Tafseer of The Mount · At-Tur · 52:30
Or do they say [of you], "A poet for whom we await a misfortune of time?"
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.
And His word: ( أَمْ يَقُولُونَ شَاعِرٌ نَتَرَبَّصُ بِهِ رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("Or do they say: 'A poet, for whom we await the vicissitudes of fate'?"). He, exalted is His praise, says: nay, the polytheists (mushrikīn) say, O Muḥammad, concerning you: he is a poet, we await for him the calamities of time, which will relieve us of him through a death or a destructive disaster.
And in accordance with what we have said about this, the exegetes have spoken, even though their wordings concerning it differed. Some said about it as we have said. And some said: it is death.
Mention of those who said: by His word ( رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("the vicissitudes of fate") the calamities of time are meant:
Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us; and al-Ḥārith related to me, saying: al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: Warqāʾ related to us, all on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, concerning His word: ( رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("the vicissitudes of fate"), he said: the calamities of time.
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Mihrān related to us, on the authority of Sufyān, he said: Mujāhid said: ( رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("the vicissitudes of fate"): the calamities of time.
Mention of those who said: by it death is meant:
ʿAlī related to me, saying: Abū Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiyah related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word: ( رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("the vicissitudes of fate"), he says: death.
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd related to me, saying: my father related to me, saying: my uncle related to me, saying: my father related to me, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word: ( نَتَرَبَّصُ بِهِ رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("we await for him the vicissitudes of fate"), he said: they await death for him.
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatādah, concerning His word: ( أَمْ يَقُولُونَ شَاعِرٌ نَتَرَبَّصُ بِهِ رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("Or do they say: 'A poet, for whom we await the vicissitudes of fate'?"), he said: this is what some people said: await for Muḥammad, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the death that will relieve you of him, just as the poet of such-and-such a tribe and the poet of such-and-such a tribe relieved you of him.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us, saying: Ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatādah, concerning His word: ( رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("the vicissitudes of fate"), he said: it is death; we await death for him, just as the poet of such-and-such a tribe and the poet of such-and-such a tribe died.
And Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā al-Umawī related to me, saying: my father related to me, saying: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq related to us, on the authority of ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, that the Quraysh, when they gathered in the Dār al-Nadwah (assembly house) concerning the affair of the Prophet ﷺ, one of them said: bind him in fetters, then await for him fate until he perishes just as the poets before him perished, Zuhayr and al-Nābighah; for he is but like one of them. Then Allah revealed concerning that, concerning their words: ( أَمْ يَقُولُونَ شَاعِرٌ نَتَرَبَّصُ بِهِ رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("Or do they say: 'A poet, for whom we await the vicissitudes of fate'?").
Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said concerning His word: ( نَتَرَبَّصُ بِهِ رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("we await for him the vicissitudes of fate"): death. And the poet said:
"Await for her the vicissitudes of fate, perhaps / her husband will perish before her, or she will be set free (divorced)."
And others said: the meaning of that is: the vicissitudes of the worldly life; and they said: al-manūn is death.
* Mention of those who said that:
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Mihrān related to us, on the authority of Abū Sinān: ( رَيْبَ الْمَنُونِ ) ("the vicissitudes of fate"), he said: the vicissitudes of the worldly life, and al-manūn is death.
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Footnotes:
(5) We have placed the word "tusarraḥu" (she is divorced) in the rhyme of the verse in place of "shaḥīḥ", which had crept into the original by mistake, whereby the meaning and the metre of the verse were disrupted. Moreover, the transmission of the whole second hemistich in the Lisān [al-ʿArab]: entry "rabaṣa". And in the tafsīr of al-Shawkānī (5:96), in al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ of Abū Ḥayyān (8:151), and in [the tafsīr of] al-Qurṭubī (17:72) it differs from the author's transmission. It reads:
* "one day she is divorced, or her bedfellow (husband) dies" *
And al-sarāḥ and al-tasrīḥ mean: the divorce (ṭalāq), and in the Revelation [it stands]: "then release them in a comely manner (fa-sarriḥūhunna sarāḥan jamīlan)". And the meaning of al-tarabbuṣ is: the awaiting. And "tarabbaṣa bihi" means: he awaited something good or bad for him. And "tarabbaṣa bihi al-shayʾa": likewise. And al-Farrāʾ said in Maʿānī al-Qurʾān (folio 314): "natarabbaṣu bihi rayba al-manūn": the torments of time, so that he may be diverted away from you and his companions may disperse; or the lifespan of his forefathers, for we have already come to know their life-spans. End of quotation.
