وَانطَلَقَ المَلَأُ مِنهُم أَنِ امشوا وَاصبِروا عَلىٰ آلِهَتِكُم ۖ إِنَّ هٰذا لَشَيءٌ يُرادُ
Their elite go about [urging others]: ‘Go and stand by your gods! This is indeed the desirable thing [to do].
EXEGESIS
Inṭalaqa (go about): inṭilāq has the meaning of going with ease. Here it refers to the Meccan elite getting up to leave the meeting with the Prophet and Abū Ṭālib, spoken of in the Introduction.
Malaʾ (elite) comes from malʾ, meaning to be full. The elite are called malaʾ because when they attend a gathering eyes and hearts are filled with their grandeur and presence. Here, it refers to the Meccan elite mentioned in the Introduction.
Imshū (go) comes from mashy, meaning going from one place to another mainly by walking. It has been said that in this context it means gather and increase your numbers, relating to the concept of mashat al-marʾah when she gives birth to many children, or some variants relating to this meaning, but these are all farfetched and linguistically problematic.
Iṣbirū (stand by) comes from ṣabr, meaning patience. Here it means to have patience in worshipping their idols and to bear difficulty for their sake.
Yurād (desirable) is the passive form of arāda, meaning to want. The statement then literally means: this is a desirable thing. Here they are saying that being patient and not abandoning idol worship is a desirable action.
EXPOSITION
Continuing with the topic of social inertia picked up in the previous verse, we are now told that not all patience is necessarily good. Sometimes, patience simply means resistance to all change, even if that change is needed and good. The ones who are most resistant to any social change are of course the ones who benefit the most from the status quo, and that is always the ruling elite.
These elite manipulate the masses into defending that status quo, branding anyone who attempts to bring out change as disrupting social order, thus defending that order becomes a desirable thing. In a way, this is silencing rational discussion about the issue and is simply a plea to more base impulses. The elite do not necessarily even share the views of the masses, rather they simply use popular ideology to galvanise the masses into taking action that they deem necessary. This is supported by the fact that the verse quotes them as saying your gods and not ‘our Gods’. In a way, this hints at the fact that they do not have any strong belief with regards to those idols, using them more as a tool of manipulation.
The second verse told us that the faithless were in shiqāq, which meant to split off and separate, drawing lines between themselves and the Prophet. Here, that theme is picked up once again. The purposeful usage of the words inṭalaqa (go about) and imshū (go) bring up imagery of movement. The defiant elite scoffed at the Prophet and set off from their meeting furiously, urging others to literally Go, walk away, move, and separate physically from the presence of Muhammad (s). This also illustrates that it was not the Prophet who began or desired the shiqāq, but the Meccan elite who separated themselves from him and caused division.
The verb ‘to say’ is omitted, but it is understood from the context that they spoke these words while leaving the meeting. Most likely these were words they spoke to each other, but it is possible that this was part of their propaganda that they told to the commoners.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
The scholars differ as to what exactly is meant by the verb yurād. Ṭūsī and others say that it refers to the position of the Prophet, meaning: this thing that Muhammad claims and is calling you to is something through which he wants to gain superiority over us and leadership among us and to subjugate us; this is similar to what was claimed about Prophet Noah (a): But the elite of the faithless from among his people said: ‘This is just a human being like you, who seeks to dominate you’ (23:24).
Ṭabrisī relates that the faithless said that the rise in the number of Muhammad’s (s) followers is something that has been wished for you, in the sense that it has been decreed. Zamakhsharī argues a position very similar to Ṭabrisī’s, saying that they claimed ‘the affair relating to Muhammad (s) is a thing ordained and you cannot change God’s decree, therefore your only choice is to be patient’. This opinion seems strange though, as it ascribes a type of submission to God’s will that is far removed from what is known to us of the beliefs of the Meccan idolaters. Perhaps one way to understand it is by what Ṭabrisī relates, that some have said the idolaters argued that the Prophet ‘wishes to remove the blessings of the idols from us by making us abandon their worship’.
Zamakhsharī suggests an alternative, replacing God’s decree with nawāʾib al-dahr, a kind of cosmic order, or in what today’s western parlance might be referred to as ‘the universe wanted it’.
Qurṭubī adopts the position that it means that ‘he desires by this to remove blessings from us’, as they believed the idols were a source of blessings. That is, ‘by defying the will of the gods he will bring about woe to us all and that is exactly what he wants’.
All of the aforementioned interpretations are contrary to the apparent meaning of the verse, and neither do they fit with context. All of them suffer from the fact that they assume the word this is referring to something that is not mentioned anywhere in the preceding verses, whereas the most natural and immediate answer is that it refers to being persistent in idol worship, as we mentioned earlier.
INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS
- Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.<
[1] Tibyan, 8/544.
[2] Tabrisi, 8/727; Tabari, 23/80; Zamakhshari, 4/73.
[3] Razi, 26/368.
[4] Raghib, p. 769.
[5] Zamakhshari, 4/73. See also Tibyan, 8/544.
[6] Alusi, 12/160.
[7] Tibyan, 8/545; Tabari, 23/80.
[8] Nemuneh, 19/218.
[9] Thalabi, 8/179; Fadlallah, 19/238; Tantawi, 12/133.
[10] Mudarrisi, 11/322.
[11] Zamakhshari, 4/73. It is said that the one who first uttered these words was ʿUqbah ibn Abī Muʿayṭ. See Tibyan, 8/545; Tabrisi, 8/727; Suyuti, 5/296; Tabari, 23/80. It has also been reported it was Abū Jahl (Suyuti, 5/296).
[12] Mizan, 17/183; Shawkani, 4/483.
[13] Tibyan, 8/545; Tabari, 23/80; Mizan, 17/183; Nemuneh, 19/217-218; Shawkani, 4/483; Qaraati, 8/81.
[14] Tabrisi, 8/727.
[15] Zamakhshari, 4/73.
[16] Zamakhshari, 4/73.
[17] Qurtubi, 15/151. Ṭabrisī also relates this opinion and another one, saying some others have said it means that ‘he desires by this to bring our destruction’, but both these interpretations require us to unnecessarily assume a lot of omission.
[18] Fadlallah, 19/238.
[19] 1 Corinthians 10:14-15.