Al-Anbiyaa (The Prophets)

61. “They said: ‘Then bring him before the eyes of the people, that they may bear witness’.”

62. “They said: ‘Are you the man that did this with our gods, O Abraham?’”

63. “(Abraham) said: ‘Nay, it was done by this, the chief of them! Ask them if they can speak’.”

Principally, it is usual that when a crime is committed, in order to find the person who has committed it, the hostile connections with the matter are investigated about. Certainly, there was no other person in that locality but Abraham who was objecting to the idols.

Therefore, all attentions turned to him, and some groups of the idolaters suggested, now that the circumstance was such, Abraham might be brought in front of the people so that those who knew him and were acquainted with the proposition could testify to his being criminal.

The verse says:

“They said: ‘Then bring him before the eyes of the people, that they may bear witness’.”

The callers cried around the city that those who were aware of the enmity and ill-speaking of Abraham due to idols should attend to bear witness.

At last, the court started its job with the presence of the chiefs of the people. It has also been said that Namrud himself was attending the court.

The first question which was asked from Abraham was as follows:

“They said: ‘Are you the man that did this with our gods, O Abraham’?”

Abraham answered them in such a way that they felt they were seriously surrounded, so that they could not save themselves from it.

Here is Abraham’s response:

“(Abraham) said: ‘Nay, it was done by this, the chief of them! Ask them if they can speak’.”

The principals of the job of the specialists of felony indicate that the accused person is the one who has the effects of the crime with him. Here, the ‘effects of the crime’ is with the chief idol.

Abraham wanted to say why they went to him, and why did they not accuse the chief god of theirs? He inquired whether they did not think that the chief idol probably had considered that other idols were as its future rival and, therefore, had destroyed them totally.

Since this interpretation, from the view point of the commentators, did apparently not adapt to the reality, and in view of the fact that Abraham is a prophet and an immaculate person never tells a lie, there have been stated different matters upon this Qur’anic sentence.

What seems the best of all is that Abraham (as) decisively attributed this action to the great idol, but all references testified to the fact that he did not intended to say it earnestly. He wanted to make the baseless superstitious notions of the idol worshippers manifest to them.

He decided to make them understand that those soulless pieces of stone and wood were so feeble that they could not say even a sentence in order to ask help from their worshippers, much less they wanted them to solve their problems.

In our daily sayings there are many instances similar to this meaning when, in order to nullify the speech of the opposite party and to condemn him, we put his indisputable affairs in front of him in the form of an imperative, declarative, or interrogative sentence, and this is not a lie at all. A lie is something that has not a frame of reference with it.

There has been cited a tradition in the book of Kafi narrated from Imam Sadiq (as) who said:

“He (Abraham) said this:

‘Nay, it was done by this, the chief of them’

for he intended to improve their thoughts and to tell them the idols could not do such an action.”

Then the Imam added:

“By Allah, the idols had not done it nor did Abraham tell a lie.”1

However, some commentators also think that probably Abraham (as) uttered this subject in the form of a conditional sentence, implying that if the idols can speak, they have done such an action. Certainly the meaning was not contrary to the actuality, because neither did the idols speak, nor had they done such a job.

There is also a tradition close to this very commentary cited in Burhan, Safi, and Nur-uth-Thaqalayn.