(Revealed before Hijrah)

Date of Revelation and Context
The Surah admittedly belongs to the very early Meccan period. Some scholars regard it as having been revealed in the first year of the Call; others assign it to the second or the third year. The five Surahs (89-93) possess a striking similarity in the subject-matter. In all of them great stress has been laid on the development of good morals, specially those that intimately concern and affect the collective progress and prosperity of a community. Muslims have been exhorted to create an atmosphere and environment which should help to raise the standard and stature of the poor, depressed and suppressed section of their community and should enable them to take their proper share in its activities. The immediately preceding Chapter contained a hint about the supreme object for which Abraham and his son Ishmael had built the Ka'bah. That supreme object is explained in 2:130. It is on the Prophet referred to in that verse (the Holy Prophet) and on his great moral qualities that some light is shed in the present Surah. Towards its close the Surah points out that moral greatness can be achieved by anyone who eschews evil and walks in the path of righteousness. It ends on the note that those, who choose to defy Divine laws and adopt evil ways, bring about their ruin with their own hands.

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
[1] In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.

وَالشَّمْسِ وَضُحَاهَا
[2] By[3354] the sun and its[3355] growing brightness,

وَالْقَمَرِ إِذَا تَلاَهَا
[3] And by the moon when it follows it (the sun),

وَالنَّهَارِ إِذَا جَلاَّهَا
[4] And by the day[3357] when it reveals its glory,

وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَاهَا
[5] And by the night[3358] when it draws a veil over it,

وَالسَّمَاءِ وَمَا بَنَاهَا
[6] And by the heaven[3359] and its making,

وَالأَرْضِ وَمَا طَحَاهَا
[7] And by the earth and its spreading out,

وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا
[8] And by the soul and its perfection[3359A]

فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا
[9] And He revealed to it what is wrong for it and what is right for it [3360] —

قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَنْ زَكَّاهَا
[10] He indeed truly prospers who purifies it,

وَقَدْ خَابَ مَنْ دَسَّاهَا
[11] And he who corrupts it is ruined.

كَذَّبَتْ ثَمُودُ بِطَغْوَاهَا
[12] The tribe of Thamud denied the truth because of their rebelliousness.

إِذِ انْبَعَثَ أَشْقَاهَا
[13] When the most wretched among them got up,

فَقَالَ لَهُمْ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ نَاقَةَ اللَّهِ وَسُقْيَاهَا
[14] Then the Messenger of Allah said, ‘Leave alone the she-camel of Allah[3361], and let her drink.’

فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَعَقَرُوهَا فَدَمْدَمَ عَلَيْهِمْ رَبُّهُمْ بِذَنْبِهِمْ فَسَوَّاهَا
[15] But they rejected him and hamstrung her, so their Lord destroyed them completely because of their sin, and made it (destruction) overtake all of them alike.

وَلاَ يَخَافُ عُقْبَاهَا
[16] And He cared not for the consequences[3361A] thereof.

3354. The Quranic oaths have deep meaning underlying them. Divine laws reveal two aspects of the works of God viz., the obvious and the inferential. The former are easily comprehensible; in the comprehension of the latter there is room for error. In His oaths God has called attention to what may be inferred from what is obvious. In the oaths mentioned in verses, 2-7, the sun and the moon, the day and the night, the heavens and the earth belong to the "obvious"-their properties, referred to in these verses being universally known and acknowledged. But the same properties found in man's soul are not obvious. To lead to an inference of the existence of these properties in the human soul God has called to witness His obvious works. See also 2465.

3355. "The sun" in the verse may refer to the sun of the spiritual universe -the Holy Prophet- who is the source of all spiritual light and who will continue to enlighten the world till the end of time.

3356.  "The moon" may also refer to the Holy Prophet, because he received light from God and transmitted it to the spiritually dark world. Or it may refer to those religious Divines and Reformers-particularly his Great Deputy, the Promised Messiah-who would borrow the light of truth from the Holy Prophet and transmit it to the world to remove the darkness of moral and spiritual turpitude.

3357. "The day" may signify the time during which the Message of Islam and the truth of its Founder were established and foundations were laid for their propagation in the world. The reference in the verse may particularly be to the time of the Holy Prophet's 'rightly-guided Caliphs' when the light of Islam shone in all its glory and splendour.

3358.  "The night" may refer to the period of decline and decadence of Muslims when the light of Islam had become veiled from the eyes of the world. These four verses (2-5) refer to four periods in the eventful career of Islam, viz.. the time of the Holy Prophet himself when the Spiritual Sun (the Holy Prophet) was shining in full splendour in the spiritual heaven; (2) the time of his Great Deputy the Promised Messiah when the light derived from the Holy Prophet was being reflected on to a dark world ; (3) the time of the Holy Prophet's immediate Successors when the light of Islam was still shining and, (4) the period when spiritual darkness had spread over the world after the first three centuries of Islam which was its most glorious period.

3359. The particle ma in this and the next two verses is either Masdariyyah, or it signifies Alladhi, i.e., 'he who.' Thus in these verses attention is focussed on the great Designer and Architect of the universe. or on its perfection and complete freedom from every flaw and defect.

3359A.  The verse means that all the properties which the great heavenly bodies such as the sun and the moon, etc, devote to the service of God's creatures and to which an implied reference has been made in verses 10, bear witness to man having been endowed with similar qualities in a high degree. In fact, man is a universe in miniature and in him is represented, on a small scale, all that exists in the external universe. Like the sun he sheds his luster over the world and enlightens it with the light of wisdom and knowledge. Like the moon he transmits to those who are in the dark the light of vision, inspiration and revelation which he borrows from the Great Original Source. He is bright like the day and shows the ways of truth and virtue. Like the night he draws the veil over the faults and misdeeds of others, lightens their burdens and gives rest to the tired and the weary. Like the heavens he takes every distressed
soul under his shelter and revives the lifeless earth with salubrious rain. Like the earth he submits in all humility and lowliness to be trampled under the feet by others as a trial for them, and from his purified soul various sorts of trees of knowledge and truth grow up in abundance, and with their shade, flowers and fruits he regales the world. Such are the great Divines and heavenly Reformers, of whom the greatest and the most perfect was the Holy prophet Muhammad (may eternal Divine blessings be upon him).

3360.  God has implanted in man's nature a feeling or sense of what is good and bad and has revealed to him that he could achieve spiritual perfection by eschewing what is bad and wrong and adopting what is right and good.

3361. The Prophet Salih rode on his she-camel from place to place to preach the Divine Message. Putting obstacles in the way of the camel's free movements was tantamount to placing impediments in the way of Salih himself and preventing him from discharging the sacred duty entrusted to him by God. In a sense Salih, like every Divine Reformer, was God's she-camel.

3361A. When a people incur Divine punishment and are destroyed, God does not care for those who survive the destruction; or the meaning is that God does not care to what utterly miserable state they are reduced.