Al-Jinn (The Jinn)

3. 'And that He, exalted is the Majesty of our Lord, has taken neither a wife nor a child.

4. 'And that the foolish amongst us uttered against Allah unworthy words.

5. 'And we thought that men and jinn would not utter a lie against Allah.

Following making mention of their belief in God and negating any kind of polytheism, the jinn thus proceeded with Divine Attributes, saying:

“Exalted is the Majesty of our Lord and Glorified is He of any similitude to the creatures and any defect and He has never adopted any wife or child.” The Arabic nominal form jadd is a polysemous word whose numerous senses include: majesty; intensity; seriousness; share, lot; and becoming new. In terms of etymology, according to Raghib in his Mufradat, the root denotes “sever, cut off.”

The connotations

“majesty” is owing to the fact that any majestic being is separated from others. Likewise, other denotations and connotations of the word may be taken into account; for instance, the word denotes “grandfather” owing to his exalted rank or his advanced years.

At any rate, the connotation of

“majesty”

is consistent with lexicographical sources and its applications.

It is also worthy of note that the jinn herein lay particular emphasis on the point that God Almighty has adopted neither a wife nor a child, which seemingly implies the negation of the superstitious beliefs held by the Arabs in that they maintained that angels were fathered by god and born of his wife adopted from amongst the jinn.

The same theme is reflected in the exegesis of another Qur’anic Verse¹ :

“And they have invented a kinship between Him and the jinn.”

The blessed Verse 4 says:

“[They said that they confessed] that the foolish amongst us uttered unworthy words against Allah.”

The Arabic word safih may connote a collective sense in that some of the foolish amongst the jinn maintained that god had married and had fathered children. They had deviated from the Path of Truth by uttering such unworthy words and associating partners with God in worship.

Many a Qur’anic exegete maintain that the word herein alludes to Iblis who following disobedience to Divine Commands attributed false ascriptions to God Almighty and even objected the Divine Command as to Adam’s (as) prostration before Him and regarded it insensible and deemed himself superior to Adam (as).

Since Iblis had been a jinni, all the believing jinn express their hatred for him and consider his words to be unfounded. He was seemingly a scholar and an ascetic, but scholars who fail to act upon their knowledge and the ascetics who are vain and deviant clearly represent the foolish.

The Arabic word shatat implies going to extremes, hence its application to untrue words. Thus, a high bank of rivers relatively far from water is called shatt.

The blessed Verse 5 says:

“We thought that men and jinn would not utter a lie against Allah.”

The blessed Verse may be a reference to this group’s blind imitation of others in associating partners, wives, and children to God Almighty, saying that they blindly acknowledged such beliefs owing to their optimism as they never imagined that mankind and the jinn dare to utter such lies against God Almighty; however, consequent to their investigations and comprehension of the truth and having believed in it, they are now aware of such unworthy imitation and hence they confess to their mistakes and the deviation of the polytheists from amongst the jinn.