The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 533
the present Surah their attention has been drawn to the fact that this opposition will start at Medina and will result in the total defeat and discomfiture of the "People of the Book" and in their sacred places ultimately falling into the hands of Muslims. This Surah was revealed before its predecessor-An-Naḥl, but as in point of order and arrangement its subject matter should have followed that Surah, so when the time came for the Quran to be compiled in the form of a book, the Holy Prophet, in pursuance of Divine command, placed this Surah after An-Nahl. The subject has already been dealt with at some length (see General Introduction) that the order in which the Quran was originally revealed was different from the order in which we find it today. As the temporary needs of its first addressees were not the same as the permanent needs and requirements of mankind at large and as it was a guide for the whole of humanity for all time, therefore the order in which it was revealed could not be the same as the order in which it was compiled in the form of a book for permanent use. It is indeed an outstanding miracle of the Quran that it was revealed in an order which was best suited for the needs of the period in which it was revealed, and was arranged for permanent use in another order which best suited the needs of mankind in subsequent times. Whereas every chapter of the Quran is quite complete in itself and is independent of other chapters as regards the subject with which it deals, there runs a deep and far- reaching connection among all the different chapters. This is because, when the Quran, as first revealed, its Surahs were revealed in separate parts and the subject matter of each Surah was complete in itself. But when it was compiled in the form of a book, in its present order, in addition to the independent and separate subject matter that every Surah possessed, another chain of interrelated and interdependent subject matter linking all the various Sūrahs came into being and thus the Quranic subjects acquired a new breadth and a new depth. Subject Matter This Surah, as its title shows, deals with the history of the Jewish people, with pointed reference to two outstanding occasions when they openly disobeyed and defied the two great Prophets of God-David and Jesus. As a result of this defiance they suffered destruction of their national life, first at the hands of the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar and then at those of the Roman Emperor Titus. This special reference to the twofold destruction of Jews implied a warning for Muslims that their subsequent wrongdoing and transgression would also result in the double eclipse of their national life. The warning, however, was accompanied with a word of hope and good cheer for them. It was to the effect that since the Holy Prophet was the last Law-giving Prophet, his Dispensation would not, like the Jewish Dispensation, suffer irreparable damage but after initial reverses would emerge triumphant with increased lustre and effulgence. 1741