Surah 14. Ibrahim, Ayah 9

See surah {11}, note [92]. It is to be noted that whereas in 11:62 this reply is placed in the mouth of people of one particular community - the Thamud - and is phrased in the singular ("thy call to us"), it appears here in the plural ("your call to us") and represents the gist of the answers given by various communities to various prophets. This generalization, underlying the entire subsequent account and containing echos of several Qur'anic narratives relating to the experiences of individual apostles of earlier times, is obviously meant to bring out the symptomatic character of the attitude referred to: the stubborn attitude of people who either deny God altogether, or- while not consciously denying His existence - yet feel compelled to interpose all manner of imaginary "mediators" (thought to be divine or semi-divine) between themselves and Him, thus denying, by implication, His omniscience and omnipotence.

I.e., they have disappeared from the face of the earth, and none save God knows today how many they were and how they lived. See verse {14} and note [18] below.

Lit., "they put their hands into their mouths" - an idiomatic phrase indicating one's inability to refute a reasonable proposition by cogent, logical counter-arguments: for the out-of-hand rejection of the apostles' message by their recalcitrant compatriots cannot by any means be regarded as an "argument".

 This can mean that the disbelievers bit their own hands in rage, or they covered their own mouths mockingly, or that they put their hands over their messengers’ mouths to silence them.

Even the names of all the Prophets are not known to men, much less the details of their story. If some "news" of them (for the word translated "story" may also be translated "news") reaches us, it is to give us spiritual instruction for our own lives.

That is, either that the Unbelievers metaphorically put their hands up to the mouths of the Prophets to try to prevent them from proclaiming their Message, or that the Unbelievers put up their fingers to their own mouths, as much as to say "Don't listen to them," or bite their own fingers in token of incontinent rage. Whatever construction we adopt, the meaning is that they were intolerant of their prophets even as the Quraish were intolerant of Al-Mustafa and did all they could to suppress Allah's Truth.

Cf. xi. 62. The distinction between Shakk and raib may be noted. Shakk is intellectual doubt, a doubt as to fact; is it so, or is it not? Raib is something more than intellectual doubt; a suspicion that there is fraud or deception; something that upsets your moral belief and causes a disquiet in your soul. In lii. 30, it is used as equivalent to "calamity" or "disaster", some punishment or evil. Both kinds of doubts and suspicions are hinted at against Prophets of Allah.