Tabari (1 passage)

1. Full Dutch translation of Tabari's text

   The discourse on the explanation of His statement: يَا مَعْشَرَ الْجِنِّ وَالإِنْسِ أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ رُسُلٌ مِنْكُمْ يَقُصُّونَ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتِي وَيُنْذِرُونَكُمْ لِقَاءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَذَا (O company of jinn and mankind, did there not come to you messengers (rusul) from among yourselves, relating to you My signs and warning you of the meeting of this Day of yours?)

   Abū Jaʿfar said: This is a communication from Allah — exalted is His praise — about what He will say on the Day of Resurrection to those who ascribed partners to Him among the polytheists (mushrikīn) of mankind and the jinn. He communicates that He — exalted is His mention — will say to them on that Day: (O company of jinn and mankind, did there not come to you messengers from among yourselves, relating to you My signs), which means: who communicated to you what was revealed to them, namely My drawing your attention to the places of My proofs (ḥujaj), and My making known to you My indications of My oneness (tawḥīd), and the confirmation of My prophets, and acting according to My command, and abiding by My limits (ḥudūd) = (and warning you of the meeting of this Day of yours), which means: they warn you of the meeting with My punishment (ʿadhāb) on this Day of yours, and My retribution for your disobedience to Me, so that you would desist from acts of disobedience to Me. (41)

   This is from Allah — exalted is His praise — a rebuke and a reproach to these unbelievers (kuffār) for what they committed in the worldly life of depravity (fisq) and acts of disobedience. Its meaning is: messengers came to you from among yourselves, who drew your attention to the wrong in which you persisted, with conclusive proofs (ḥujaj), and who warned you of Allah's threat on account of your persistence in that in which you persisted; but you did not accept that, you took no lesson from it, and you did not allow yourselves to be admonished.

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   The people of explanation differed concerning "the jinn": was anyone from among them sent to them, or not?

   Some of them said: Messengers were sent to them, just as messengers from among themselves were sent to mankind.

   * Mention of who said that:

   13896- Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, he said: Yaḥyā ibn Wāḍiḥ related to us, he said: ʿUbayd ibn Sulaymān related to us, he said: al-Ḍaḥḥāk was asked about the jinn: was there among them a prophet before the Prophet ﷺ was sent? He said: Have you not heard the statement of Allah: (O company of jinn and mankind, did there not come to you messengers from among yourselves, relating to you My signs) — by which He means: messengers from mankind and messengers from the jinn? They said: Yes indeed!

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   Others said: No messenger from among themselves was sent to them, and He never had any sent messenger from the jinn; rather the messengers are exclusively from mankind, while as for the jinn there are only warners (nudhur). They said: Allah only said: (did there not come to you messengers from among yourselves), while the messengers are from one of the two groups — as He said: مَرَجَ الْبَحْرَيْنِ يَلْتَقِيَانِ [Surah Ar-Raḥmān: 19] (He let the two seas flow side by side, meeting one another), and then He said: يَخْرُجُ مِنْهُمَا اللُّؤْلُؤُ وَالْمَرْجَانُ [Surah Ar-Raḥmān: 22] (Out of both come forth pearls and coral) — while pearls and coral come forth only from the salt and not from the sweet of those two; its meaning is rather: there comes forth from a part of both, or from one of the two. (42) He said: And that is like the statement of someone about a group of houses: "There is truly evil in these houses," even though the evil is only in one of them; the statement is then made about all the houses, while what is meant by it is the statement about a part of them. And as one says: "I have eaten bread and milk," when those two have been mixed together; but if it were said: "I have eaten milk," then that statement would be wrong, for milk is drunk and not eaten.

   * Mention of who said that:

   13897- Al-Qāsim related to us, he said: al-Ḥusayn related to us, he said: Ḥajjāj related to me, on the authority of Ibn Jurayj, concerning His statement: (O company of jinn and mankind, did there not come to you messengers from among yourselves), he said: He joined them together, as His statement joins them together: وَمِنْ كُلٍّ تَأْكُلُونَ لَحْمًا طَرِيًّا وَتَسْتَخْرِجُونَ حِلْيَةً تَلْبَسُونَهَا [Surah Fāṭir: 12] (And from both you eat fresh flesh and extract ornaments that you wear), while from the rivers no ornament comes forth = Ibn Jurayj said: Ibn ʿAbbās said: They are the jinn who met their people, and they are messengers to their people.

