44. Surah Ad-Dukhan (the Smoke)

59 verses, Mecca 64

The Quranic Text & Ali’s Version:

أَهُمْ خَيْرٌ أَمْ قَوْمُ تُبَّعٍ وَالَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ ...

44: 37. What! are they better than the people of Tubba and those who were before them?

C4715. Tubba' is understood to be a title or family name of Himyar kings in Yemen, of the tribe of Hamdan.

The Himyar were an ancient race. At one time they seem to have extended their hegemony over all Arabia and perhaps beyond, to the East African Coast.

Their earliest religion seems to have been Sabianism, or the worship of the heavenly bodies. They seem at different times, later on, to have professed the Jewish and the Christian religion.

Among the Embassies sent by the holy Prophet in A.H. 9-10 was one to the Himyar of Yemen, which led to their coming into Islam. This was of course much later than the date of this Surah.

... أَهْلَكْنَاهُمْ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا مُجْرِمِينَ ﴿٣٧﴾

We destroyed them because they were guilty of sin.

C4716. In prehistoric times the Himyar and Yemen seem to have played a large part in Arabia and even beyond: see last note. But when they were intoxicated with power, they fell into sin, and gradually they ceased to count, not only in Arabia but even in Yemen.

وَمَا خَلَقْنَا السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا لَاعِبِينَ ﴿٣٨﴾

44: 38. We created not the heavens, the earth, and all between them, merely in (idle) sport:

C4717. Cf. 21:16, and n. 2676.

All creation is for a wise and just purpose. But men usually do not realise or understand it, because they are steeped in their own ignorance, folly, or passions.

مَا خَلَقْنَاهُمَا إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ ﴿٣٩﴾

44: 39. We created them not except for just ends:

but most of them do not understand.

Asad’s Version:

44:37 Are they, then, better than the people of Tubba', and those before them, whom We destroyed because they were truly lost in [the same) sin? 20

(44:38) For [thus it is:] We have not created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in mere idle play: 21

(44:39) none of this have We created without [an inner] truth: 22 but most of them understand it not.

[[ Asad’s note - 20 "Tubba"' was the title borne by a succession of powerful Himyar kings who ruled for centuries over the whole of South Arabia, and were finally overcome by the Abyssinians in the fourth century of the Christian era. They are mentioned elsewhere in the Qur'an (50:14) as having denied the truth of resurrection and God's judgment.

21 I.e., without meaning or purpose (cf 21:16) - implying that if there were no hereafter, man's life on earth would be utterly mearnagless, and thus in 'contradiction to the above as well as the subsequent statement, "none of all this have We created without (an inner] truth".

22 See note 11 on 10:5.]]