Tafsir of Surah Hood - Verse 93

Shu` ayb's threatening of His People When the Prophet of Allah,Shu` ayb, despaired of their response to him, he said, "O mypeople

اعْمَلُواْ عَلَى مَكَانَتِكُمْ

(Act according to your ability,) This means, "Act according to your current ways." This is actually a severe threat.

إِنِّى عَـمِلٌ

(I am acting.) according to my way.

سَوْفَ تَعْلَمُونَ مَن يَأْتِيهِ عَذَابٌ يُخْزِيهِ وَمَنْ هُوَ كَاذِبٌ

(You will come to know who it is on whom descends the torment that will cover him with ignominy, and who is a liar!) meaning, between me and you.

وَارْتَقِبُواْ

(And watch you!) This means to wait.

إِنِّى مَعَكُمْ رَقِيبٌ

(I too am watching with you.) Allah then says,

وَلَمَّا جَآءَ أَمْرُنَا نَجَّيْنَا شُعَيْبًا وَالَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مَعَهُ بِرَحْمَةٍ مِّنَّا وَأَخَذَتِ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُواْ الصَّيْحَةُ فَأَصْبَحُواْ فِى دِيَـرِهِمْ جَـثِمِينَ

(And when Our commandment came, We saved Shu`ayb and those who believed with him by a mercy from Us. And As-Sayhah (awful cry) seized the wrongdoers, and they lay (Jathimin) in their homes.) His saying Jathimin means extinct and lifeless without any movement. Here Allah mentions that a loud cry (Sayhah) came to them. In Surat Al-A`raf He says a severe quake (Rajfah) came to them. In Surat Ash-Shu`ara', He said it was a torment of a cloudy day. They were one nation upon which all of these punishments were gathered on the day of their destruction. In each context, Allah only mentioned that which was suitable. In Surat Al-A`raf when they said,

لَنُخْرِجَنَّكَ يـشُعَيْبُ وَالَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مَعَكَ مِن قَرْيَتِنَآ

(We shall certainly drive you out, O Shu`ayb, and those who have believed with you from our town.)7:88 In this verse it was suitable to mention a tremor, or quake (Rajfah). The earth in which they practiced their wrongdoing and they wanted to expel their Prophet from it, shook them. Here, due to their disrespectful manners in speaking to their Prophet, Allah mentioned the awful cry (Sayhah) which overcame them and killed them. In Surat Ash-Shu`ara' when they said,

فَأَسْقِطْ عَلَيْنَا كِسَفاً مِّنَ السَّمَآءِ إِن كُنتَ مِنَ الصَّـدِقِينَ

(So cause a piece of the heaven to fall on us, if you are of the truthful!)26:187 Allah said in response,

فَأَخَذَهُمْ عَذَابُ يَوْمِ الظُّلَّةِ إِنَّهُ كَانَ عَذَابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ

(So the torment of the day of Shadow seized them. Indeed that was the torment of a Great Day.)26:189 This is from the intricate secrets and to Allah belongs all praise and much bounty forever. Concerning the statement,

كَأَن لَّمْ يَغْنَوْاْ فِيهَآ

(As if they had never lived there!) This means it was as if they had not lived in their homes before that.

أَلاَ بُعْدًا لِّمَدْيَنَ كَمَا بَعِدَتْ ثَمُودُ

(So away with Madyan as just as Thamud went away!) They (Thamud) were their neighbors and they did not live far from the homes of the people of Madyan. They were similar in their disbelief and their highway robbery. They were also both Arabs.

After having given this good counsel to them, he warned them of the punishment of Allah Ta` ala. He said:

وَيَا قَوْمِ لَا يَجْرِ‌مَنَّكُمْ شِقَاقِي أَن يُصِيبَكُم مِّثْلُ مَا أَصَابَ قَوْمَ نُوحٍ أَوْ قَوْمَ هُودٍ أَوْ قَوْمَ صَالِحٍ ۚ وَمَا قَوْمُ لُوطٍ مِّنكُم بِبَعِيدٍ

And 0 my people, let not your hostility towards me cause you to suffer what was suffered by the people of Nuh, or the people of Hud, or the people of Salih. And the people of Lut are not far from you.