   * * *

   According to this statement of Ibn ʿAbbās — that among the jinn there are messengers for mankind to their people — the explanation of the verse according to this explanation which Ibn ʿAbbās gave is thus: Did there not come to you, O jinn and mankind, messengers from among yourselves? As for the messengers of mankind: those are messengers of Allah to them. And as for the messengers of the jinn: those are messengers of the messengers of Allah from among the children of Ādam, and they are those who, when they heard the Qurʾān, turned to their people as warners. (43)

   * * *

   As for those who adhered to the statement of al-Ḍaḥḥāk: they said that Allah — exalted is His mention — has communicated that among the jinn there were messengers who were sent to them, just as He has communicated that among mankind there were messengers who were sent to them. They said: and if it were permissible that His communication about the messengers of the jinn be in the sense that they are messengers of mankind, then it would be permissible that His communication about the messengers of mankind be in the sense that they are messengers of the jinn. (44) They said: and in the absurdity of this sense lies that which indicates that both communications together have the sense of the communication about them that they are messengers of Allah, for that is what is known in the address and nothing else.

   * * *

   The discourse on the explanation of His statement: قَالُوا شَهِدْنَا عَلَى أَنْفُسِنَا وَغَرَّتْهُمُ الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا وَشَهِدُوا عَلَى أَنْفُسِهِمْ أَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا كَافِرِينَ (130) (They said: We bear witness against ourselves. And the worldly life deceived them, and they bore witness against themselves that they were unbelievers. (130))

   Abū Jaʿfar said: This is a communication from Allah — exalted is His praise — about the statement of the polytheists (mushrikīn) of the jinn and mankind, at the moment of His rebuke to them through His statement to them: أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ رُسُلٌ مِنْكُمْ يَقُصُّونَ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتِي وَيُنْذِرُونَكُمْ لِقَاءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَذَا (Did there not come to you messengers from among yourselves, relating to you My signs and warning you of the meeting of this Day of yours?) — namely that they say [illegible] (45) = (We bear witness against ourselves), namely: that Your messengers did indeed come to us with Your signs and warned us of the meeting of this Day of ours, but that we called them liars and rejected their message, and that we did not follow Your signs and did not believe in them.

   Allah said, as a newly begun communication: And these who set up the idols and the carved images as equals alongside Allah, as well as their allies among the jinn, were deceived (46) = (by the worldly life), by which is meant: the adornment of the worldly life, and the striving for leadership in it and the vying for it — [deceived away] from submitting to the command of Allah, so that they would obey His messengers therein; but they were arrogant and were a people who exalted themselves. He confined Himself to mentioning "the worldly life" instead of mentioning the [other] things that deceived and deluded them therein, since in mentioning it there was enough to make the mention of the rest superfluous, because the wording indicates what was omitted from being mentioned = Allah — exalted is His mention — says: (and they bore witness against themselves), by which is meant: these who ascribed partners to Him, on the Day of Resurrection = that they were, in the worldly life, unbelievers in Him and in His messengers, so that Allah's proof (ḥujja) against them would be complete through their acknowledgment against themselves of that which makes His punishment and His painful torment (ʿadhāb) over them necessary.

