The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 514
CH. 16 AN-NAHL Moreover, if the reply given in the Quran was so manifestly irrelevant as Christian critics pretend to find it, why did not the Meccans of the Prophet's times who first made this objection, failed to detect this manifest irrelevancy and why did they not express their dissatisfaction with the answer? But not the slightest reference is to be found in any tradition to this so-called irrelevancy of this answer of the Quran. If Meccans had signified their dissatisfaction with this answer and had pointed out its absurdity and irrelevancy, the traditions would have mentioned it as they have mentioned so many other incidents calculated to impugn the Quran and render its position apparently indefensible. The fact is that these critics themselves have not understood the objection. The traditions quoted above bring to light two objections of the Meccans. One was that Christian and Jewish slaves who had been converted to Islam secretly helped the Holy Prophet in composing the Quran. They furnished him with the necessary material which subsequently rendered into Arabic. The other was that he listened to certain non-Muslim slaves while they recited the Gospels and incorporated into the Quran what he heard from them. Thus Meccans made was two objections. One of these the Quran has answered in this verse, while the other has been answered in vv. 25:5, 6, 7. This second objection along with its answer runs thus: And the disbelievers say, It is nothing but a lie which he has forged and at which PT. 14 other people have assisted him. But they have been guilty of a great injustice and have uttered an untruth. And they say: These are legends of the ancients; he has got them written down and they are dictated to him morning and evening, Nay, He Who knows the secrets in the heavens and the earth has revealed it. He truly is Most Forgiving and Merciful. The difference between these verses and the verse under comment is quite manifest. In the verse under comment disbelievers refer to a single man as having taught the Holy Prophet, while in Surah 25, it is not one man but many who are alleged, by disbelievers, to have assisted him in writing the Quran. To both these allegations different answers suiting the nature of the allegations have been given. Thus it is clear that Meccans had made two distinct and separate objections and both these have been answered in the Quran at different places, and traditions support this conclusion. It was with regard to several of the slave converts to Islam that it was alleged that they furnished material to the Prophet. To this allegation of the Meccans, chapter 25 refers in the words, at which other people have assisted him. From the same chapter it also appears that those who were alleged to have assisted the Prophet were Muslims, for the passage in question says: They are dictated to him morning and evening. Now it is an historical fact that while at Mecca Muslims assembled in the morning and evening in the house of Arqam for prayers and sat round the Holy 1722