فَإِذا نُفِخَ فِي الصّورِ نَفخَةٌ واحِدَةٌ
So when the trumpet is blown with a single blast.
EXEGESIS
This marks the second major section of the surah that describes the inevitable reality and the catastrophe mentioned in the opening verses.
Most exegetes explain al-ṣūr (the trumpet) as a horn or bugle in the hands of the archangel Isrāfīl, poised on his lips, awaiting God’s command to blow into it. In doing so, it would herald the end of the world, emitting a deafening sound that would cause all in the heavens and the earth to swoon and die. Then a second blowing would follow that would resurrect all the dead and initiate the Day of Judgement.
The blast is described as a single blast to show the firmness in the execution of God’s affairs, without any weakness or languish that would require another blowing of the trumpet to initiate the end of the world and prepare for a new one.
These trumpet blasts are mentioned in numerous verses (6:73, 18:99, 20:102, 23:101, 27:87, 36:51, 39:68, 50:20, 74:8, 78:18) besides this one, and most of these verses allude to the second blowing, perhaps due to its greater relevance to man and his standing for accounting, with 39:68 mentioning both blasts.
EXPOSITION
What is given in this verse is quite likely a reference to the first blowing because the verse immediately after speaks of the destruction of the cosmos. We know the mention of the second trumpet blast is omitted in this surah because later verses already describe events after the resurrection such as, the angels will be all over it (verse 17), That day you will be exposed (verse 18), and so on.
The trumpet itself is said to have one mouthpiece with two heads: one facing the heavens and the other toward the earth. When the sound from it emanates from the side facing upward, it will kill all in the heavens, and when it emits its terrifying sound toward the earth, it will bring death to all on the earth. And the same is for the second blowing that will resurrect all. The strong figure of speech used in such narrations must not go unnoticed.
There is also an elite group that is excluded from the swooning at the first blowing of the trumpet and these are alluded to in 39:68 with the words except whomever Allah wishes – see the Exposition of verse 39:68.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
With a slight vowel change on its middle letter, the word ṣūr (trumpet) can be read as ṣuwar (sing. ṣūrah) (form, shape). There is, therefore, an unfavoured variant reading of this verse where ṣūr is pronounced ṣuwar, thereby changing So when the trumpet (ṣūr) is blown … to: So when it is blown into the forms (ṣuwar), meaning the spirits are blown into the forms of the dead and they come back to life. One of God’s names is al-muṣawwir (the Fashioner), who fashions and gives shape to all creation.
The appeal to such a reading is that the human form is often described as ṣūrah in the Quran (3:6, 7:11, 40:64, 82:8) and the blowing of God’s spirit into the form of man, to give it life, is given with the verb nafakh – and breathed (nafakhtu) into him of My spirit (15:29) – the same verb used in all verses that speak of the blowing (nafkh) of the trumpet (al-ṣūr).
Rāghib, for example, describes the trumpet as: ‘Like a horn that will be blown into, so that Allah will cause by it the return of forms (ṣuwar) and spirits (arwāḥ) into their bodies.’
Yet despite this appeal, there are several issues with this alternate and variant reading and it has therefore been rejected by many an exegete. First, all reports and narrations support the reading as ṣūr (trumpet) and not ṣuwar (forms). Second, such a meaning can only be true for the second blowing when the spirits are returned to their bodies or forms (ṣuwar), but not the first blowing when spirits are not blown into but rather out of their bodies or forms. And third, such a reading would also be grammatically incorrect. Ṭūsī explains: ‘He [God] said: then it will be blown into it [fī-hi] a second time, behold, they will rise up, looking on! [39:68]. [He said fī-hi [into it] with a masculine pronoun] and He [God] did not say fī-hā or fī-hinna [with a feminine pronoun that could have been understood in the plural for the forms (ṣuwar) and to mean blown into them]. And that [the use of the singular, masculine pronoun fī-hi] proves that it is in the singular [and therefore refers to the trumpet].’
