Tafseer of The Heights · Al-A'raaf · 7:57
And it is He who sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy until, when they have carried heavy rainclouds, We drive them to a dead land and We send down rain therein and bring forth thereby [some] of all the fruits. Thus will We bring forth the dead; perhaps you may be reminded.
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 discourse on the explanation of His saying: وَهُوَ الَّذِي يُرْسِلُ الرِّيَاحَ بُشْرًا بَيْنَ يَدَيْ رَحْمَتِهِ حَتَّى إِذَا أَقَلَّتْ سَحَابًا ثِقَالا سُقْنَاهُ لِبَلَدٍ مَيِّتٍ فَأَنْزَلْنَا بِهِ الْمَاءَ فَأَخْرَجْنَا بِهِ مِنْ كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ كَذَلِكَ نُخْرِجُ الْمَوْتَى لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ (7:57) (And He it is who sends the winds as bearers of good tidings before His mercy, until, when they bear heavy clouds, We drive them to a dead land, and We send down water thereby, and We bring forth thereby all kinds of fruits. Thus do We bring forth the dead; that you may take admonition.)
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, whose praise is sublime, says: Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars, subjected to His command. He it is who sends the winds, scattered (nashran), before His mercy.
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And "al-nashr", with fatḥa on the "nūn" and sukūn on the "shīn", means in the language of the Arabs, with respect to the winds, the pleasant, softly blowing winds that cause the clouds to form. Likewise, with them every pleasant wind is "nashr". To this belongs the verse of Imruʾ al-Qays:
It is as though the wine, and the downpour of the rain cloud, and the scent of the lavender, and the scent of the incense (qutur)...
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According to this reading, most of the readers of Kūfa read it, except ʿĀṣim ibn Abī al-Najūd, for he used to read it as "bushran", concerning which there is disagreement about him in this matter.
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Some related this from him as (بُشْرًا), with the "bāʾ" and a ḍamma upon it, and sukūn on the "shīn".
And some with the "bāʾ" and a ḍamma upon it and a ḍamma on the "shīn".
And he used to explain his reading in this way on the basis of His saying: وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنْ يُرْسِلَ الرِّيَاحَ مُبَشِّرَاتٍ [Surah Al-Rūm: 46] (And among His signs is that He sends the winds as bearers of good tidings), which bring good tidings of the rain; and that it is a plural of "bashīr" (herald) who brings good tidings of the rain, contracted to "bushuran", just as "al-nadhīr" (warner) is contracted to "nudhuran".
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As for the readers of Medina and most of the Meccans and Basrans: they read this as (وَهُوَ الَّذِي يُرْسِل الرِّيَاحَ نُشُرَا), with ḍamma on the "nūn" and the "shīn", in the meaning of the plural of "nashūr", plural of "nashran", just as "al-ṣabūr" is contracted to "ṣuburan" and "al-shakūr" to "shukuran".
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And some of the scholars of the language of the Arabs used to say: its meaning, when it is read in this way, is that it is the wind that blows from all directions and comes from all quarters.
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And some used to say: when it is read with ḍamma on the nūn, then its shīn ought to take a sukūn, for that is a dialect with the meaning of "al-nashr" with fatḥa. And he said: the Arabs sometimes place a ḍamma on the nūn of "al-nushr", and sometimes a fatḥa, with one and the same meaning. He said: the differences among the readers in this matter are according to the differences in their dialects therein. And he used to say: it is like "al-khasf" and "al-khusf", with fatḥa on the khāʾ and with ḍamma.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And the correct judgment concerning this is that one says: the reading of the one who read it as (نَشْرًا) and (نُشُرًا), with fatḥa on the "nūn" and sukūn on the "shīn", and with ḍamma on the "nūn" and the "shīn", are two readings that are well known among the readers of the cities.
... ... .... ...... ..... ..... ...... ...... ...... ..... ..... ... ... ...... ..... ..... ... ... [illegible; textual lacuna].
So I do not like reading with it, even though it has a correct meaning and a comprehensible explanation as regards meaning and grammar, for the reason that we have mentioned.
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As for His saying: "before His mercy" (bayna yaday raḥmatihi), He says: in front of His mercy and before it.
