Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:42
And We have already sent [messengers] to nations before you, [O Muhammad]; then We seized them with poverty and hardship that perhaps they might humble themselves [to Us].
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.
The exegesis of His word: وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا إِلَى أُمَمٍ مِنْ قَبْلِكَ فَأَخَذْنَاهُمْ بِالْبَأْسَاءِ وَالضَّرَّاءِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَضَرَّعُونَ (42) ("And We had certainly sent [messengers] to communities before you, and We seized them with adversity and hardship, that they might humble themselves") (6:42).
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose praise is exalted, says — threatening these who set up the idols as equals with Him, and warning them that He will, if they persist in their error, deal with them in the manner of those before them of the communities who trod their path, in Allah's hastening of His punishment upon them in the life of this world, and informing His prophet of His fixed practice (sunna) toward the communities that passed away before them upon their path in denying the messengers —: "We had certainly sent," O Muḥammad, "to communities (umam)," by which is meant: to groups and generations — "before you, and We seized them with adversity," He says: We commanded them and forbade them, but they denied Our messengers and went against Our command and Our prohibition, so We tried them with the trial — "with adversity (al-baʾsāʾ)," and that is the burden of poverty and the straitness in livelihood — "and hardship (al-ḍarrāʾ)," and those are the maladies and afflictions that befall the bodies.
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And we have already expounded that, with its evidences and the modes of its grammatical parsing, in "Sūrat al-Baqara," in a manner that absolves us from repeating it in this place.
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And His word "that they might humble themselves," He says: We did that to them so that they might humble themselves toward Me, devote worship purely to Me, and direct their longing to Me alone and to none other, by abasing themselves before Me in obedience and surrendering to Me in penitent turning (ināba).
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And in the wording there is an ellipsis, where one has been content with what the literal text indicates, without uttering it, namely in His word: "And We had certainly sent to communities before you, and We seized them." For the cause of His seizing them was only their denial of the messengers and their opposition to His command — not the sending of the messengers to them. And since that is so, it is known that the meaning of the wording is: "And We had certainly sent to communities before you" messengers, but they denied them, "so We seized them with adversity."
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And "humbling oneself (al-taḍarruʿ)" is the form "tafaʿʿul" from "al-ḍarāʿa," and that is submissiveness and humility.
