined to delivering that Message to the people. Now disbelievers could have replied to these arguments by saying that his claim to have come from God was but an empty assertion and that he The verse that follows also gives was an impostor, as he was not SO 1321