Tafseer of The Family of Imraan · Aal-i-Imraan · 3:49
And [make him] a messenger to the Children of Israel, [who will say], 'Indeed I have come to you with a sign from your Lord in that I design for you from clay [that which is] like the form of a bird, then I breathe into it and it becomes a bird by permission of Allah. And I cure the blind and the leper, and I give life to the dead - by permission of Allah. And I inform you of what you eat and what you store in your houses. Indeed in that is a sign for you, if you are believers.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
Discussion of the explanation of His word: وَرَسُولًا إِلَى بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ أَنِّي قَدْ جِئْتُكُمْ بِآيَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّكُمْ ("And as a messenger to the Children of Israel: 'I have come to you with a sign from your Lord'") (3:49).
Abū Jaʿfar said: He, exalted is His praise, means by His word "and as a messenger": and We make him a messenger to the Children of Israel. The mention of "and We make him" has been omitted, because the wording points to it, as the poet said:
"And I saw your husband in the thick of battle girded with a sword and a spear."
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And His word: "I have come to you with a sign from your Lord" means: and We make him a messenger to the Children of Israel, with the fact that he is My prophet, My bearer of glad tidings, and My warner, and My proof of My truthfulness in that is: "I have come to you with a sign from your Lord," that is to say: with a sign from your Lord that confirms my word and verifies my report, namely that I am a messenger of your Lord to you, as:
7085 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn al-Zubayr: "and as a messenger to the Children of Israel: I have come to you with a sign from your Lord," that is to say: by which my prophethood is confirmed, namely that I am a messenger from Him to you.
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Discussion of the explanation of His word: أَنِّي أَخْلُقُ لَكُمْ مِنَ الطِّينِ كَهَيْئَةِ الطَّيْرِ فَأَنْفُخُ فِيهِ فَيَكُونُ طَيْرًا بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ ("that I shall fashion for you out of clay the form of a bird, and then breathe into it, so that it becomes a bird by the permission of Allah") (3:49).
Abū Jaʿfar said: He, exalted is His praise, means by it: "and as a messenger to the Children of Israel: I have come to you with a sign from your Lord," and then He clarified what that sign is, and said: "that I shall fashion for you."
* * *
The explanation of the wording is thus: and as a messenger to the Children of Israel, with the fact that I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, namely that I shall fashion for you out of clay the form of a bird.
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"al-ṭayr" (the birds) is the plural of "ṭāʾir" (bird).
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The Qurʾān reciters differed in the recitation of this.
Some of the people of the Ḥijāz read it: (كَهَيْئَةِ الطَّائِرِ فَأَنْفُخُ فِيهِ فَيَكُونُ طَائِرًا), in the singular.
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Others read it: (كَهَيْئَةِ الطَّيْرِ فَأَنْفُخُ فِيهِ فَيَكُونُ طَيْرًا), with the plural in both cases.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And the recitation that pleases me most in this is the recitation of the one who read: "the form of a bird (al-ṭayr), and I then breathe into it, so that it becomes a bird (ṭayran)," with the plural in both cases together, because that was among the characteristics of ʿĪsā, namely that he did that by the permission of Allah, and because it agrees with the text of the muṣḥaf (the written Qurʾān). And following the text of the muṣḥaf, together with the soundness of the meaning and the wide spread of its recitation, pleases me more than deviating from the muṣḥaf.
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And ʿĪsā's fashioning of the birds that he fashioned was as:
7086 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, saying: Ibn Isḥāq related to us: that ʿĪsā, the blessings of Allah be upon him, was sitting one day with boys from the writing-school, and he took clay and then said: "Shall I make for you out of this clay a bird?" They said: "And can you do that?" He said: "Yes! By the permission of my Lord." Then he fashioned it, until he had brought it into the form of a bird; he breathed into it and then said: "Be a bird by the permission of Allah," and it went flying between his two hands. Then the boys went off with that, away from his happening, and mentioned it to their teacher, who spread it among the people. And he (ʿĪsā) grew up, and the Children of Israel plotted against him; and when his mother feared for him, she carried him on a little donkey of hers, and went off fleeing with him.
