Section Al-Furqan – Part 27

We are continuing with our study of Section Al-Furqan. We started studying the following verse and will continue investigating it:

وَلَقَدْ أَتَوْا۟ عَلَى ٱلْقَرْيَةِ ٱلَّتِىٓ أُمْطِرَتْ مَطَرَ ٱلسَّوْءِ ۚ أَفَلَمْ يَكُونُوا۟ يَرَوْنَهَا ۚ بَلْ كَانُوا۟ لَا يَرْجُونَ نُشُورًۭا 

25:40 They must surely have come upon the town that was showered with a ruining rain, have they not seen (understood) it? But they do not expect resurrection.

The Qur’an usually likens the coming down of rain to the earth to demonstrate how the dry lifeless earth becomes alive with rain. We see the rain is the creation of God in the process of growing plants where the dry lands become fertile. In the same way, the Qur’an is also sent down to illuminate human beings, without which they would be a barren human body which is just matter. The “rain” of Revelation comes to grow the “seeds” within this human potential. Revelation is also like the rain to grow the “seeds” (each of our senses) to know God. Although we may be able to reach the conclusion about the necessity of the existence of a Creator, It is only through Revelation that we are able to know who this Creator is.

There is an interesting analogy in this verse: The rain is sent to the dead earth to grow plants to come out being an example of “resurrection”. However, here the phrase used is “ruining rain” which is describing the result of their not believing in Revelation which informs them of “Resurrection”. The news of Resurrection that they receive from Revelation puts them into trouble. If the rain is used to grow seeds into plants and trees, then it is useful. However, if the rain is not utilized then it becomes destructive to them as a flood. In the same way, when we don’t reason, think about the message and understand it to confirm it, we would be in trouble. The verse uses the phrase “بَلْ كَانُوا۟ لَا يَرْجُونَ نُشُورًۭا”, translated as “but they do not expect Resurrection”. 

If someone doesn’t want to accept Resurrection, they will miss the good news that after they die in this world, they will be given another body to continue their existence. The capacity of the spirit is meant to extend into infinity as we don’t reach the final limit of our feelings here where we are looking for full satisfaction. When we receive the news of Resurrection, it fits human capacity as I am given the need to continue my life after I die here. Whoever made me, gave me this need.  This Revelation says that you will be resurrected, given another body. This puts the deniers into trouble, they don’t expect that resurrection should happen because they don’t want to be accountable for their choices in their life. They are hoping that after death they will be forgotten and not held accountable. They thus can act according to their caprices which is why this news troubles them. The news from Revelation makes sense to be correct as it fits my human needs, but one still may choose not to accept belief in the Hereafter. They feel that their secure understanding is disturbed and become the enemy of the prophet and want to destroy the message of Revelation. They feel comfortable with their imagination that I will die and disappear; I can enjoy my life while I am here and not bother about the end of my life. 

This is the psychology of denial. If one does not believe in Resurrection, he would think that after death he will disappear from existence. He will be living this life feeling that in the end of their life they will fall into nonexistence; they will never forget this fear and lead a fearful life that at any time they will disappear. How would they enjoy their life? As an extension of  this painful life experience, he will be treated accordingly in the next creation.

Those who “do not accept resurrection” are not afraid of the result of what they do in this world (including atrocities they commit under the labels of national interest, security); they think they will die and disappear from existence anyway. After killing hundreds of thousands of people to satisfy their own caprices, they feel powerful. Nothing happens to them as they are materially powerful and do not worry as they think everything will be forgotten upon their death. There is nothing to hold them accountable for the atrocities they committed. Caprices do not have any limitations as well if they do not want to believe in Resurrection. That is why they are not taking the warning of the Prophets seriously.

It is very difficult to deny the need for Resurrection by any human being.  We are all given the freedom to choose whether to believe in it or to reject it. By rejecting Resurrection, they feel comfortable artificially, that is why they do not want to hear this message again. When they hear the message, it reminds them what they are hiding inside of their conscience.  If a person does whatever he wants and thinks that there is no justice, court system, prison, or judge to give them punishment, they will feel comfortable. One is free to believe in God or not. Most people are careful and don’t behave recklessly as they are created with the ability not to contradict their human reality. When it comes to not contradicting their feelings, the atheists are also kind and respectful to one another. They will also reject the injustices that are happening in the world. When it comes to submitting their being to their Creator, they don’t want to submit as they don’t want to be responsible towards anyone who is superior, being their Lord. One may say that even if there is a God and there is Resurrection, I am doing good and not harming anyone so this God should not punish me.  The problem is that they don’t want to submit their existence to their Creator. That is why those who refuse to submit to their Creator and do not want to believe in the coming down of Revelation, also feel disturbed by the Prophetic messages. Revelation for them becomes a means of ruin and disturbance rather than a means of benefit that grows one’s human potentialities.

