27. Surah An-Naml (The Ants)

Mecca Period 48

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

وَجَدتُّهَا وَقَوْمَهَا يَسْجُدُونَ لِلشَّمْسِ مِن دُونِ اللَّهِ...

27: 24. "I found her and her people worshipping the sun besides Allah:

C3266. The ancient religion of the people of Saba (the Himyar or Sabaeans) consisted in the worship of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the planets, and the stars. Possibly the cult was connected with that of Chaldaea, the home-land of Abraham: see 6:75-79 and notes thereon.

Yemen had easy access to Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf by way of the sea, as well as with Abyssinia. That accounts for the Christians of Najran and the Jewish dynasty of kings (e.g. Zu-Nuwas, d. 525 A.D.) who persecuted them in the century before Islam,-also for the Christian Abyssinian Governor Abraha and his discomfiture in the year of the Prophet's birth (Surah 105), say 570 A.D. Jewish-Christian influences were powerful in Arabia in the sixth century of the Christian era.

The religion of these Sabaeans (written in Arabic with a Sin) should not be confounded with that of the Sabians (with a Sad), as to whom see n. 76 to 2:62.

...وَزَيَّنَ لَهُمُ الشَّيْطَانُ أَعْمَالَهُمْ فَصَدَّهُمْ عَنِ السَّبِيلِ ...

Satan has made their deeds seem pleasing in their eyes, and has kept them away from the Path --

... فَهُمْ لَا يَهْتَدُونَ ﴿٢٤﴾

so they receive no guidance --

أَلَّا يَسْجُدُوا لِلَّهِ الَّذِي يُخْرِجُ الْخَبْءَ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ...

27: 25. "(Kept them away from the Path), that they should not worship Allah, Who brings to light what is hidden in the heavens and the earth,

C3267. The false worship of the Sabaeans is here exposed in three ways:

1. that they were self-satisfied with their own human achievements, instead of looking up to Allah;

2. and that the light of the heavenly bodies which they worshipped was only dependent on the true Light of Allah, which extends over heaven and earth; the Creator should be worshipped rather than His Creation;

3. and Allah knows the hidden secrets of men's minds as well as the objects which they openly profess: are false worshippers really only worshipping their own selves, or the "sins they have a mind to" and are therefore afraid to go to Allah, Who knows all?

...وَيَعْلَمُ مَا تُخْفُونَ وَمَا تُعْلِنُونَ ﴿٢٥﴾

and knows what ye hide and what ye reveal.

Asad’s Version:

(27:24) And 1 found her and her people adoring the sun instead of God; and Satan has made these doings of theirs seem goodly to them, and [thus] has barred them from the path [of God], so that they cannot find the right way:

(27:25) [for they have come to believe] that they ought not to adore God 20 - [although it is He] who brings forth all that is hidden in the heavens and on earth, 21 and knows all that you would conceal as well as all that you bring into the open:

[[Asad’s note -

1 9 Thus, we are parabolically reminded that even the most lowly being can - and on occasion does - have knowledge of things of which even a Solomon in all his wisdom may be ignorant (Razi) - a reminder which ought to counteract the ever-present danger (fitnah) of self-conceit to which learned men, more than anyone else, are exposed (Zamakhshari). - As regards the kingdom of Sheba, see note 23 on 34:15.]]