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Recitation: Sa'ad Al
Ghamdi
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Introduction and Summary
This very early Makkan Surah,
though it referred in the first instance to a particular incidence in a cruel
and relentless persecution, carries the general lesson that cruelty ultimately
ruins itself. The man who rages against holy things is burned up in his own
rage. His hands, which are the instruments of his actions, perish, and he
perishes himself. No boasted wealth or position will save him.
The woman, who are made for
nobler emotions, may, if they go wrong, feed unholy rage with fiercer feel---to
their own loss. For they may twist the torturing rope round their own neck. It
is a common experience that people perish by the very means by which they seek
to destroy others.
C.291 (The running Commentary, in
Rhythmic Prose)
The chosen One of
Allah, in his earnest
Desire to proclaim
the Message, gathered
His kin together to
hear and judge
With open minds
between error and truth.
Behold, the fiery
"Father of Flames"
Blazed up with foul
abuse and curses,
And said to the holy
one: "Perish thou!"
With his hands he
took stones and cast them
At the holy one's
head. Purse-proud he headed
Relentless
persecution. His wife
Laid snares, tied
thorns with twisted ropes
Of prickly palm-leaf
fibre, and strewed them
In the holy one's
path on darkest nights,
For cruel sport! But
lo! the curses,
Insults, spite,
harmed not that Innocent,
But hit the
wrongdoers themselves
And branded them with
eternal infamy!
تَبَّتْ
يَدَا أَبِي لَهَبٍ وَتَبَّ
﴿١﴾ 
1. Perish
the hands of the Father of Flame! Perish he!
C6294.
Abu Lahab,
"Father of Flame", was the nick-name of an uncle of the Holy Prophet, from his
fiery hot temper and his ruddy complexion.
He was one
of the most inveterate enemies of early Islam. When the holy Prophet called
together the Quraish and his own kith and kin to come and listen to his
preaching and his warning against the sins of his people, the "Father of Flame"
flared up and cursed the Holy Prophet, saying "Perdition to thee!"
According
to the English saying, "the causeless curse will not come".
His words
were futile, but his power and strength were equally futile.
The star
of Islam rose higher and higher every day, and its persecutors dwindled in
strength and power. Many of the leaders of persecution perished at Badr, and Abu
Lahab himself perished a week after Badr, consumed with grief and his own fiery
passions.
Verse 3 was prophetic of his end
in this very life, though it also refers to the Hereafter.
مَا
أَغْنَى عَنْهُ مَالُهُ وَمَا كَسَب
﴿٢﴾
2. No
profit to him from all his wealth, and all his gains!
سَيَصْلَى
نَارًا ذَاتَ لَهَبٍ
﴿٣﴾
3. Burnt
soon will he be in a Fire of blazing Flame!
وَامْرَأَتُهُ حَمَّالَةَ الْحَطَبِ
﴿٤﴾
4. His
wife shall carry the
(crackling)
wood -- as fuel! --
C6295.
Abu
Lahab's wife was a woman of equally passionate spite and cruelty against the
sacred person of the Holy Prophet.
She used
to tie bundles of thorns with ropes of twisted palm-leaf fibre and carry them
and strew them about on dark nights in the paths which the Prophet was expected
to take, in order to cause him bodily injury.
"To carry firewood"
may also be symbolical for carrying tales between people to embroil them. This
was also one of her vices. But she was laying up for herself another kind of
Fire and another kind of Rope, the Fire of Punishment, and the Rope of Slavery
to Evil.
Thus does
Evil prepare its own fate. This is the general lesson of sustained craft and
cruel wrong-doing recoiling on the wrong-doer's head.
See also
Introduction to this Surah.
فِي
جِيدِهَا حَبْلٌ مِّن مَّسَدٍ
﴿٥﴾
5. A
twisted rope of palm-leaf fibre round her
(own)
neck!
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