Surah Ibrahim, Ayah 17

Disbelieving Nations threaten Their Messengers with Expulsion

Allah narrates to us how the disbelieving nations threatened their Messengers, that being, expulsion from their land and banshiment. For instance, the people of Prophet Shu`ayb, peace be upon him, said to him and to those who believed in him,

لَنُخْرِجَنَّكَ يـشُعَيْبُ وَالَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ مَعَكَ مِن قَرْيَتِنَآ

(We shall certainly drive you out from our town, O Shu`ayb, and those who have believed with you.) 7:88 The people of Prophet Lut, peace be upon him, said,

أَخْرِجُواْ ءَالَ لُوطٍ مِّن قَرْيَتِكُمْ

(Drive out the family of Lut from your city.) 27:56 Allah said about the idolators of Quraysh,

In the last verse here (8), it was said: قَالَ مُوسَىٰ إِن تَكْفُرُ‌وا أَنتُمْ وَمَن فِي الْأَرْ‌ضِ جَمِيعًا (And Musa said, "If you are ungrateful, you and all those on earth, then, Allah is free of all needs, worthy of every praise.) " This was said by Sayyidna Musa (علیہ السلام) to his people. He is telling them that should they or, for that matter, all inhabitants of the earth become ungrateful to Allah Ta’ ala, it is not going to cause any loss to Allah Ta’ ala. As for Him, He needs no praise or gratitude for Himself. He is Independent. He is beyond that. He is intrinsically Praised and deserving of praise. If you do not praise Him, the angels do, all of them, and so does every particle of this universe.

So, whatever good there is in gratitude, that is for you alone. There-fore, when you are asked to be grateful by Allah Ta’ ala, there is no gain for Him in doing so. In fact, it is His infinite mercy reaching out to you in your interest.

In the eyes of God, man’s greatest crime is his adoption of an attitude of arrogance and obstinacy when he is called upon to submit to God. For such people there shall be disgrace in this world and in the Hereafter. Their punishment will be so severe that they will find themselves constantly on the verge of death and destruction. When a man becomes tyrannical and arrogant towards others, he does it with some backing. The opponents of Islam felt their position to be impregnable because they followed the religion of their ‘great men’. In comparison the Prophet and his Companions appeared to them to be lesser mortals. It was this mentality which prompted them to consider legitimate all types of persecution of the Prophet and his Companions. It was due to their linking themselves with their ‘great men’ that they became bold enough to take all sorts of punitive action against the so-called ‘small men’.