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And the Arabs say thus of everything that takes place in front of something and before it: "it came before him" (jāʾa bayna yadayhi), for that belongs to their speech which occurred in their reports about the children of Adam, and its usage became frequent among them, until they said that also about what is not a child of Adam and what has no hand.
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And "the mercy" (al-raḥma) which He, whose praise is sublime, mentioned in this place, is the rain.
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The meaning of the saying, then, is: and Allah is He who sends the winds, gentle in their blowing, pleasant in their breeze, before His rain which He drives thereby to His creatures, and causes heavy clouds to form thereby, until, when they bear these — and "al-iqlāl" with them is the bearing of them, as one says: "the camel bore its load up (istaqalla al-baʿīr bi-ḥimlihi)" and "he bore it (aqallahu)", when he bore it and rose with it — Allah drove it to give life to a dead land, whose fields had fallen into ruin, whose watering places were effaced and whose inhabitants were stricken by drought, and He sent down the rain thereby and brought forth thereby all kinds of fruits.
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And in accordance with what we have said concerning this, spoke the scholars of interpretation (ahl al-taʾwīl).
* Mention of who said that:
14782 - Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to me, saying: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī: "And He it is who sends the winds scattered before His mercy", up to His saying: "that you may take admonition", he said: Indeed, Allah sends the wind, and it brings the cloud from between the two horizons, the edge of heaven and earth where they meet, and He brings it forth from there, and then spreads it out and unfurls it in the heaven as He wills, and then opens the gates of the heaven, and the water flows upon the cloud, and then the cloud rains thereafter. And as for "His mercy", that is the rain.
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As for His saying: "Thus do We bring forth the dead; that you may take admonition", He, the Exalted whose praise is sublime, says: just as We give life to this dead land by the water that We send down upon it, which We send down from the cloud, and bring forth thereby the fruits after its death, its drought and the barrenness among its inhabitants, thus do We bring forth the dead living from their graves after their decay and the effacement of their traces — "that you may take admonition". The Exalted, whose praise is sublime, says to the polytheists (mushrikīn) who ascribe partners to Him, the idol-worshippers, who deny the resurrection after death and who reject reward and punishment: I have set forth for you, O people, this similitude which I have mentioned to you: the giving of life to the dead land by the rainfall which the cloud brings, which the winds scatter whose quality I have described, that you may take a lesson and be admonished and know that the One who has that within His power, the giving of life to the dead after their decay is easy for Him within His power, and the bringing of them back as a well-formed creation after their effacement.
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And in accordance with what we have said concerning this, spoke the scholars of interpretation.
* Mention of who said that:
14783 - Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn related to me, saying: Aḥmad ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us, saying: Asbāṭ related to us, on the authority of al-Suddī, concerning his saying: "Thus do We bring forth the dead; that you may take admonition", and thus shall you be brought forth, and thus is the resurrection, just as We bring forth the vegetation by the water.
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14784 - And Abū Hurayra said: Indeed, when the people have died at the first blast of the trumpet, water is rained down upon them for forty years from beneath the Throne, which is called "the water of life" (māʾ al-ḥayawān), and they grow just as the vegetation grows from the water. Until, when their bodies are complete, the spirit is breathed into them, and then a slumber is laid upon them, so that they sleep in their graves. And when the trumpet is blown for the second time, they come to life, finding the taste of sleep in their heads and their eyes, as the sleeper finds when he awakens from his sleep. Then they say: يَا وَيْلَنَا مَنْ بَعَثَنَا مِنْ مَرْقَدِنَا (O woe to us! Who has raised us up from our sleeping place?), whereupon the herald calls out to them: هَذَا مَا وَعَدَ الرَّحْمَنُ وَصَدَقَ الْمُرْسَلُونَ [Surah Yā Sīn: 52] (This is what the Most Merciful promised, and the messengers spoke the truth).
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14785 - 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 the saying of Allah: "Thus do We bring forth the dead", he said: When Allah wishes to bring forth the dead, He causes the heaven to rain until the earth splits open above them, and then He sends the spirits, and every spirit returns to its body. Thus does Allah give life to the dead by the rain, just as He gives life to the earth.
