حَتّىٰ إِذا بَلَغَ مَطلِعَ الشَّمسِ وَجَدَها تَطلُعُ عَلىٰ قَومٍ لَم نَجعَل لَهُم مِن دونِها سِترًا
When he reached the place where the sun rises, he found it rising on a people for whom We had not provided any shield against it.
EXEGESIS
Sitr (shield) is that which acts as a covering,
shielding that which is underneath it or behind it.
This can happen by any means such as a veil, a wall, a roof, trees, clothing, and suchlike.
EXPOSITION
When he reached the place where the sun rises: Dhū al-Qarnayn reached the furthest point that he would travel east. For the symbolism related to this expression see the commentary on verse 86.
He found it rising: as we discussed in verse 86, this expression means that this is how it appeared to him when he was viewing the sunrise.
On a people for whom We had not provided any shield against it: in that region Dhū al-Qarnayn came across some people who had no housing to shelter them from the sun, nor were there any trees or caves.
Others have said that they lived in a place where the ground did not allow for the construction of any dwellings.
Other yet, that they did not have clothing.
Most likely all of the above is meant, since even if one of those was available, they would have had something to cover them from the sun, whereas the verse suggests they had absolutely nothing to shield themselves against it.
Such people may have once been termed primitive, savage, or uncivilised, although such words are loaded with negative and derogatory meanings today. More appropriately, we might speak of them as being isolated and not technologically advanced.
Classical commentators have mentioned various possibilities as to who these people were:
- According to some, this tribe was the Zanjī people,
a term used for Africans, more specifically those in the south-eastern regions of the continent. Rāzī notes that the Zanj were known for not wearing any or much clothing. - From Mujāhid ibn Jabr, that they were the dark-skinned people (sawdān), since they are mostly found in the east.
- From Qatādah, that it is the Indians and the people living further than them.
- From Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, that they were of ‘reddish skin and short stature, living in caves. Most of their subsistence was from fishing’.
More recent theories have suggested they were the Massagetae. The description of Herodotus on the Massagetae may be of interest: ‘Cyrus, he had a desire to bring the Massagetai into subjection to himself. This nation is reputed to be both great and warlike, and to dwell towards the East and the sunrising … and among them they say that men dwell who feed on fish eaten raw, and who are wont to use as clothing the skins of seals.’
According to Herodotus, Cyrus died in the battle against the Massagetae, but even Herodotus himself admits this is simply one of many accounts of his death.
Another account says he died in Persia.
Like the opinion attributed to Qatādah, another theory says it might be somewhere on the borders of India.
Cyrus led campaigns into that region as well. Herodotus has a similarly interesting description of some Indians: ‘The Indians dwell furthest away towards the East and the sunrising; seeing that the country to the East of the Indians is desert on account of the sand … some of them are pastoral and others not so … and some dwell in the swamps of the river and feed upon raw fish, which they catch by fishing from boats made of cane; and each boat is made of one joint of cane. These Indians of which I speak wear clothing made of rushes: they gather and cut the rushes from the river and then weave them together into a kind of mat and put it on like a corslet.’
This not only fits the Quranic description quite well, it is also rather similar to what has been attributed to Qatādah and Saʿīd.
According to Āzād, they were people met by Cyrus during his campaigns to the eastern parts of Iran, Baluchistan, and Kerman.
Another suggestion is that they were in far-east Asia, possibly Korea.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- From Abū Baṣīr, that Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) said: ‘They did not know how to construct dwellings.’
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
As discussed in verse 86, some have understood this verse very literally as the edge of the world,
however, that is certainly a misunderstanding. Similar fantastic tales are also told of these people, which have in such fictions been identified as the mythical people of Tārīs and Tāwīl. In one such tale for example, an army of soldiers came upon them and they saw the ground littered with bones, and asked the tribe about it. The tribe replied these are the bones of a previous army that did not hide when the sun rose and it scorched them to death.
In another story they were a people in far-eastern China.
In other accounts it is said when the sun would rise they would go and hide in water, only coming out when it set.
Such accounts are best regarded as old wives’ tales and stories told to children.
[1] Sharawi, p. 8986.
[2] Tahqiq, 5/48.
[3] Tibyan, 7/88; Tabari, 16/11.
[4] Tabari, 16/11; Thalabi, 6/192; Baghawi, 3/213.
[5] Qummi, 2/41; Muhit, 7/223; Nemuneh, 12/529.
[6] Alusi, 8/357; Mizan, 13/362; Mudarrisi, 18/196.
[7] Zamakhshari, 2/745.
[8] Razi, 21/497.
[9] Muhit, 7/223.
[10] Muhit, 7/223.
[11] Ibn Kathir, 5/174.
[12] Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, (trans. G. C. Macaulay) Book 1, pp. 201-202. Accessed at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2707/2707-h/2707-h.htm
[13] Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, (trans. G. C. Macaulay) Book 1, p. 214. Accessed at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2707/2707-h/2707-h.htm
[14] Abū al-Kalām Āzād, Kūrosh-e Kabīr, trans. Bāstānī Pārīzī (Tehran: Tābān, 1342 AHS), p. 90.
[15] This is the opinion adopted in Nemuneh, 12/549.
[16] Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, (trans. G. C. Macaulay) Book 3, p. 98. Accessed at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2707/2707-h/2707-h.htm
[17] Abū al-Kalām Āzād, Kūrosh-e Kabīr, trans. Bāstānī Pārīzī (Tehran: Tābān, 1342 AHS), p. 90; Munyah, 17/79.
[18] Munyah, 17/79.
[19] Ayyashi, 2/350; Tabrisi, 6/758.
[20] Tibyan, 7/88.
[21] Tabari, 16/12; Thalabi, 6/192.
[22] Qurtubi, 11/54.
[23] Tibyan, 7/88; Tabari, 16/11.
[24] Alusi, 8/357.