* * *
And it was mentioned that he, when he wished to fashion the bird out of clay, asked them: "Which bird is strongest in creation?" He was told: "The bat," as:
7087 - al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, who said concerning His word: "that I shall fashion for you out of clay the form of a bird," he said: "Which bird is strongest in creation?" They said: "The bat, for it is pure flesh." He said: Then he did it.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: If someone were to say: And how is it said "and I breathe into it (fīhi, masculine singular)," while it is said "that I shall fashion for you out of clay the form of a bird"?
Then it is answered: because the meaning of the wording is: and I breathe into the bird. And even were it "and I breathe into it (fīhā, feminine)," it would have been correct and permissible, as He said in [Sūrat] al-Māʾida: فَتَنْفُخُ فِيهَا [Sūrat al-Māʾida: 110]: meaning: and you breathe into the form. And it is mentioned that it is, in one of the two recitations: "fa-anfukhuhā" (and I breathe it), without "fī" (into). And the Arabs sometimes do something of this kind and say: "Many a night I have spent it (bittuhā), and I have spent the night in it (bittu fīhā)." The poet said:
"No bosom was rent open, nor did a wailing-woman rise up over you, nor did noble horses weep for you at the spoils (of the slain)."
meaning: nor did she rise up over you. And as another said:
"One of the daughters of Banū ʿĀʾidh Allāh — she endured with it, sweet of sap, until the horn (of the resurrection) is blown."
* * *
Discussion of the explanation of His word: وَأُبْرِئُ الأَكْمَهَ وَالأَبْرَصَ ("and I heal the one born blind and the leper") (3:49).
Abū Jaʿfar said: He means by His word "and I heal (ubriʾu)": and I cure (ushfī). One says of that: "abraʾa Allāh al-marīḍ" (Allah healed the sick person), when He cures him of it, "fa-huwa yubriʾuhu ibrāʾan"; and "baraʾa al-marīḍ fa-huwa yabraʾu barʾan"; and sometimes it is also said: "bariʾa al-marīḍ fa-huwa yabraʾu," two well-known linguistic forms.
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The exegetes differed concerning the meaning of "al-akmah" (the one born blind).
Some of them said: it is the one who does not see at night but sees during the day.
Mention of who said that:
7088 - Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning His word: "and I heal the one born blind," he said: "al-akmah" is the one who sees during the day but does not see at night, and he then gropes about (yatakammahu).
7089 - al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Abū Ḥudhayfa related to us, saying: Shibl related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, the same.
* * *
And others said: it is the blind person whose mother bore him so.
Mention of who said that:
7090 - Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, who said: We were taught that "al-akmah" is the one who is born while he was blind, with covered eyes.
7091 - al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His word: "and I heal the one born blind and the leper," he said: We were taught that al-akmah is the one who is born while he is blind, with closed eyes.
* * *
7092 - It was related to me on the authority of al-Minjāb, saying: Bishr related to us, on the authority of ʿUmāra, on the authority of Abī Rawq, on the authority of al-Ḍaḥḥāk, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: al-akmah is the one who is born while he is blind.
* * *
And others said: no, it is the blind person.
Mention of who said that:
7093 - Mūsā ibn Hārūn related to me, saying: ʿAmr related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: "and I heal the one born blind," that is the blind person.
7094 - al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, who said: Ibn ʿAbbās said: the blind person.
7095 - al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: Maʿmar informed us, on the authority of Qatāda concerning His word: "and I heal the one born blind," he said: al-akmah is the blind person.
7096 - Muḥammad ibn Sinān related to me, saying: Abū Bakr al-Ḥanafī related to us, on the authority of ʿAbbād ibn Manṣūr, on the authority of al-Ḥasan concerning His word: "and I heal the one born blind," he said: the blind person.
* * *
And others said: it is the one with weak, blinking eyes (al-aʿmash).
Mention of who said that:
7097 - al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Ḥafṣ ibn ʿUmar related to us, on the authority of al-Ḥakam ibn Abān, on the authority of ʿIkrima concerning His word: "and I heal the one born blind," he said: al-aʿmash.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And the well-known meaning of "al-kamah" among the Arabs is blindness (al-ʿamā). One says of that: "kamihat ʿaynuhu fa-hiya takmahu kamahan, wa-akmahtuhā anā" (his eye became blind, so it is blind, and I made it blind), when you make it blind, as Suwayd ibn Abī Kāhil said:
"The eyes of them both were made blind until they turned white, and he blames himself now that he has been turned away."