Since the rejecters cannot come up with a counter argument, they try to kill the spreading of the message, thus killing the prophet for themselves. The rejecters of the message say that the prophets are liars, and accuse them of making up the message. It is important to understand that they don’t really believe in what they are claiming as it is impossible to say that “I am meaningless”, it goes against all my feelings. Their denial is not because they don’t have enough evidence to confirm the message, the deniers cannot be sincere in their denial. One can think for themselves as to why someone would deny Resurrection as a freely thinking person who does not believe in God. Listen within myself to my feelings and human side, it is impossible to accept that I have no Creator, no responsibility for my choices. One is free to choose whether to deny or not. In the denier’s case, they are covering up the truth that they have a Creator, that there will be Resurrection where they would be held accountable.

How about the “virus epidemic” for example that we experienced recently or some “earthquakes” or other kinds of hurricanes, wildfires, etc.? Why do people generally not take them as warnings for them? They are mostly afraid of their own death because they don’t believe in Resurrection. 

We discussed that the Qur’an mentions certain people who were destroyed because they rejected the message and rejected the prophet. They do not want to hear their message as it disturbs their artificial comfortable life, and they don’t want to be held responsible for their choices. Another aspect of the verse relates to the result of not believing in Resurrection. Why don’t we liken the events created in our lives to the ones mentioned in Revelation such as in Torah or the Qur’an. 

For example, the COVID virus was created worldwide, why don’t we see it as a warning from our Creator and liken it to those events mentioned in Revelation? Many people experienced death from this creation of the virus, and some may still be suffering. Can we liken these events to the destruction of people mentioned in Revelation? Since they don’t believe in Revelation, they don’t see themselves being consciously and deliberately created so they don’t see the events as created by God to warn them. They don’t accept that the event is a deliberate creation by the Creator of the universe to teach them about their reality. They are expecting to see the prophet physically and those who reject him to be physically destroyed in front of them. Warning is for the sake of teaching, reminding us of the reality of this world. For example, as a warning, one may say “Be careful, that is going to be harmful for you” which is beneficial to me. Reminding is similar as it benefits me. For example, when someone reminds me not to do something. In some Sections of the Qur’an, the prophets are described as warners.

The physical killing of the prophet is not the point in the Qur’an as far as the teachings of the Qur’an are concerned, but anyone who rejects the message kills the prophet for himself. For example, the Qur’an mentions that some people killed the prophets. In Jewish tradition, they say that the Jewish people never tried to kill the prophets and find the mention of this news in the Qur’an as strange. According to them, that did not happen in history. The Qur’an speaks in a way where anybody who rejects the message of the prophet is in fact killing the prophet as far as their individual life is concerned. Many teachings of the Qur’an are conveyed with a figure of speech and cannot be taken literally. If it really happened in history, what benefit does it bring to me? Do we accuse those who killed the messengers many many years ago?  It doesn’t really matter if that happened literally or not as we need to understand the message that is being conveyed to my practical life now. I must ask myself, am I one of those people who are killing the prophet? Am I taking the prophet’s message seriously in my life, practicing it in my life? With every verse, I must always ask, why is God telling me this message right now? We must read the Qur’an according to our needs, as our guide to live a purposeful life.

وَإِذَا رَأَوْكَ إِن يَتَّخِذُونَكَ إِلَّا هُزُوًا أَهَـٰذَا ٱلَّذِى بَعَثَ ٱللَّهُ رَسُولًا

25:41 Whenever they see you, they only ridicule you. Is this the one God has sent as a messenger?

The Qur’an openly mentions the accusations against the prophet, not shying away from exposing them. This makes the message infinitely memorable as these accusations will continue in human journey. One must carefully read the way the Qur’an treats the accusation which includes the answer. There is no direct response, literal answer to the accusation but one must carefully read the Qur’an to get the point being made.

Obviously, the first recipient of the message is the prophet himself who experienced this. When I read this verse now, I can take it as applicable to myself where one can be ridiculed for following the messenger of God. The verse fits perfectly to the prophet (pbuh) where the elite couldn’t fathom someone who is an orphan, not rich, not having any position, just an ordinary man to be the messenger of God. In today’s term, it would be someone who is not a scientist, philosopher, celebrity but just an ordinary man according to the criteria of the people. However, the person who is chosen to take the responsibility of receiving, was perfectly able to believe and practice the message with the strongest loyalty and ready to risk his life to protect it. They are among those who feel the need for the content of the message to have satisfactory answers to their questions in order to have meaning in life. For this mission one does not have to have a high position in society, family lineage, financial power, and knowledge in worldly matters, but must have a sincere intention, strongest thirst for the truth of existence, and honesty.  

Who are the people mentioned in the Qur’an when it says “you” and “they” in the verse?” The pronoun “you, singular” could be referring to anyone, such as claiming that Muslims are poor, backwards culturally, technologically and financially. The same accusations are made currently as well.  The pronoun “They” in the verse refers to those who are concerned and proud of their worldly wealth, have knowledge which does not represent the truth, have financial power, military power, and are technologically advanced. For them, these are the criteria to have some status and position in this world as opposed to the reality that this world is created by an Almighty Creator where human beings are created for a purpose, to get educated for another type of existence.

