Thafseer Lafzi 10 — Sūrat al-Burūj (85) — the whole sūrah سُورَة البُرُوج

1 · Introducing the sūrah #

• The course moves backwards through Juzʾ ʿAmma. You met Sūrat al-Aʿlā (87) and Sūrat aṭ-Ṭāriq (86) in the previous two lessons; Sūrat al-Burūj (85) is the sūrah before aṭ-Ṭāriq in the muṣḥaf.
• Its first āyah is وَٱلسَّمَآءِ ذَاتِ ٱلْبُرُوجِ, and the whole sūrah — āyāt 1 to 22 — is taken here in order, each āyah recited and glossed.

2 · The sūrah, part by part #

3 · Āyāt 1–3 — the three oaths #

Wa-s-samāʾi dhāt il-burūj · wal-yawmi l-mawʿūd · wa shāhidin wa mashhūd

"By the sky containing the constellations; and by the promised Day; and by a witness and that which is witnessed."

The wāw is the point of grammar here. The wāw al-qasam reaches across to make the oath: an oath upon the sky, an oath upon the promised Day, an oath upon the witness and the witnessed.

Al-mawʿūd takes the form it does because of the word it qualifies. It is masculine to agree with ٱلْيَوْم (yawm) — "so: the promised day."

4 · Āyāt 4–9 — Aṣḥāb al-Ukhdūd #

Qutila aṣḥāb ul-ukhdūd · an-nāri dhāt il-waqūd · idh hum ʿalayhā quʿūd · wa hum ʿalā mā yafʿalūna bil-muʾminīna shuhūd

"Destroyed were the people of the ditch — the fire full of fuel — when they were sitting over it, and they were witnesses to what they were doing to the believers."

The ṣarf point of the block: qutila. It is a fiʿl māḍī majhūl — a past-tense passive verb, the passive of qatala, from قَتْل (qatl), "killing". But in this place it carries the sense of a curse — may they be destroyed, cursed be they. So: قُتِلَ — they have been cursed.

Āyah 8 states the whole charge against them:

Wa mā naqamū minhum illā an yuʾminū billāhi l-ʿAzīzi l-Ḥamīd — "And they resented them for nothing except that they believed in Allah, the Almighty, the Praiseworthy."

• Wa mā naqamū — they held nothing against them, they had no charge to lay on them.
• Illā an yuʾminū billāh — except that they believed in Allah.
• Al-ʿAzīz — the One who overpowers all, the Almighty — and al-Ḥamīd — the Praiseworthy. Both belong to بِٱللَّهِ; they are two attributes of Allah.

The point to hold: in that king's eyes, the one and only thing they had done was to believe. Apart from that there was no fault in them at all.

Āyah 9 answers who that Allah is:

Alladhī lahu mulku s-samāwāti wal-arḍ · wallāhu ʿalā kulli shayʾin shahīd — the dominion of the heavens and the earth is His alone, and Allah is a witness over every single thing.

5 · The story behind it #

The event took place some 50 to 60 years before the Prophet ﷺ. In outline:

1. There was a king who would not accept the truth — "he was like Firʿawn", keeping his subjects under him in that fashion.
2. In his court was a sorcerer who supported him. Because the sorcerer had grown old, someone was to be taught his magic — and a boy was sent to him.
3. On the way there was a monk — a man who had a revealed scripture from an earlier time and read it. The boy would go to him and learn from him, and then go on to the sorcerer.
4. In time the boy would heal the blind.
5. For this they decided they had to deal with him. Many attempts were made, and in the end the king gathered the people and killed him before them.
6. And all the people gathered around there believed.

6 · Āyāt 10–11 — the two outcomes #

Inna lladhīna fatanū l-muʾminīna wal-muʾmināti thumma lam yatūbū fa-lahum ʿadhābu jahannama wa lahum ʿadhābu l-ḥarīq

"Indeed those who persecuted the believing men and the believing women and then did not repent — for them is the punishment of Hell, and for them is the punishment of the Burning."

The symmetry: just as they put those who believed into the fire, in the same way they will be burnt and punished.

Then the other side:

Inna lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilu ṣ-ṣāliḥāti lahum jannātun tajrī min taḥtihā l-anhār · dhālika l-fawzu l-kabīr

"Indeed those who believed and did righteous deeds — for them are gardens beneath which rivers flow. That is the great success."

• aṣ-ṣāliḥāt — the good deeds.
• al-anhār — the rivers; in ṣarf it is the plural of نَهْر (nahr), a river.
• dhālika l-fawzu l-kabīr — dhālika that · al-fawz the success, the triumph · al-kabīr very great. That is the great triumph — this Paradise they will receive.

7 · Āyāt 12–16 — the attributes #

Inna baṭsha rabbika la-shadīd · innahu huwa yubdiʾu wa yuʿīd · wa huwa l-Ghafūru l-Wadūd · dhu l-ʿarshi l-Majīd · faʿʿālun li-mā yurīd

Āyah 13 is the one to dwell on. The One who does a thing the first time, and the One who brings it back again, is He — and it points towards the resurrection: "indeed it is He who creates them in the beginning."

8 · Āyāt 17–22 — Firʿawn, Thamūd, and the preserved Qurʾān #

Hal atāka ḥadīthu l-junūd · Firʿawna wa Thamūd · bali lladhīna kafarū fī takdhīb · wallāhu min warāʾihim muḥīṭ · bal huwa qurʾānun majīd · fī lawḥin maḥfūẓ

9 · Five lessons from the sūrah #

1. What Aṣḥāb al-Ukhdūd held on to. What they did was to endure, to believe, to trust in Allah — at the very moment of being thrown into the fire they did not let go of their īmān. Even when it was put to them — "we are throwing you into the fire; will you still hold on to your īmān at the end?" — even the boy, and the woman with her nursing child, kept their faith.
2. Our tests are small ones. "For that group it was like that. For us there is nothing of the sort." Over the past ten or fifteen years, what has come has been small trials — it has never been brought to that extent.
3. Allah sees everything. They commit those acts thinking nobody is watching — but Allah is watching every single thing, and for all of it He is a witness. So no injustice will go unanswered: you are told the outcomes of the wrongdoers and of those who believed.
4. The grip on the wrongdoers is severe — when He seizes, that seizing will be harsh — but if a person asks for forgiveness, He is the One who forgives. The people of Firʿawn and the people of Thamūd were destroyed: however powerful a group may be, however much their power or their wealth made them arrogant, there is no wisdom in that.
5. The Qurʾān is protected. It is in the Preserved Tablet — kept safe, and not a thing that can be altered.

10 · What to carry out of this lesson #

1. Three oaths, one claim — the sky, the promised Day, the witness and the witnessed, all sworn by to say that the believers will be protected.
2. Qutila is a passive that works as a curse — the single most testable ṣarf point in the sūrah.
3. The charge against Aṣḥāb al-Ukhdūd was īmān and nothing else — wa mā naqamū minhum illā an yuʾminū billāh.
4. Āyāt 10 and 11 are a matched pair — the Burning for the persecutors, the gardens for the believers.
5. The attributes answer the story: He grips severely, He originates and repeats, He forgives, He loves, He owns the Throne, and He does whatever He wills.
6. The sūrah ends on the Book itself — not on the tyrants, but on a glorious Qurʾān in a preserved Tablet.