وَأَنّا كُنّا نَقعُدُ مِنها مَقاعِدَ لِلسَّمعِ ۖ فَمَن يَستَمِعِ الآنَ يَجِد لَهُ شِهابًا رَصَدًا
We used to sit in its positions to eavesdrop, but anyone listening now finds a flame waiting for him.
EXEGESIS
Naqʿudu is an imperfect tense verb that has its origin in the noun quʿūd meaning to sit or to take a seat as opposed to standing. As such, the literal meaning of the verse would be: We used to sit in some of the sitting places in the heaven to eavesdrop. However, it appears that the verb naqʿudu has been figuratively used in this verse, just as in 9:5, to denote their extended association with the positions in the heaven from which they used to listen to the heavenly news.
Maqāʿid (sing. maqʿad) is one of the derivatives of the noun quʿūd that implies a place for sitting. Maqāʿid has also been said to denote the sitting space for people in the bazaars. This term has occurred two times in the Quran, in this verse and in 3:121, to signify positions and places for sitting.
Yastamiʿ is an imperfect tense that derives from the root samʿ meaning hearing or the ability to hear as suggested by some grammarians. However, there is a lexical difference in meaning between the nouns samʿ and istimāʿ. While samʿ implies the mere activity of hearing that may and may not be accompanied with attention, istimāʿ means to listen carefully and to pay thorough attention.
Raṣad is a noun that means to keep one’s eyes on something, to observe a thing, or to lie in wait for a thing. In other words, the term signifies to guard or to protect something. However, the term is used in Arabic as an adjective to denote two opposite meanings of the watcher and the one being watched. In the verse under discussion, raṣad is the adjective of the term shihāb – flame – and as such, this part of the verse would imply that whoever seeks now to listen to the heavenly news will be stopped by a flame ‘that guards the place’, or by a flame ‘that lies in wait for him’, and which is used by the guarding angels to attack him.
EXPOSITION
As the previous verse alluded to the fact that the jinn used to freely make their way to the heavens in the past, this verse explains – in their own words – the reason they ascended to the heavens and the fact that they are now being prevented from drawing closer to them. What is clearly understood from the verse is that they used to have places in the heavens from which they were eavesdropping on heavenly news.
Verses 15:17-18 and 37:6-10 also talk about the flames that guard the lowest heaven from every outcast and froward devil. It is inferred from 37:8 specifically that the place in the heaven where the jinn and the devils endeavoured to get closer to in order to eavesdrop was the realm of the angels (al-malaʾ al-aʿlā). It can hence be concluded that before the advent of Islam, the rebellious amongst the jinn used to ascend to the lowest heaven to eavesdrop on the conversation of the angels who inhabit that place, and thereafter communicate the information to the fortune tellers from amongst the humans. After the dawn of the final revelation, the jinn and the devils were not stopped from free movement around the heaven, rather what they are prevented from is the entrance into the circle of the angels who seem to receive necessary instructions related to their roles from specific locations in the lowest heaven.
Experiencing this new state of affairs in the heavens, this group of jinn who listened to the Quran interpreted this change as indicating the veracity of the Prophet’s claim to divine apostleship. The inability of the devils and the jinn to have access to the heavenly news was seen as the end of a long era of mischief, soothsaying, and deception, and the inception of a new phase of divine revelation and prophecy in the history of mankind and jinn. This outlook presents a robust justification as to why the froward from the jinn were totally barred from eavesdropping on the heavenly news at the threshold of the advent of the final divine message to mankind and jinn. This has also been indicated in a narration from Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) in which he explains the wisdom behind the obstruction of the jinn from the heavens as a divine measure to protect the inhabitants of the earth from mistaking what the jinn used to communicate to the soothsayers of the altered heavenly news, with that of revelation.
With regard to the time when the jinn were obstructed from having access to the heavenly news, many exegetes have been of the view that this took place simultaneous with the dawn of the final revelation to mankind. However, some reports from the Ahl al-Bayt assert that the jinn were totally barred from eavesdropping since the birth of the Holy Prophet. This view would not contradict the adverbial qualification now in but anyone listening now, as it can be explained, in light of these reports, to be alluding to the present era that commenced with the birth of Prophet Muhammad (s).
A question that may arise here, however, is whether or not the heavenly news that the jinn used to eavesdrop was the same as the divine revelation (waḥy). The Quran is clear in that the devils have no ability whatsoever to infringe upon waḥy, which is a special type of communication between God and His chosen messengers: It has not been brought down by the devils. Neither does it behove them, nor are they capable [of doing that]. Indeed they are kept at bay [even] from hearing it (26:210-212). As the last three verses of this surah attest, the content of divine revelation is protected in such a manner that none other than God Himself and His angels are aware of it. Therefore, the heavenly news upon which the jinn used to eavesdrop before the advent of the Prophet of Islam had no connection whatsoever with divine revelation; rather, it was related to some earthly events as we shall see later in the Exposition of verse 10.
Based on the fact that the jinn used to eavesdrop on heavenly news and not waḥy, it could be argued that the phenomenon of eavesdropping on heavenly news by the devils and jinn was not specific to the past only, but that it is a continuous endeavour by them to do so even in the present day and age. Considering this, and assuming that what is meant by flames in this and other similar verses of the Quran is the meteoroids, as examined in the Exegesis of the verse under discussion, it is noteworthy here that this verse has no indication that every meteor observed in space must be for the purpose of driving away a devil from eavesdropping, for this obviously only happens when they seek to approach the heaven with the intention to do so. As such, the shooting stars or the meteor showers observed today, or even in the past for that matter, could also be occurring for some natural reasons and as part of many other cosmological phenomena.