The previous verse says, “they don’t expect Resurrection. The main problem of the people is not to believe in God but in the belief in Resurrection. To disbelieve in the Resurrection is the source of many evils. To believe in God is the first step in the process of belief. Some people may accept that there is a Creator but say that I will take care of my life by myself until I die. To believe in God as the Creator of the universe only does not have a strong effect in one’s life as compared to belief in Resurrection. It is difficult to accept that one would be held accountable for all their deeds in this life. How would one feel when asked: “what have you done with your feelings, intellect, consciousness?” This has more of an impact on one’s life. Although, one must believe in God in order to believe in Resurrection.

For example, if a teacher mentions talking about a topic for 45 minutes after which there will be an exam. Accordingly you will get your grade for your graduation degree. How would I feel? In another scenario, the teacher says that I will teach you something important which you should know but there is no test at the end. How much of an impact would that have on me compared to the one giving an exam? I would take the teaching in the first scenario seriously. Based on belief in Resurrection, the attitude of how one lives can change as opposed to not believing in Resurrection. The exam in the example means that in the Hereafter, I would be taken into account for my choices, I will be asked how l lived my life and how did I use my human qualities. One must be convinced in their practical life that there must be Resurrection, i.e. one needs to be sure of it.

 In my daily life, I must remain mindful of my purpose of existence, even if I profess belief in the Resurrection.Human failure and neglect are the practical matters we experience. There are many who claim to believe in God but may not be convinced with belief in Resurrection which does have much of an impact on how one lives and arranges their life.

How do we experience this in our practical life now? For example, some scientists say “you do not understand science, that is why you feel the need to believe in God as the Creator.” If one studies science, they will see that their explanation of things without referring them to their Creator has no evidence to show that things are acting by themselves. They use tricky language such as “it seems to be” without showing any evidence. For example, the computer works by itself, why do I need to believe in an Engineer of the computer? Do you not see that it is working by itself?

In the accusations against the prophets, they are seeing the person himself and not the content of the message that he is delivering. We must be careful as well to pay attention to the content of the message. Some scholars try to elevate the personality of prophet Muhammad from his reality and ignore the content of his message. There is no need to try to sanctify the prophet’s personality as he was uneducated, having no status in society. We must take the content of the message and see the significance of the message in one’s life. We must also see how the prophet himself was loyal to the content of the message, sincere to practice it without any hesitation. He was sure that the message he received was from God and its content is the perfect truth. He never gave up or hesitated in his loyalty to the content of the message. He is described as the “abd”, someone who acts and lives according to the message. He was the best representative of being an “abd”, worshiper of God. That is the value he gained after receiving the Revelation of God. There is no need to go into the ancestral lineage of the prophet and uphold that lineage which serves no purpose. There is a hadith narration where the Roman governor around current day Palestine was asking Abu Sufyan questions on: “who is this person in Mecca that claims to be the prophet of God”. This event was before Abu Sufyan had embraced Islam. One of his questions was: “Was anybody amongst his ancestors a king??” Abu Sufyan replied, “No.” Another question was “Do the nobles or the poor follow him? to which the reply was “It is the poor who follow him.” i.e. they are not of the noble, knowledgeable, powerful, affluent people in society. After asking many other questions and receiving the answer from Abu Sufyan the governor said: “If what you have said is true, he will very soon occupy this place underneath my feet and I knew it (from the scriptures) that he was going to appear but I did not know that he would be from you, and if I could reach him definitely, I would go immediately to meet him and if I were with him, I would certainly wash his feet.'”

That is why the Qur’an mentions their accusation: “is this the one God has sent as a messenger?” The Creator of the universe decides on this as long as one is trustworthy, loyal to the message. There is no need for a knowledgeable person to be the prophet but a shepherd with such qualities can be chosen. For example, in the story of “Talut” who was appointed by David to be the commander in chief of the army. The nobles of society objected that he is not a powerful or rich man, how can he be appointed as commander to fight “Jalut”. (See, 2: 246-247.) The same reasoning is applied here where the nobles are looking for some affluent person. The Qur’an mentions that you did not like this man, but he is the one that I chose to be successful. We must understand that the value of Islam comes from the content of the message that the prophet (pbuh) brought. The value of the prophet comes from his loyalty to the message with the highest degree of practice in his personal life. 

Another aspect of this verse can be seen in how science boldly makes their claims. Do you see any contradiction in the scientists’ stand when a believing scientist may come and say, “it is impossible to explain these research results by referring them to matter itself”. Why do they reject publishing their papers in scientific journals? If they are so sure in their claim that there is no need to refer creation to a Creator, then why do they feel uncomfortable when someone contradicts their interpretation and wants to publish? Either they are not sure, or they have chosen not to believe in God. They don’t want to submit themselves to their Creator, to someone they would be accountable to. All their success is nothing but their Creator’s gift to them, they must not own them and feel great about it. This is the real reason for their rejection of belief in God, they want to claim that what they discover is their success, not God’s favor for them by creating human abilities of intellectual capacity. They display their arrogance by not submitting themselves to their Creator.