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Qur'anic Commentary on Sura' Al-Ikhlas (112)
Published on:
Friday 14 Oct, 2005

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Yishan JufuQuestion (from an atheist):

Qul huwa llaahu ahad llaahu s-samad
lam yalid walam yuulad walam yakun lahu kufu’an ahad
What’s so special about the Arabic in this Sura’? You Muslims say the Arabic of
the Qur’an is proof of its divinity. But I find the Arabic of Suratu l-Ikhlaas t
o be quite regular, like something any contemporary Arab writer could draw of hi
s pen. Where’s the Allah’s greatness here?
Reply
The secret about Sura’ Al-Ikhlas is more than can meet the shallow thoughts of a
theists and critics of Islam. This very short chapter contains in it the summary
of many concepts that are to lead people to The One True God and to refute the
misguided notions about God.
The Sura’ states the following:
•Say that He Is One God, Alone = Worship only The One True God Who has no Equals
nor Associates;
•He did not beget (any offspring): to refute the Jewish and Christian notions of
being the children/sons of God, and to further rebuke the Trinitarians notion o
f Jesus being the “begotten” son of God;
•Nor was begotten: the eternal God of no beginning and no end, rebuking those wh
o say that God became man through birth from a virgin or that God was incarnated
into a man born of a virgin;
•He has no equals: rebuking those who mixed between God and His creatures such a
s angels as in the case of the Jews calling the speaker The Lord and then the an
gel of The Lord; and those mixing between God and His messenger, Jesus(P) and Hi
s trusted spirit Gabriel in what they call God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.
Although the Sura’ is very short, yet it re-stated the Original True Message of
God that was sent to all His prophets from the beginning of creation and to corr
ect the misguidance that built-up with time.
The above is based on the meaning part of the Sura’, as for the linguistic part,
if you were an Arab, you ought to know that the messages of this Sura’ are vast
and more detailed than the above summary, however, they are stated in just a fe
w words. Additionally, the beauty of the Qur’an is not in stacking of poetic ver
ses, rather it is in the use of words, style and meanings. Many attempts were ma
de at producing a Sura’ like it, but any sincere person will realize that all th
ose attempts were nothing more than copying Qur’anic verses and changing a word
here and there. In the case of the Christians, they twisted verses rebuking thei
r doctrines into ones rebuking Muslims, whereas people like you, whoever you are
, are twisting the verses by replacing the name of God with the name of your mas
ter, “Satan”. Therefore, no one was able to produce anything like it, and you ca
nnot call plagiarism as creative writing, can you?
If anyone claims that the Qur’an is poetry and contains borrowed text from earli
er poetry, I will answer them then and they know who they are! If men were able
to meet the Qur’an in style and beauty, we would have seen a much better OT & NT
Arabic translations instead of the weak, common Arabic used in all the current
translations of the Holy Bible, and we know the historical efforts put into the
translations of such scriptures over many centuries by many Biblical and Arabic
scholars; they even used the aid of Arab Muslim scholars to check the translatio
ns (in Lebanon) for approval before releasing them to print.
Hope that the above answers your question, and taking it to be a sincere one, if
not, then my reward shall be from God for doing my best to clarify something ab
out His word and I do not expect any rewards from humans on this.
Category:
Quran , Quranic Commentary
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One Response for"Qur anic Commentary on Sura Al-Ikhlas (112)"
AbdAllah says: July 27, 2007 at 5:13 am
Assalamu ‘alaykum Wa Rahmathullah Wa Barakathuhu my dear brothers and sisters in
Islam
I am sure that the missionaries are well aware by now about the literary distini
ctness of the Qur’an from a structural point of view.
If you analyse Surah Ikhlaas (112) it is clearly unique from all poetry and pros
e forms of Arabic, as with all other Surahs of the Qur’an. The syntax, words (as
well as their arrangement) and eloquence of this Surah (and the rest of the Qur
’an) is superb, transcending other Arabic works.
One way in which Surah Ikhlaas is inimitable, as I mentioned above is the fact t
hat it is structurally distinct from poetry and prose forms. Surah Ikhlaas has a
rhythm, unique from the 16 meters (al-bihar) used in Arabic poetry and it is no
t prose (nathr), as evidenced by the rhythm, present in the Surah.
The Usloob of the Qur’an is also an inimitable feature of Surah Iklaas. This is
divided into Quwwah, Wudooh and Jamaal. In each of these three categories, Surah
Ikhlaas achieves the highest level, with no faltering.
The eloquence of Surah Ikhlaas includes the fact that the words chosen are perfe
ct over all synonyms (See my the other post in the Comments section on ‘Ahad(un)
and the Missionary’s Folly’ (in this website) for an example). Also, there are
many meanings compressed in very few words of Surah Iklaas.
Anyone who understands Arabic, will realise the linguistic miracle of Surah Ikhl
aas and the Qur’an.
Wasalam.
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