As-Saaffaat (Those drawn up in Ranks)

34. “Verily thus do We deal with the guilty.”

35. “Verily they used to be proud when it was said to them: ‘There is no god but Allah’.”

36. “And said: ‘Shall we give up our gods for the sake of a mad poet?”

The first verse indicates that Allah implicitly says that He will deal with the guilty seriously by His punishment. This is the everlasting way of treatment of Allah; a way of treatment that has originated from the law of justice.

The verse says:

“Verily thus do We deal with the guilty.”

The sign of a guilty is that he has proud manner concerning Monotheism. So, this verse says:

“Verily they used to be proud when it was said to them: ‘There is no god but Allah’.”

Yes, the root of all their deviations was mostly pride, self-admiration and assumption, refusing the clear right, having obstinacy and often insisting on the wrong customs and false imitations, and looking at everything contemptuously.

The opposite point of pride is humbleness and submission to the Truth, and the true Islam is only this. That pride is the cause of wretchedness, and this humbleness and submission is the source of happiness.

And in the next holy verse the Qur’an implies that for this great sin of theirs the polytheists brought a clumsy excuse, and always they murmured:

“And said: ‘Shall we give up our gods for the sake of a mad poet?”

They called him a poet because his statements influenced so deeply in the hearts and attracted the people’s emotions that as if he made the most rhythmical poets, while his ordinary talk was never poetry.

They called him mad, because he did not follow the current custom of his environment, and he stood against the superstitious beliefs of the crowd of zealous obstinate people. From the view of some groups of aberrant people, this action was a kind of self-murder and insanity. But this was the greatest honour of the Prophet (S), and he did not submit to those circumstances.