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   Show original Arabic

   القول في تأويل قوله : يَا مَعْشَرَ الْجِنِّ وَالإِنْسِ أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ رُسُلٌ مِنْكُمْ يَقُصُّونَ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتِي وَيُنْذِرُونَكُمْ لِقَاءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَذَا قال أبو جعفر: وهذا خبر من الله جل ثناؤه عما هو قائل يوم القيامة لهؤلاء العادلين به من مشركي الإنس والجن, يخبر أنه يقول لهم تعالى ذكره يومئذ: (يا معشر الجن والإنس ألم يأتكم رسل منكم يقصون عليكم آياتي)، يقول: يخبرونكم بما أوحي إليهم من تنبيهي إياكم على مواضع حججي، وتعريفي لكم أدلّتي على توحيدي, وتصديق أنبيائي, والعمل بأمري، والانتهاء إلى حدودي =(وينذرونكم لقاء يومكم هذا)، يقول: يحذّرونكم لقاء عذابي في يومكم هذا، وعقابي على معصيتكم إيّاي, فتنتهوا عن معاصيَّ . (41) وهذا من الله جل ثناؤه تقريع وتوبيخ لهؤلاء الكفرة على ما سلف منهم في الدنيا من الفسوق والمعاصي. ومعناه: قد أتاكم رسلٌ منكم ينبِّهونكم على خطأ ما كنتم عليه مقيمين بالحجج البالغة، وينذرونكم وعيدَ الله على مقامكم على ما كنتم عليه مقيمين, فلم تقبلوا ذلك، ولم تتذكروا ولم تعتبروا . * * * واختلف أهل التأويل في" الجن ", هل أرسل منهم إليهم، أم لا؟ فقال بعضهم: قد أرسل إليهم رسل، كما أرسل إلى الإنس منهم رسلٌ . * ذكر من قال ذلك: 13896- حدثنا ابن حميد قال، حدثنا يحيى بن واضح قال، حدثنا عبيد بن سليمان قال، سئل الضحاك عن الجن، هل كان فيهم نبيّ قبل أن يُبْعث النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم؟ فقال: ألم تسمع إلى قول الله: (يا معشر الجن والإنس ألم يأتكم رسل منكم يقصُّون عليكم آياتي)، يعني بذلك: رسلا من الإنس ورسلا من الجن؟ فقالوا: بلَى! * * * وقال آخرون: لم يرسل منهم إليهم رسولٌ, ولم يكن له من الجنّ قطٌّ رسول مرسل, وإنما الرسل من الإنس خاصَّة ، فأما من الجن فالنُّذُر . قالوا: وإنما قال الله: (ألم يأتكم رسل منكم)، والرسل من أحد الفريقين, كما قال: مَرَجَ الْبَحْرَيْنِ يَلْتَقِيَانِ ، [سورة الرحمن: 19]، ثم قال: يَخْرُجُ مِنْهُمَا اللُّؤْلُؤُ وَالْمَرْجَانُ ، [سورة الرحمن: 22]، وإنما يخرج اللؤلؤ والمرجان من الملح دون العذب منهما، وإنما معنى ذلك: يخرج من بعضهما، أو من أحدهما . (42) قال: وذلك كقول القائل لجماعة أدؤُرٍ: " إن في هذه الدُّور لشرًّا ", وإن كان الشر في واحدة منهن, فيخرج الخبر عن جميعهن، والمراد به الخبر عن بعضهن, وكما يقال: " أكلت خبزًا ولبنًا "، إذا اختلطا، ولو قيل: " أكلت لبنًا ", كان الكلام خطأً, لأن اللبن يشرب ولا يؤكل . * ذكر من قال ذلك: 13897- حدثنا القاسم قال، حدثنا الحسين قال، حدثني حجاج, عن ابن جريج قوله: (يا معشر الجن والإنس ألم يأتكم رسل منكم)، قال: جمعهم كما جمع قوله: وَمِنْ كُلٍّ تَأْكُلُونَ لَحْمًا طَرِيًّا وَتَسْتَخْرِجُونَ حِلْيَةً تَلْبَسُونَهَا ، [سورة فاطر: 12]، ولا يخرج من الأنهار حلية = قال ابن جريج ، قال ابن عباس: هم الجن لقُوا قومهم, وهم