Surah As-Saffat, Ayah 175

The Promise of Victory and the Command to turn away from Idolators

Allah says,

وَلَقَدْ سَبَقَتْ كَلِمَتُنَا لِعِبَادِنَا الْمُرْسَلِينَ

(And, verily, Our Word has gone forth of old for Our servants, the Messengers,) meaning, it has already been stated in the first decree that the Messengers and their followers will ultimately prevail in this world and the Hereafter. This is like the Ayah:

كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لاّغْلِبَنَّ أَنَاْ وَرُسُلِى إِنَّ اللَّهَ قَوِىٌّ عَزِيزٌ

(Allah has decreed: "Verily, it is I and My Messengers who shall be the victorious." Verily, Allah is All-Powerful, Almighty.) (58:21), and

إِنَّا لَنَنصُرُ رُسُلَنَا وَالَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ فِى الْحَيَوةِ الدُّنْيَا وَيَوْمَ يَقُومُ الاٌّشْهَـدُ

The sense of 'the victory of the people of Allah'

In verses 171-173, it was said: وَلَقَدْ سَبَقَتْ كَلِمَتُنَا لِعِبَادِنَا الْمُرْ‌سَلِينَ إِنَّهُمْ لَهُمُ الْمَنصُورُ‌ونَ وَإِنَّ جُندَنَا لَهُمُ الْغَالِبُونَ (And Our Word has already gone ahead in favor of Our servants - the messengers - they are the ones who will have Allah's support, and verily it will be Our army that prevails). The sense of these verses is that it stands predetermined with Allah that His chosen servants, that is, the prophets would be the ones to prevail. This may raise a difficulty, for in the mortal world, some prophets did not. For an answer to this, it could be said that the majority of prophets consists of the noble souls whose people belied them and met their punishment while they were kept safe from it. There are only a few among the blessed prophets who, though, could not prevail outwardly and physically right up to the end of their tenure in this world, but they always enjoyed ascendancy in the field of logic and argument, and the ultimate intellectual victory remained always theirs. However, the physical traces of this ascendancy were - due to some consideration of wisdom, such as a trial, or its likes - deferred until the Hereafter. Hence, as said by sage Thanavi, it is like the case of a highway robber, who starts harassing a high appointee of the state while on his journey. But, this appointee would never, by virtue of his God-given intellectual sobriety, stoop to the low-down robber, until he reaches the capital of his state where the robber will be seized and punished. Therefore, simply due to this temporary ascendancy, neither can we call that robber an authority, nor that authority a subject. In fact, given the true state of affairs, that robber - despite this temporary ascendancy - is still a subject, while that man of authority - despite his temporary lack of ascendancy - is still the authority he had been all along. Sayyidna Ibn ` Abbas رضی اللہ تعالیٰ عنہما has expressed this more briefly and lucidly by saying: اَن لَّم یُنصَروا فِی الدُّنِیَا یُنصرُا فِی الاٰخرِۃِ (Those who' are not helped to ascend in the present world are helped to ascend in the Hereafter) - Bayan-ul- Qur’ an, the Tafsir of Surah al-Ma'idah (5).

In ancient times, when the Arabs heard that the Jews and other peoples had rejected their prophets, they used to proudly say, ‘These people are unfortunate. If a prophet had come to us, we would have appreciated him and supported him.’ But, when God did send a prophet among them, they rejected him just as others had rejected their prophets. The Truth which affects others is readily seen by a man, but the Truth which affects him personally, seldom catches his eye. Throughout history, people have ignored the call of the preachers of Truth. They forget that the preachers of Truth endeavour to spread God’s word which will in any case reign supreme, however much the unbelievers may oppose them.