Ad-Dukhaan (The Smoke)

29. And the heavens and the earth wept not for them, nor were they given a respite.

All creation is harmonious through Divine will. Giving respites to man has certain prerequisites but at times man is so immersed in sin that he will not be given a respite;

(“nor were they given a respite”).

The blessed Verse is saying that neither the heaven nor the earth wept for the drowning of Pharaoh and the Copts.

It indicates his lawlessness despite his false claims to superiority and worthiness of being worshipped; however, he had neither dignity nor honor with the inhabitants of the heaven so that his death may cause them to grieve let alone enjoying any station in the eye of the inhabitants of the earth.

He falsely claimed that he was god, but the inhabitants of both the heaven and the earth are the friends of God’s friends and the enemies of God’s enemies. His perdition gladdened all the creatures of the heaven and the earth since he had led people astray.

Some exegets also maintain that by:

“the heaven and the earth”

their inhabitants are being meant since they only weep for believers and the Close Ones (muqarrabin) rather than for wrong doers like the people of Pharaoh. Some also hold that the weeping of the heaven and the earth is real and is reflected by a specific reddening and change besides the permanent reddening at the times of sunrise and sunset.

According to a tradition,

“When Husayn ibn ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (as) was martyred, the heaven wept for him and the weeping was reflected in the corners of the sky.”1

According to another tradition narrated from Imam Sadiq (as)

“The heaven wept for Yahya ibn Zakariyya (who was martyred by the tyrant ruler of his time very deplorably) and Husayn ibn ‘Ali (as) for forty days and did not weep for anyone else except for the two.”

The narrator inquired:

“How was the weeping of the heaven?”

He replied:

“An unusual reddening appeared in the sky at sunrise and sunset.”2