The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5) — Page 126
CH. 53 AN-NAJM PT. 27 have escaped the notice of the Holy Prophet's critics and carpers. It is stated that one day at Mecca, when the Holy Prophet recited this Surah and as in his recitation he came Historical data, too, lend no support upon these verses, before a mixed whatever to this so-called "lapse. " assembly of Muslims and disbelievers, The story has been rejected as Satan contrived to put in his mouth the completely unreliable by all the ,e learned commentators of the Quran. تلك الغرانيق العلى و ان شفا عتهن لترتجي :words these are exalted goddesses and their Ibn Kathir and Rāḍī among them. The intercession is hoped for (Zurqānī). renowned leaders of Muslim religious The critics call it the "lapse of thought, well versed in the science of Muḥammad" or his "compromise Ḥadīth, such as ‘Ainī, Qādī 'Ayyāḍ with idolatry" and seem to rely upon and Nawawi, have regarded it as pure Wāqidī―that inveterate liar and invention. No trace of this story is fabricator of reports or on Ṭabarī, to be found in (the Six who is generally regarded as a Reliable Collections of Hadith). credulous and indiscriminate narrator Imam Bukhārī, whose collection, the of events, for this entirely baseless Sahiḥ Al-Bukhārī, is regarded by story. These gentlemen have the Muslim scholars as the most reliable audacity to attribute this blasphemous book next to the Quran and who utterance to that great iconoclast (the himself was a contemporary of Holy Prophet) whose whole life was Wāqidī to whom goes the unenviable spent in denouncing and condemning credit of forging and reporting this idolatry and who carried out his noble story, makes no mention of it, nor mission with unremitting vigour and does the great historian, Ibn Isḥāq, fearless devotion, spurning all offers who was born more than 40 years of compromise with idol worship, before him. It may be, as stated by and whom blandishments, bribes, Qasṭalānī and Zurqānī and supported cajolery or intimidation failed to by some other eminent scholars, that move an inch from his set purpose, when the Holy Prophet, during the and to whose unshakable firmness recital of the present Surah before a against idolatry the Almighty Himself mixed assembly of Muslims and has borne testimony in the words: disbelievers, came to these verses, some evil-minded person from among the disbelievers might have loudly interjected the words i. e. it is their intense desire لو تدهن فيدهنون that thou shouldst show some pliancy so that they may also be pliant (68:10). Moreover, the whole context gives, as was the disbelievers' wont to the direct lie to this baseless create confusion by resorting to such assertion. Not only do the verses that low tactics, when the Quran was follow but the whole Surah contains being recited (41:27). an unsparing condemnation of idolatry and an uncompromising insistence on Divine Unity. It is strange that this patent fact should 3022 It is also on record that in the "Days of Ignorance," the Quraish, when making a circuit of the Ka'bah, used to recite the sentence: و