And of that is the word of Ruʾba:
"I drove him on, and he recoiled like the recoiling of the one born blind in the abysses of the bewildered, wandering [...]."
* * *
And Allah, mighty and exalted, has only informed concerning ʿĪsā, the blessings of Allah be upon him, that he says that to the Children of Israel, as an argument on his part with these lessons and signs against them regarding his prophethood; and that is because blindness (al-kamah) and leprosy (al-baraṣ) know no treatment by which a physician would be able to cure them with a treatment. So that was among his indications of the truthfulness of his word that he is a messenger of Allah, because it is among the miracles, together with the remaining signs that Allah gave him as an indication of his prophethood.
* * *
As for what ʿIkrima said, namely that "al-kamah" is blinking weak-sightedness (al-ʿamash), and what Mujāhid said, namely that it is poor eyesight at night — there is no meaning to that. For Allah does not advance against His creation any proof in which they have a possibility of refuting it; and if that by which ʿĪsā proved his prophethood against the Children of Israel had been that he heals someone with blinking weak eyes, or the one who sees during the day but does not see at night, then they would have been able to refute it by saying: "And what proof do you have in that? Among us is a group of people who treat that, and they are not prophets or messengers of Allah."
In that, then, lies a clear indication of the soundness of what we said, namely that "al-akmah" is the blind person who sees nothing, neither by night nor by day. And it is more in agreement with what Qatāda said — namely that it is the one born so — for the treatment of such a thing no human claims, except the one to whom Allah has given the like of what He gave to ʿĪsā; and so it is also with the treatment of the leper.
* * *
Discussion of the explanation of His word: وَأُحْيِي الْمَوْتَى بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ وَأُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِمَا تَأْكُلُونَ وَمَا تَدَّخِرُونَ فِي بُيُوتِكُمْ ("and I bring the dead to life by the permission of Allah, and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses") (3:49).
Abū Jaʿfar said: And ʿĪsā's bringing the dead to life occurred through supplication to Allah; he supplicated for them, and He answered him, as:
7098 - Muḥammad ibn Sahl ibn ʿAskar related to me, saying: Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Maʿqil related to me: that he heard Wahb ibn Munabbih say: When ʿĪsā became twelve years old, Allah revealed to his mother, while she was in the land of Egypt — and she had fled from her people when she bore him, to the land of Egypt — that she should travel with him to Syria (al-Shām). She did what she was commanded. And she remained in Syria until he was thirty years old, and his prophethood lasted three years; then Allah raised him to Himself. He said: And Wahb claimed that sometimes there gathered to ʿĪsā of the sick in a single assembly fifty thousand; whoever of them was able to reach him reached him, and whoever of them was not able to do so, ʿĪsā went walking to him; and he treated them only through supplication to Allah.
* * *
As for His word: "and I inform you of what you eat," that means: and I inform you of what you eat, of what I did not see with my own eyes nor witness with you at the time you ate it — "and what you store up," by it He means: and what you put away and hide and do not eat.
He teaches them that among his proof of his prophethood — together with the miracles of which he informed them that he would come with them as proof of his prophethood and his truthfulness in his report that Allah has sent him to them: the fashioning of the bird out of clay, the healing of the one born blind and the leper, and the bringing of the dead to life by the permission of Allah, which none of mankind can perform except the one to whom Allah gave that as a sign of his truthfulness and as proof of the truth of his word, namely His prophets and messengers and whom He loves of His creation — is his report concerning the unseen, to which none of mankind whose way is like his way has access.
* * *
Abū Jaʿfar said: If someone were to say: And what was there in his word to them: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses" of proof of his truthfulness, while we see the astrologers and soothsayers often reporting something of that kind and getting it right?
