The Night Journey (Al-Isra’)
Verses 89-93 GROUP_658 17.89-93
89
وَلَقَدْ صَرَّفْنَا لِلنَّاسِ فِي هَـذَا الْقُرْآنِ مِن كُلِّ مَثَلٍ فَأَبَى أَكْثَرُ النَّاسِ إِلاَّ كُفُورًا
In this Quran, We have set out all kinds of examples for people, yet most of them persist in denying the truth.
90
وَقَالُواْ لَن نُّؤْمِنَ لَكَ حَتَّى تَفْجُرَ لَنَا مِنَ الأَرْضِ يَنبُوعًا
They declare, ‘We will never believe in you until you cause a spring to flow for us from the earth;
91
أَوْ تَكُونَ لَكَ جَنَّةٌ مِّن نَّخِيلٍ وَعِنَبٍ فَتُفَجِّرَ الأَنْهَارَ خِلالَهَا تَفْجِيرًا
or you have a garden of date palms and vines, and cause streams to flow plentifully in the midst of them;
92
أَوْ تُسْقِطَ السَّمَاء كَمَا زَعَمْتَ عَلَيْنَا كِسَفًا أَوْ تَأْتِيَ بِاللّهِ وَالْمَلآئِكَةِ قَبِيلاً
or you cause the heavens to fall down on us in pieces, as you have claimed; or you bring God and the angels before us face to face;
93
أَوْ يَكُونَ لَكَ بَيْتٌ مِّن زُخْرُفٍ أَوْ تَرْقَى فِي السَّمَاء وَلَن نُّؤْمِنَ لِرُقِيِّكَ حَتَّى تُنَزِّلَ عَلَيْنَا كِتَابًا نَّقْرَؤُهُ قُلْ سُبْحَانَ رَبِّي هَلْ كُنتُ إَلاَّ بَشَرًا رَّسُولاً
or you have a house made of gold; or you ascend to heaven; and we will not believe in your ascension until you send down to us a Book that we can read.’ Tell them, ‘Holy is my Lord. I am but a human being sent as a messenger.’
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Commentary
(a) When the Prophet Muhammad called to the Truth, his contemporaries said that they would believe in him only if he could perform miracles for them. But all such demands go against the divine plan of creation. God has created man as a conscious being and throughout the entire universe, this consciousness is a unique phenomenon—a gift by which man may recognise the truth by his own powers of reasoning, rather than wait to be convinced by miracles. The truth is that in the present world man is being tested at the level of argument. Here, everyone has to recognise truth in the language of reasoning and argument and adopt it as such. Those who cannot recognize truth in this way are the ones who will be failures.