6. Al-An'aam

Only Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth from nothing, is described with perfection and praised with the noblest of qualities, and love is only due to Him. He created the night and the day, which follow one another. He created the night for darkness and the day for light. Despite all this, some of His servants disbelieve Him and associate partners with Him. Allah is far above what they say.

He, may He be glorified, is the One Who created you, O people, from clay when He created your father, Adam (peace be upon him) from it. Then He, may He be glorified, fixed a period for your stay in the life of the world. He also fixed another term, which only He knows, when He will raise you back to life on the Day of Rising. Despite this, you still doubt about His ability to raise you back to life.

He, may He be glorified, is the One worthy of worship in the heavens and the earth. He knows the intentions, statements and actions you keep hidden and those you make public; and He will judge you about them.

No proof or miracle from their Lord comes to the idolaters except that they ignore it without paying any attention. Clear evidences and proof of the Oneness of Allah, as well as miracles proving the truthfulness of the messengers, have now come to them; yet despite this, they turned away and paid no attention to these signs and miracles.

While they have turned away from these clear evidences and proofs, they had previously turned away from something even clearer: they denied the Qur’ān that Muhammad (peace be upon him) brought. They will soon realise, when they see the punishment on the Day of Rising, that what they used to mock and what he brought to them was in fact the truth.

Do these disbelievers not know Allah’s custom of destroying communities who do wrong? Allah had destroyed, prior to them, many communities whom He had established in the earth with more stability than them. Allah sent down successive rains upon them and made rivers flow beneath their homes; yet they then went against Him, so He destroyed them because of the sins they committed. Then, after them, He established other communities.

If we had sent down to you, O Messenger, a book written on paper and they had seen it with their eyes, they would not have accepted it out of stubbornness and denial; and they would have said, ‘What you have brought is nothing more than clear magic; and we will never believe in it’.

These disbelievers said, ‘We will believe if Allah sends down an angel with Muhammad (peace be upon him) who speaks to us and bears witness that he is a messenger’. If we send down an angel of the kind they wish, we will destroy them if they do not believe; and they will not be given time to repent.

If I had sent an angel to them, I would have made him in the form of a man, so that they could listen and learn from him, as they would not be able to learn from an angel in the original form that I created him. If I had made him in the form of a man, they would have been confused about him.

If these people poke fun at you by asking for an angel to be sent down with you, then communities in the past also poked fun at their messengers. Then the punishment, which they used to deny and mock when they were warned about it, surrounded them.