The sense of the last sentence is that the overturned habitations of the people of Sayyidna Lut (علیہ السلام) were close to Madyan where they were. Then, in terms of time, the punishment that came upon them was very close. From this they could learn their lesson and leave their obstinacy.

Hearing this, his people were enraged. They said that had it not been for the support he had from his clan, they would have stoned him to death. Despite this threat, Sayyidna Shu'aib (علیہ السلام) true to his mettle as a prophet, did not hesitate to tell them that they feared his clan all right, but would have no fear of Allah who holds everything in His power.

Finally, when his people did not listen to anything said to them, Sayyidna Shu'aib (علیہ السلام) told them that they could now wait for the punishment. After that, Allah Ta ala took out Sayyidna Shu'aib (علیہ السلام) and those who had believed in him, as is the Divine practice, from that habitation and the rest of them were destroyed instantly at the harsh Cry of Sayyidna Jibra'il (علیہ السلام) .

Injunctions and Rulings:

Rules about Lessening of Weights and Measures

One of the reasons why punishment fell on the people of Sayyidna Shu'aib (علیہ السلام) was their practice of weighing and measuring less than due - called tatfif. The Holy Qur'an has described the severe punishment for those who do that in Surah al-Mutaffifin which opens with the verse: وَيْلٌ لِّلْمُطَفِّفِينَ (Woe to those who give less - 83:1). There is a consensus of the entire Muslim Ummah that doing so is strictly Haram (unlawful). Quoting a saying of Sayyidna ` Umar ؓ ، Imam Malik has said in Mu'atta' that weighing and measuring less essentially means that someone does not fulfill the right of another person due on him, fully and duly. In fact, makes it less, whether it happens to be something given by weight, or measure, or something of another kind. If an employee falls short in performing his or her assigned duty, or an office worker, or a laborer cuts his working hours short, or fails to fulfill his job assignment as due, then, they all will be counted in this cat-egory. Anyone who does not perform his or her Salah with due consideration of everything obligatory and mash En in it has also committed the crime of this ` tatfif.' May Allah keep all of us protected from it!

Ruling

It appears in Tafsir al-Qurtubi that the people of Sayyidna Shu'aib (علیہ السلام) would save gold and silver by trimming the edges of gold and silver coins, like dinar and dirham, circulating in the country as official currency, and which they would channel back into circulation at par value. Sayyidna Shu'aib (علیہ السلام) prohibited them from doing so.

In Hadith as well, the Holy Prophet ﷺ has declared the chipping of the coins of an Islamic state to be Haram (unlawful). Tafsir authority, Zayd ibn Aslam has said exactly this while explaining the

verse of the Qur'an: تِسْعَةُ رَ‌هْطٍ يُفْسِدُونَ فِي الْأَرْ‌ضِ وَلَا يُصْلِحُونَ ; (nine family heads spreading corruption in the land and not correcting [ their ways ] - 27:48). He says that these people of the city mentioned in the verse used to chip off gold and silver from dinar and dirham coins and ran a profitable business of their own through this source - something the Qur'an calls a great corruption.

During the Khilafah of Sayyidna ` Umar ibn ` Abd al-` Aziz (رح) ، someone was arrested while he was cutting a dirham coin. He was awarded a punishment of lashes and was paraded around head shaved. (Tafsir al Qurtubi)

The people of Shu‘ayb’s community considered themselves Lords of Midian, taking things which had been given to them for the purpose of putting them to the test as their inalienable right. With all this in mind, they planned aggressive measures against Shu‘ayb. They even threatened to banish him and his companions from their land ( 7:88 ). But in the land which they considered their very own and of which they had become landlords, a terrible earthquake with horrifying tremors erupted at God’s behest; as a result of which, the whole region was destroyed. They were annihilated in their own domain, as if they had never existed. However, those members of the community who had accepted Shu‘ayb’s word, and had become his companions, were saved by special divine intervention.