رسل إلى قومهم . * * * فعلى قول ابن عباس هذا, أنّ من الجنّ رسلا للإنس إلى قومهم = فتأويل الآية على هذا التأويل الذي تأوَّله ابن عباس: ألم يأتكم، أيها الجن والإنس، رسل منكم، فأما رسل الإنس فرسل من الله إليهم، وأما رسل الجن فرسُل رُسُل الله من بني آدم, وهم الذين إذا سَمِعوا القرآنَ وَلّوا إلى قومهم منذرين . (43) * * * وأما الذين قالوا بقول الضحاك, فإنهم قالوا: إن الله تعالى ذكره أخبرَ أنّ من الجن رسلا أرسلوا إليهم, كما أخبر أن من الإنس رسلا أرسلوا إليهم . قالوا: ولو جاز أن يكون خبرُه عن رسل الجن بمعنى أنهم رسل الإنس, جاز أن يكون خبره عن رسل الإنس بمعنى أنهم رُسُل الجنّ . (44) قالوا: وفي فساد هذا المعنى ما يدلُّ على أن الخبرين جميعًا بمعنى الخبر عنهم أنهم رُسُل الله, لأن ذلك هو المعروف في الخطاب دون غيره . * * * القول في تأويل قوله : قَالُوا شَهِدْنَا عَلَى أَنْفُسِنَا وَغَرَّتْهُمُ الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا وَشَهِدُوا عَلَى أَنْفُسِهِمْ أَنَّهُمْ كَانُوا كَافِرِينَ (130) قال أبو جعفر: وهذا خبر من الله جل ثناؤه عن قول مشركي الجن والإنس عند تقريعه إياهم بقوله لهم: أَلَمْ يَأْتِكُمْ رُسُلٌ مِنْكُمْ يَقُصُّونَ عَلَيْكُمْ آيَاتِي وَيُنْذِرُونَكُمْ لِقَاءَ يَوْمِكُمْ هَذَا ، أنهم يقولونه ................ (45) =(شهدنا على أنفسنا)، بأن رسلك قد أتتنا بآياتك, وأنذرتنا لقاء يومنا هذا, فكذبناها وجحدنا رسالتها, ولم نتبع آياتك ولم نؤمن بها . قال الله خبرًا مبتدأ: وغَرَّت هؤلاء العادلين بالله الأوثان والأصنام، وأولياءَهم من الجن (46) =(الحياة الدنيا)، يعني: زينة الحياة الدنيا، وطلبُ الرياسة فيها والمنافسة عليها, أن يسلموا لأمر الله فيطيعوا فيها رسله, فاستكبروا وكانوا قومًا عالين . فاكتفى بذكر " الحياة الدنيا " من ذكر المعاني التي غرَّتهم وخدَعتهم فيها, إذ كان في ذكرها مكتفًى عن ذكر غيرها، لدلالة الكلام على ما تُرك ذكره = يقول الله تعالى ذكره: (وشهدوا على أنفسهم)، يعني: هؤلاء العادلين به يوم القيامة = أنهم كانوا في الدنيا كافرين به وبرسله, لتتم حجَّة الله عليهم بإقرارهم على أنفسهم بما يوجب عليهم عقوبته وأليمَ عذابه . * * * ------------------- الهوامش : (41) انظر تفسير (( الإنذار )) فيما سلف من فهارس اللغة ( نذر ) . (42) هذه مقالة الفراء ، انظر معاني القرآن 1 : 354 ، وظاهر أن الذي بعده من كلام الفراء أيضا من موضع آخر غير هذا الموضع . (43) اقرأ آيات سورة الأحقاف : 29 - 32 . (44) يعني بهذا أن المنذرين الذين ذهبوا إلى قومهم ، لو جاز أن يسموا (( رسلا )) أرسلهم الإنس إلى الجن ، جاز أن يسمى (( رسل الإنس )) = وهم رسل الله إلى الإنس والجن = (( رسل الجن )) ، أرسلهم الجن إلى الإنس . وهذا ظاهر البطلان . (45) في المطبوعة : (( أنهم يقولون : شهدنا على أنفسنا )) ، وصل الكلام ، وفي المخطوطة بياض ، جعلت مكانه هذه النقط ، وأمام البياض في المخطوطة حرف ( ط ) دلالة على أنه خطأ ، وأنه كان هكذا في النسخة التي نقل عنها . (46) انظر تفسير (( الغرور )) فيما سلف ص : 56 ، تعليق : 2 ، والمراجع هناك .