The occasion of revelation mentioned for Sūrat al-Jinn by Ibn Abbas is believed by many exegetes to be corroborated by verses 8-10. However, these verses are clear that this unusual phenomenon was encountered by the jinn since the early days of the prophetic mission, and as such, the occasion of revelation reported by Ibn Abbas – based on which the jinn experienced the new state of affairs in the heaven around the tenth year of prophethood – appears to be inharmonious with this set of verses.
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- Describing the creation of the visible heaven, Imam Ali (a) says in a narration: ‘He put in place as a defence (raṣad) piercing flames on the ways of the heaven … and drove away by its piercing flames those who [try to] eavesdrop …’
Note: A close look at the context of the first sentence of this report suggests that the flames existed right from the time of the creation of the heaven and only came to be used later to drive away those who seek to listen to the heavenly news.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
After a detailed discussion on the verses that talk about the phenomenon of the jinn being driven away by the flames, Makārim Shīrāzī concludes that the term heaven (samāʾ) in these verses and similar other verses, appears to stand for the heaven of truth and reality, whilst the devils are the whisperers who endeavour to make their way to this heaven and eavesdrop on it in order to mislead God’s creation. However, the divine prophets and the scholars are the stars and flames of this heaven who prevent the devils from reaching it through the strong waves of guidance created by their writings. Such extrapolations have, however, been considered by Jaʿfarī as instances of interpreting the Quran based on personal opinion (tafsīr bil-raʾy), for he does not deem it proper to find an unnatural explanation for such Quranic verses that speak of astral realities like the one under discussion just because such realities have not yet been discovered by science or comprehended by human knowledge.
[1] Lisan, Raghib, and Hans Wehr, under q-ʿ-d.
[2] Ibn Ashur, 29/212.
[3] Raghib, under q-ʿ-d.
[4] Lisan and Bahrayn, under q-ʿ-d.
[5] For further information about this word and its usage in the Quran, see istamaʿa under the Exegesis of verse 1.
[6] Lisan, under s-m-ʿ.
[7] Raghib, under s-m-ʿ.
[8] Fayyumi, cited in Tahqiq, under s-m-ʿ; Raghib, under s-m-ʿ.
[9] Hans Wehr, under raṣada.
[10] Mizan, 20/54.
[11] Qamus, under raṣad.
[12] Ibn Ashur, 29/212.
[13] Mizan, 20/43.
[14] Ahsan al-Hadith, 11/377.
[15] It should however be noted here that there is no difference between the term shayṭān (devil) and jinn in relation to this particular phenomenon discussed in the Quran. The only difference in this regard is that the devils are the rebels from among the jinn, whilst the term jinn is generic and includes both the jinn and the devils (Qamus, under jinn).
[16] Kawthar, 6/33-34.
[17] Tabrisi, 10/556; Qurtubi, 20/12; Shawkani, 5/366; Sabzawari, 7/248; Mizan, 12/138.
[18] See Nemuneh, 25/111.
[19] Ahsan al-Hadith, 5/341.
[20] Nemuneh, 25/111; Khatib, 15/1225-1226.
[21] Ihtijaj, 2/339; Bihar, 10/168. Although the practice of soothsaying was prevalent in the pre-Islamic era, there is no indication in the Quran associating this practice with the information the jinn would gain by eavesdropping on the heavenly news. Nonetheless, the like of the narration we have cited explicitly confirm the connection between the two. Tabrisi (6/510) narrates Ibn Abbas to have said: ‘There were soothsayers during the Age of Ignorance, each of whom had a devil who used to sit in the heaven and eavesdrop on the [conversation of the] angels regarding that which is going to occur on the earth. He would thereafter descend and inform the soothsayer about it who would then spread the news among the people. [However,] they were barred from having access to three heavens during the time of Prophet Jesus (a), while at the advent of Prophet Muhammad (s) they were prevented from reaching all the heavens as they were entirely fortified by the stars.’ See also Bihar, 55/68, and Alusi, 10/138.
[22] See Ibn Kathir, 8/253; Thaalabi, 5/496; Shawkani 5/366; Nemuneh, 25/113; Sabzawari, 7/248; Mizan, 20/43.
[23] See Amali.S, p. 285; Rawandi, 1/21; Rawḍat al-Wāʿiẓīn, 1/65.
[24] Tantawi, 12/71.
[25] This could also be aided by the narration we have mentioned from Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) in which he refers to what the jinn used to eavesdrop on as akhbār al-samāʾ (news of the heaven) and not waḥy (revelation).
[26] Ṣafwat al-Bayān, 2/472, cited in Tantawi, 15/136.
[27] Tantawi, 15/129. See also Zubdah, 7/210; Razi, 30/670.
[28] For further details see the Exposition of verse 1. A critique of the report by Ibn Abbas has appeared under the Review of Commentaries of the same verse.
[29] Nahj, sermon 88. This sermon is famously known as Khuṭbat al-Ashbāḥ (the Sermon of the People) (al- Baḥrānī, Sharḥ Nahj al-Balāghah, 2/324).
[30] Qamus, under shihāb.
[31] Nemuneh, 11/51.
[32] Kawthar, 6/34.