7. Sura al-Araf
The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:
قَالَ
الْمَلأُ الَّذِينَ
اسْتَكْبَرُواْ
مِن قَوْمِهِ...
7: 88. The leaders, the arrogant party among his people, said:
C1058. The gentle, all-persuasive arguments of Shu'ayb fell on hard hearts. Their only reply was: "Turn him out! him and his people."
When courtesy and a plea for toleration are pitted against bigotry, what room is there for logic? But bigotry and unrighteousness have their own crooked ways of pretending to be tolerant. "O yes!" they said, "we are very tolerant and long-suffering! But we are for our country and religion. Come back to the ways of our fathers, and we shall graciously forgive you!"
"Ways of their fathers!" - they meant injustice and oppression, high-handedness to the poor and the weak, fraud under cover of religion, and so on! Perhaps the righteous were the poor and the weak.
Were they likely to love such ways?
Perhaps there was implied a bribe as well as a threat. "If you come back and wink at our iniquities, you shall have scraps of prosperity thrown at you. If not, out you go in disgrace!"
لَنُخْرِجَنَّكَ يَا شُعَيْبُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ مَعَكَ مِن قَرْيَتِنَا أَوْ لَتَعُودُنَّ فِي مِلَّتِنَا...
"O Shu'aib! we shall certainly drive thee out of our city, (thee) and those who believe with thee:
or else ye (thou and they) shall have to return to our ways and religion."
...قَالَ أَوَلَوْ كُنَّا كَارِهِينَ ﴿٨٨﴾
He said: "What! even though we do detest (them)?
وَقَالَ
الْمَلأُ الَّذِينَ
كَفَرُواْ مِن
قَوْمِهِ لَئِنِ
اتَّبَعْتُمْ
شُعَيْباً
إِنَّكُمْ إِذاً
لَّخَاسِرُونَ
﴿٩٠﴾
7: 90. The leaders, the unbelievers among his people, said,
"If ye follow Shu'ayb, be sure then ye are ruined!"
C1062. The answer of the Unbelievers is characteristic. As all their bribes and subtleties have failed, they resort to threats, which are worse than the argument of the stick. "All right," they say, "there is nothing but ruin before you!"
That means that the Believers will be persecuted, held up to obloquy, ostracized, and prevented from access to all means of honourable livelihood; their families and dependants will be insulted, reviled, and tortured, if they could but be got into the enemy's power: their homes destroyed, and their names held up to ridicule and contempt even when they are gone.
But, as verse 92 says, their wicked designs recoiled on themselves; it was the wicked who were ruined and blotted out.
فَأَخَذَتْهُمُ
الرَّجْفَةُ
فَأَصْبَحُواْ
فِي دَارِهِمْ
جَاثِمِينَ
﴿٩١﴾
7: 91. But the earthquake took them unawares, and they lay prostrate in their homes before the morning!
C1063. The fate of the Madyan people is described in the same terms as that of the Thamud in verse 78 above. An earthquake seized them by night, and they were buried in their own homes, no longer to vex Allah's earth.
But a supplementary detail is mentioned in 26:189, "the punishment of a day of overshadowing gloom," which may be understood to mean a shower of ashes and cinders accompanying a volcanic eruption. Thus a day of terror drove them into their homes, and the earthquake finished them.
The lament of Shu'ayb in verse 93 is almost the same as that of Salih in verse 79, with two differences:
- Shu'ayb's messages attacked the many sins of his people (see n. 1055) and are, therefore, expressed in the plural, while Salih's fight was chiefly against selfish arrogance, and his message is expressed in the singular;
- the Thamud were the more cultured people of the two, and perished in their own pride; as Salih said, "ye love not good counselors";
the Midianites were a rougher people, and their minds were less receptive of argument or faith; as Shu'ayb said, they were a people who "refused to believe."
الَّذِينَ
كَذَّبُواْ
شُعَيْبًا كَأَن
لَّمْ يَغْنَوْاْ
فِيهَا...
7: 92. The men who rejected Shu'aib became as if they had never been in the homes where they had flourished:
...الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُواْ شُعَيْبًا كَانُواْ هُمُ الْخَاسِرِينَ ﴿٩٢﴾
the men who rejected Shu'aib -- it was they who were ruined!
فَتَوَلَّى
عَنْهُمْ وَقَالَ
يَا قَوْمِ
لَقَدْ أَبْلَغْتُكُمْ
رِسَالاَتِ
رَبِّي وَنَصَحْتُ
لَكُمْ...
7: 93. So Shu'aib left them, saying:
"O my people! I did indeed convey to you the messages for which I was sent by my Lord:
I gave you good counsel,
...فَكَيْفَ آسَى عَلَى قَوْمٍ كَافِرِينَ ﴿٩٣﴾
but how shall I lament over a people who refuse to believe!
C1064. Can we get any idea of the chronological place of the destruction of the Midianites?
In n. 1053 we have discussed the geographical aspects. The following considerations will help us in getting some idea of their period.
1. The stories of Noah, Hud, Salih, Lut, and Shu'ayb seem to be in chronological order. Therefore Shu'ayb came after Abraham, whose nephew Lut was.
2. If Shu'aib was in the fourth generation from Abraham, (see n. 1590 to 11:89), it would be impossible for him to have been a contemporary of Moses, who came many centuries later.
This difficulty is recognised by Ibn Kathir and other classical commentators.
3. The identification of Shu'ayb with Jethro the father-in-law of Moses is without warrant; see n. 1054.
4. Shu'ayb must have been before Moses; see 7:103.
5. The Midianites who were destroyed by Moses and by Gideon after him (n. 1053) were local remnants, as we may speak of the Jews at the present day; but their existence as a nation in their original home-lands seems to have ended before Moses: "they became as if they had never been in the homes where they had flourished" (7:92).
6. Josephus, Eusebius, and Ptolemy mention a town of Madyan, but it was not of any importance (n. 1053).
7. After the first centuries of the Christian era, Madyan as a town appears as an unimportant place resting on its past.
Asad’s Version:
7: 88 Said the great ones among his people, who gloried in their arrogance: “Most certainly, O Shuayb, we shall expel you and your fellow-believers from our land, unless you indeed return to our ways!”
Said [Shuayab] : “Why, even though we abhor ? We should be guilty of blaspheming against God were we to return to your ways after God has saved us from them! It is not conceivable that we should return to them – unless God, our Sustainer, so wills.
All things does out Sustainer embrace within His knowledge: in God do we place our trust. O our Sustainer! Lay you open the truth between us and our people – for Thou are the best of all to lay open the truth!”
7: 90-93 But the great ones among his people, who were bent on denying the truth, said : “Indeed, if you follow Shuayb, you will, verily, be the losers!
Thereupon an earthquake overtook them..................
“....How then , could I mourn for people who have denied the truth?”