The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5) — Page 558

Introduction CHAPTER 108 AL-KAUTHAR (Revealed before Hijrah) Being one of the earliest revelations, this Surah constitutes a strong proof of the Quran being the revealed Word of God, and of the serial arrangement of the Surahs having been adopted under Divine direction, for, while the Surah was revealed very early at Mecca, sometime in the first four years of the Call, it has been placed almost at the end of the Holy Book. The order in which the Quran exists today is different from the order in which it was revealed. It is indeed a miracle of the Quran that the order in which the various Surahs were revealed was best suited to the needs of the period during which they were revealed, but they were arranged as its component parts in the order which was best suited for the needs of all human beings for all time to come. The promise contained in the Sūrah was made at a time when the Holy Prophet was hardly known outside Mecca and his claim that he was the last Deliverer of humanity was looked upon by his compatriots as unworthy of serious consideration. The promise is in emphatic and certain terms. The words, "We have given thee abundance of good," show that the promised good has already been given to the Prophet. It was in the fitness of things that in order to prove the Divine origin of the Surah it should have been revealed at a time when, humanly speaking, there was hardly any possibility of fulfilment of the promise and that it should have been placed at the end of the Quran when the promise had already been fulfilled. The connection of the Surah with its predecessor lies in the fact that whereas in the preceding Surah four prominent moral sins of the hypocrites and of Muslims of weak faith were mentioned, in the Surah under comment the corresponding four virtues of the righteous believers have been referred to, viz. generosity, regularity in saying daily Prayers, devotion to God, and willingness to make sacrifices for national causes. 3454