Then it is answered: The astrologer and the soothsayer — with the one to whom they report that it is known that they announce it on the basis of a deduction of it by means of certain causes that lead to knowledge of it. And that was not so with ʿĪsā, the blessings of Allah be upon him, and with the rest of the prophets and messengers of Allah; ʿĪsā reported it precisely without deduction, and without his striving by cunning toward knowledge of it, but as an inception by the fact that Allah let him know it, without any prior basis that he followed, or upon which he built, or to which he resorted, as the astrologer resorts to his calculation and the soothsayer to his familiar spirit (raʾī). That, then, is the distinction between the knowledge of the prophets concerning the unseen and their reporting of it, and the knowledge of all the rest who tell lies about Allah, or who claim knowledge of it, as:
7099 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Salama related to us, on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq, who said: When ʿĪsā became nine or ten years old, or about so, his mother brought him to the writing-school, according to what they claim. He was with a man of the schoolmasters who taught him as the boys are taught, and this one would not teach him anything of what he taught the boys, but that ʿĪsā had already preceded him in the knowledge of it before he taught it to him; and he (the master) would say: "Do you not marvel at the son of this widow? I do not teach him anything but that I find him more knowledgeable in it than I am!"
7100 - Mūsā related to me, saying: ʿAmr related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: When ʿĪsā grew bigger, his mother handed him over to learn the Tawrāt, and he played with the boys, the boys of the village in which he was, and he told the boys what their fathers were doing.
7101 - Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm related to me, saying: Hushaym related to us, saying: Ismāʿīl ibn Sālim informed us, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr concerning His word: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses," he said: ʿĪsā ibn Maryam informed them, when he was at the writing-school, of what they ate in their houses and what they stored up.
7102 - al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Hushaym related to us, saying: Ismāʿīl ibn Sālim informed us, saying: I heard Saʿīd ibn Jubayr say: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses," he said: ʿĪsā ibn Maryam said to the boy at the writing-school: "O so-and-so, your family has hidden for you such-and-such food, will you then give me some of it to eat?"
* * *
Abū Jaʿfar said: Thus, then, did the prophets and their proofs act; they come only with those proofs to which one may sometimes attain through certain stratagems, in a manner other than the manner in which another comes with it — namely in the manner of which creation knows that one cannot attain to it by that path through a stratagem, except from the side of Allah.
* * *
And in agreement with what we said concerning the explanation of His word: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses" the exegetes have spoken.
Mention of who said that:
7103 - Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, on the authority of ʿĪsā, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid concerning the word of Allah: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses," he said: what you ate last evening and what you hid of it — ʿĪsā ibn Maryam says this.
7104 - al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Abū Ḥudhayfa related to us, saying: Shibl related to us, on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, the same.
7105 - al-Qāsim related to us, saying: al-Ḥusayn related to us, saying: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, who said: ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ said — namely concerning His word: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses" — he said: the food and the thing that they store up in their houses, a hidden matter that Allah made him know.
7106 - al-Muthannā related to me, saying: Isḥāq related to us, saying: Ibn Abī Jaʿfar related to us, on the authority of his father, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ concerning His word: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses," he said: "what you eat" is what you ate last evening of food, and what you hid of it.
7107 - Mūsā ibn Hārūn related to me, saying: ʿAmr related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, who said: He — namely ʿĪsā ibn Maryam — told the boys, while he was with them at the writing-school, what their fathers were doing, and what they put away for them, and what they ate. And he would say to the boy: "Go, for your family has put away for you such-and-such, and they eat such-and-such." Then the boy would go and weep, pressing his family until they gave him that thing. Then they would say to him: "Who informed you of this?" Then he would say: "ʿĪsā!" That, then, is the word of Allah, mighty and exalted: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses." Then they kept their boys away from him and said: "Do not play with this magician!" And they gathered them in a house. Then ʿĪsā came seeking them, and they said: "They are not here." He said: "What is in this house?" They said: "Swine." ʿĪsā said: "So shall they be, then!" Then they opened upon them, and behold, they were swine. That, then, is His word: عَلَى لِسَانِ دَاوُدَ وَعِيسَى ابْنِ مَرْيَمَ ("by the tongue of Dāwūd and ʿĪsā ibn Maryam") [Sūrat al-Māʾida: 78].
