Surah 72. Al-Jinn

SAY: "It has been revealed to me that some of the unseen beings gave ear [to this divine writ],¹ and thereupon said funto their fellow-beings]: "'Verily, we have heard a wondrous discourse,

  - Mohammad Asad

I.e., had heard and accepted it: this being the meaning, in the above context, of the verbal form istama'a. - As regards the various meanings attributable to the plural noun jinn (rendered by me here as "unseen beings"), see Appendix III. As pointed out there, the jinn are referred to in the Qur'an in many connotations. In a few cases - e.g., in the present instance and in {46:29-32} - this expression may possibly signify "hitherto unseen beings", namely, strangers who had never before been seen by the people among and to whom the Qur'an was then being revealed. From 46:30 (which evidently relates to the same occurrence as the present one) it transpires that the jinn in question were followers of the Mosaic faith, inasmuch as they refer to the Qur'an as "a revelation bestowed from on high after [that of] Moses", thus pointedly omitting any mention of the intervening prophet, Jesus, and equally pointedly (in verse {3} of the present surah) stressing their rejection of the Christian concept of the Trinity. All this leads one to the assumption that they may have been Jews from distant parts of what is now the Arab world, perhaps from Syria or even Mesopotamia. (Tabari mentions in several places that the jinn referred to in this surah as well as in 46:29 ff. hailed from Nasibin, a town on the upper reaches of the Euphrates.) I should, however, like to stress that my explanation of this occurrence is purely tentative.

O Prophet say: "It has been revealed to me that a band of jinns listened to the Qur'an, then returned to their folk and said: 'We have heard a wonderful Qur'an

  - Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik

Say, 'O Prophet,' 'It has been revealed to me that a group of jinn listened 'to the Quran,' and said 'to their fellow jinn': 'Indeed, we have heard a wondrous recitation.

  - Mustafa Khattab

Say (O Muhammad): It is revealed unto me that a company of the Jinn gave ear, and they said: Lo! it is a marvellous Qur'an,

  - Marmaduke Pickthall

Say: It has been revealed to me that a company of Jinns listened (to the Qur'an). They say `We have really heard a wonderful Recital! ^{5727 5728 5729}

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

Cf. xlvi. 29-32, n. 4809. The Jinns had evidently heard of previous revelations, that of Moses (xlvi. 30), and the error of Trinitarian Christianity (lxxii. 3). The community from which they come have all sorts of good and bad persons, but they are determined to preach the good Message of Unity which they have heard and believed in.

For Jinns, see n. 929 to vi. 100.

The Holy Qur-an would be to them a wonderful Recital-both in subject-matter and in the circumstance that it had come in Arabia among a pagan and ignorant nation.

guiding towards consciousness of what is right; and so We have come to believe in it. And we shall never ascribe divinity to anyone beside our Sustainer,

  - Mohammad Asad

which guides to the Right Way. We have believed in it and henceforth shall worship none besides Our Rabb.

  - Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik

It leads to Right Guidance so we believed in it, and we will never associate anyone with our Lord 'in worship'.

  - Mustafa Khattab

Which guideth unto righteousness, so we believe in it and we ascribe unto our Lord no partner.

  - Marmaduke Pickthall

It gives guidance to the Right and we have believed therein: We shall not join (in worship) any (gods) with our Lord.

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

for [we know] that sublimely exalted is our Sustainer's majesty: no consort has He ever taken unto Himself, nor a son!

  - Mohammad Asad

Surely our Rabb's Majesty is exalted: He has neither taken a wife nor a son.

  - Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik

'Now, we believe that' our Lord- Exalted is His Majesty- has neither taken a mate nor offspring,

  - Mustafa Khattab

And (we believe) that He--exalted be the glory of our Lord!--hath taken neither wife nor son,

  - Marmaduke Pickthall

`And exalted is the Majesty of our Lord: He has taken neither a wife nor a son. ⁵⁷³⁰

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

They abjure paganism and also the doctrine of a son begotten by Allah, which would also imply a wife of whom he was begotten. Cf. vi. 101.

"And [now we know] that the foolish among us were wont to say outrageous things about God,²

  - Mohammad Asad

If we accept the supposition that the beings spoken of here were Jewish strangers, the "outrageous things" (shatat) which they mention would appear to be an allusion to the deep-set belief of the Jews that they were "God's chosen people" - a belief which the Qur'an consistently rejects, and of which the new converts now divested themselves.

Some who are foolish among us have been uttering atrocious lies about Allah,

  - Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik

and that the foolish of us used to utter 'outrageous' falsehoods about Allah.¹

  - Mustafa Khattab

 Meaning, evil jinn tempted some pagan Arabs to believe that the angels are Allah’s daughters through female jinn.

And that the foolish one among us used to speak concerning Allah an atrocious lie.

  - Marmaduke Pickthall

`There were some foolish ones among us who used to utter extravagant lies against Allah;

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

and that [we were mistaken when] we thought that neither man nor [any of] the invisible forces would ever tell a lie about God.³

  - Mohammad Asad

In this and the next verse, the term jinn (rendered here as "invisible forces") apparently refers to what is described as "occult powers" or, rather, to a person's preoccupation with them (see Appendix III). Irrespective of whether these "forces" are real or mere products of human imagination, they "tell lies about God" inasmuch as they induce their devotees to conceive all manner of fantastic, arbitrary notions about the "nature" of His Being and of His alleged relations with the created universe: notions exemplified in all mystery-religions, in the various gnostic and theosophical systems, in cabalistic Judaism, and in the many medieval offshoots of each of them.

and we had presumed that no man or jinn could tell a lie concerning Allah.

  - Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam Malik

We certainly thought that humans and jinn would never speak lies about Allah.

  - Mustafa Khattab

And lo! we had supposed that humankind and jinn would not speak a lie concerning Allah--

  - Marmaduke Pickthall

`But we do think that no man or spirit should say aught that is untrue against Allah. ⁵⁷³¹

  - Abdullah Yusuf Ali

No one ought to entertain false notions about Allah. For by joining false gods in our ideas of worship, we degrade our conception of ourselves and the duty we owe to our Creator and Cherisher, to Whom we have to give a final account of life and conduct. If we worship idols or heavenly bodies, or human beings, or any creatures, or false fancies born of self or foolish abstractions, or the lusts and desires of our own hearts, we are not only doing violence to Truth, but we are causing discord in the harmony of the world.