The Prophets (Al-Anbiya’)
Verses 55-58 GROUP_803 21.55-58
55
قَالُوا أَجِئْتَنَا بِالْحَقِّ أَمْ أَنتَ مِنَ اللَّاعِبِينَ
They said, ‘Have you brought us the truth or are you jesting?’
56
قَالَ بَل رَّبُّكُمْ رَبُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ الَّذِي فَطَرَهُنَّ وَأَنَا عَلَى ذَلِكُم مِّنَ الشَّاهِدِينَ
Abraham replied, ‘Your Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, who created them, and I bear witness to that.
57
وَتَاللَّهِ لَأَكِيدَنَّ أَصْنَامَكُم بَعْدَ أَن تُوَلُّوا مُدْبِرِينَ
By the Lord, I will devise a plan against your deities after you have gone away and turned your backs!’
58
فَجَعَلَهُمْ جُذَاذًا إِلَّا كَبِيرًا لَّهُمْ لَعَلَّهُمْ إِلَيْهِ يَرْجِعُونَ
He broke them all into pieces, except for the biggest one of them, so that they might return to it [for enquiry].
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Commentary
(a) During Abraham’s period, people’s minds were in the grip of polytheistic ideas, so much so that in the beginning they took Abraham’s criticism to be frivolous. Therefore, they asked him whether his utterances had been well thought out, or whether he was mouthing words out of sheer frivolity. Abraham said that the fact that they considered matters of the greatest importance as frivolous was further proof of their ignorance. The truth is that the entire earth and the heavens bear testimony to the word of God. The next day, in an act of extraordinary courage, he broke down their deities. In this way, Abraham proved in practice what he had been saying in theory, namely, that the deities were absolutely worthless.