Rāzī as well rejects this variant reading of ṣuwar (forms), noting that its main proponent, Abū ʿUbaydah, was an expert in reports but lacked expertise in grammar.
The debate however does not end here. Mulla Sadra quotes a prophetic tradition to describe the trumpet as ‘a horn of [the archangel] Isrāfīl [made] from particles of light’ and therefore it cannot be a physical instrument since light does not produce sound.
He imagines this trumpet of light as extinguishing the fire of life and preparing souls like charcoal that appears black (dead) but holds a redness within that awaits ignition, and the second blowing sets the souls alight with their permanent forms:
‘The blowing from God is only for bringing [the spirit] to life, the emanation for the spirit, and the creation of life. But the creation of life, in the higher mode of being, necessitates its death in the lower mode of being. So by the first blowing, the bodies die and the spirits come to life. And by the second blowing, the spirits are resurrected … Know that all matters which are generated by their natural forms are receptive to being illuminated by the[ir] spirits, just like coal, in its preparedness to be set aflame, has the aspect of the fire hidden in it …
‘By the first blowing, the forms of nature pass away by death like the passing away of the form of blackness and coldness in charcoal when it obtains redness and light. So the forms of the inter-world become prepared to receive the illumination by the spirits, like the preparedness of charcoal to become red and hot by receiving ignition. When [the angel] Isrāfīl – and he is the originator of spirits in the forms – blows the Trumpet for the second time, they become illuminated by the emerging spirits subsisting by themselves, as He, the exalted said: and behold they will rise up, looking on [39:68].’
Sadra then goes on to quote a passage from Ibn Arabi’s al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyyah, validating the same understanding.
Therefore, for Sadra, on the first blowing, God will take all the spirits out of their natural elemental bodies and deposits all forms, collectively, into this trumpet of light. Everything that a man perceives after death in the inter-world, he perceives by the ‘eye of form’ which is with him in the trumpet. And upon the second blowing, the forms are released from this trumpet of light, illuminated permanently by their spirits.
However, Sadra’s entire premise that the trumpet cannot be a physical instrument hinges on accepting the authenticity of the prophetic tradition that the trumpet is made up of ‘particles of light’. Furthermore, the matters of the hereafter are anything but what man imagines and knows in this world. It is quite possible to accept both interpretations at once, meaning a trumpet whose essence is light but capable of producing sensible sound and, at whose sounding, the spirits of all living beings are blown into their permanent forms (ṣuwar) in the afterlife.
See also the discussion on the trumpet (al-ṣūr) and the drawing of parallels between ṣūr and ṣuwar under 39:68.
Separately, Makārim Shīrāzī has likened these two blowings of the trumpet to the trumpets blown for a marching army: the first to announce the stopping to camp and rest; and the second to order assembly and preparation to march again.
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
- The great day of the LORD is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the LORD: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
- Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
- In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
- And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!
- And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
- And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.
- But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
[1] Encyclopedia Britannica, Isrāfīl; Sahifah, supplication 3.
[2] See Insights from Hadith for verse 35.
[3] Qummi, 2/252; Daylami, 1/53.
[4] Raghib, ṣ-w-r.
[5] Tibyan, 4/174.
[6] Razi, 13:28.
[7] Mulla Sadra, Spiritual Psychology (2008, ICAS Press), p. 596.
[8] Mulla Sadra, Spiritual Psychology (2008, ICAS Press), p. 596.
[9] See also Mulla Sadra’s explanation for the blowing of the trumpet in his work al-Ḥikmah al-ʿArshiyyah, translated by James Morris as Wisdom of the Throne (1981, Princeton University Press), pp. 184-186.
[10] Nemuneh, 24/448.
[11] Zephaniah 1:14-18.
[12] Matthew 24:29-31.
[13] Corinthians 15:52.
[14] Revelation 8:2-13.
[15] Revelation 9:1-2.
[16] Revelation 9:13-15.
[17] Revelation 10:7.