7108 - Muḥammad ibn Sinān related to me, saying: Abū Bakr al-Ḥanafī related to us, on the authority of ʿAbbād, on the authority of al-Ḥasan concerning His word: "and what you store up in your houses," he said: what you hide out of fear that the one who withholds [something] will not replace it.
* * *
And others said: by His word "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses" is meant only: what you eat of the table (al-māʾida) that descends upon you, and what you store up of it.
Mention of who said that:
7109 - Bishr ibn Muʿādh related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His word: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses": the people had, when they asked for the table — and it was a spread upon which, wherever they were, fruits of the fruits of paradise descended — been commanded not to be treacherous in it, and not to hide, and not to store up for the next day; a trial with which Allah tested them. Whenever they then did anything of that, ʿĪsā ibn Maryam would inform them of it, and he said: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses."
7110 - al-Ḥasan ibn Yaḥyā related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq informed us, saying: Maʿmar informed us, on the authority of Qatāda concerning His word: "and I inform you of what you eat and what you store up," he said: I inform you of what you eat of the table and what you store up of it. He said: it was imposed upon them concerning the table when it descended that they should eat and not store up; but they stored up and were treacherous, and they were turned into swine when they stored up and were treacherous. That, then, is His word: فَمَنْ يَكْفُرْ بَعْدُ مِنْكُمْ فَإِنِّي أُعَذِّبُهُ عَذَابًا لا أُعَذِّبُهُ أَحَدًا مِنَ الْعَالَمِينَ ("Whoever of you disbelieves after this, him I shall punish with a punishment with which I punish no one of the worlds") [Sūrat al-Māʾida: 115].
Ibn Yaḥyā said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq said: Maʿmar said, on the authority of Qatāda, on the authority of Khilās ibn ʿAmr, on the authority of ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir, the same.
* * *
And the origin of "yaddakhirūn" (they store up) is from "al-fiʿl," the form "yaftaʿilūn" from the word of the speaker: "dhakhartu al-shayʾa" (I stored up the thing) with the dhāl, "fa-anā adhkharuhu." Then it is said: "yaddakhiru," as it is said "yaddakiru" from "dhakartu al-shayʾa," by which is meant "yadhtakhiru." For when the dhāl and the tāʾ came together, which in their place of articulation are close to one another, the pronunciation of them became heavy on the tongue, so the one was assimilated into the other, and they were made into a doubled dāl; they made it a middle course between the dhāl and the tāʾ. And some of the Arabs let the dhāl prevail over the tāʾ, and then assimilate the tāʾ into the dhāl, and say: "wa-mā tadhdhakhirūn," and "wa-huwa mudhdhakhar laka," and "wa-huwa mudhdhakir."
And the linguistic form in which the recitation takes place is the first, namely the assimilation of the dhāl into the tāʾ and the changing of both into a doubled dāl. Recitation with anything else is not permissible, because of the overwhelming transmission of the reciters with it, and it is the most excellent linguistic form (al-jūdā), as Zuhayr said:
"Verily, the noble one is he who gives you his gift freely, and who is sometimes wronged and then bears the wrong (fa-yaẓẓalimu)."
It is transmitted "with the ẓāʾ," meaning: "fa-yaftaʿil" (the form yaftaʿil) of "al-ẓulm" (the wrong); and it is also transmitted "with the ṭāʾ."
* * *
Discussion of the explanation of His word: إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لآيَةً لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ مُؤْمِنِينَ ("Verily, in that is a sign for you, if you are believers") (3:49).
Abū Jaʿfar said: He, exalted is His praise, means by it: verily, in my fashioning of the bird out of clay by the permission of Allah, and in my healing of the one born blind and the leper, and my bringing the dead to life, and my informing you of what you eat and what you store up in your houses — as an inception, without calculation or astrology, and without soothsaying and prognostication — there lies truly a lesson for you and matter for reflection, over which you reflect and by which you draw the lesson that I am right in my word to you: "I am a messenger of your Lord to you," and by which you know that I am truthful in that to which I call you of the command and the prohibition of Allah — "if you are believers," that is to say: if you believe the proofs of Allah and His signs, acknowledge His oneness (tawḥīd), and [believe] in His prophet Mūsā and the Tawrāt which he brought you.
