Sūrat al-Aḥqāf: Two Models of Receiving the Message

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 7 January 2026 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

The Essence of Sūrat al-Aḥqāf

The essence of Sūrat al-Aḥqāf is in the words of Allah, blessed and exalted, at its end: ﴿فَاصْبِرْ كَمَا صَبَرَ أُولُو الْعَزْمِ مِنَ الرُّسُلِ وَلَا تَسْتَعْجِلْ لَهُمْ﴾ ("So be patient, [O Muḥammad], as were those of determination among the messengers and do not be impatient for them")^[1]. This is the intended point, and to it the content of the surah returns. If you look, you find the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, addressing His Prophet ﷺ in this blessed surah and showing him two models in receiving the message.

The First Model: The People of ʿĀd

﴿وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ إِذْ أَنْذَرَ قَوْمَهُ بِالْأَحْقَافِ﴾ ("And mention, [O Muḥammad], the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people in al-Aḥqāf"). How did these people react? The verses tell you with the utmost simplicity and clarity: ﴿وَقَدْ خَلَتِ النُّذُرُ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ﴾ ("And warners had passed on before him and after him"). So these people were not recipients of a message coming to them for the first time; rather, warners had passed on before him and after him; there were messengers before that whom they had heard about and whose traces they had seen, yet they did not learn. And their answer was: ﴿أَجِئْتَنَا لِتَأْفِكَنَا عَنْ آلِهَتِنَا﴾ ("Have you come to delude us away from our gods?").

When you hear this reply you realize that inside those souls there is an accumulated stock of arrogance that prevents them from receiving anything, so they did not grant their minds or their hearts even the mere hearing of the idea: ﴿فَأْتِنَا بِمَا تَعِدُنَا﴾ ("So bring us what you promise us"). It is as though they were saying, in the Egyptian dialect: "Go bang your head against the thickest wall, do whatever you want," and in another version — and this one is not Egyptian — "Do whatever you like." The point is that their arrogance stood between them and even the mere irṣād, that is, the mere waiting attentively and listening.

And the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, shows His Prophet ﷺ this situation and shows him the measure of the patience of the brother of ʿĀd, who is our master Hūd, upon our Prophet and upon him the best of prayers and peace: ﴿قَالَ إِنَّمَا الْعِلْمُ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ وَأُبَلِّغُكُمْ مَا أُرْسِلْتُ بِهِ وَلَكِنِّي أَرَاكُمْ قَوْمًا تَجْهَلُونَ﴾ ("He said, 'The knowledge [of its time] is only with Allah, and I convey to you that with which I was sent, but I see you [to be] a people behaving ignorantly'"). And this is not abuse; he does not insult them or revile them, but it is as though he is saying: I see that you need more knowledge. All that is asked is this: please, lend me your hearing, your sight and your heart, so that I may explain to you the system of thought.

﴿فَلَمَّا رَأَوْهُ عَارِضًا مُسْتَقْبِلَ أَوْدِيَتِهِمْ قَالُوا هَذَا عَارِضٌ مُمْطِرُنَا﴾ ("And when they saw it as a cloud approaching their valleys, they said, 'This is a cloud bringing us rain'") — and we know that they were destroyed by the wind — when they saw the wind coming from afar they thought it was more good coming to them. So they were not merely carrying an arrogance that prevented them from accepting the message; they were carrying a conceit that made them feel they were deserving of all glory and the possessors of all might, and that nothing goes on in the universe except what serves their own interests. He sees himself as the master of the whole globe, playing around here, carrying on here, striking here, snatching here, "life is going great," and there is no authority above him. ﴿قَالُوا هَذَا عَارِضٌ مُمْطِرُنَا﴾, that is, this is a great good that has come to us, ﴿بَلْ هُوَ مَا اسْتَعْجَلْتُمْ بِهِ رِيحٌ فِيهَا عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ * تُدَمِّرُ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ بِأَمْرِ رَبِّهَا فَأَصْبَحُوا لَا يُرَى إِلَّا مَسَاكِنُهُمْ﴾ ("Rather, it is that for which you were impatient: a wind, within it a painful punishment, destroying everything by command of its Lord. And they became so that nothing was seen except their dwellings"). That is the gist.

What Do We Take Away?

And what is the point of address here to the Messenger ﷺ? And what do we take away from these words? We take away a number of things. You are the brother of Quraysh as Hūd was before the brother of ʿĀd; they speak to you in a tone like a tone that came before, and all you have to say is: I am only a warner and a bringer of good news. And these people, their conceit drives them to destroy themselves with their own hands, so do not be distressed by that.

And what was it that used to distress the Prophet ﷺ? It did not concern him what answer people gave him, but what concerned him was how they answer Allah. He was caught between his concern for the great station of divinity and its sanctity in people's souls, and the audacity of some of creation toward Allah, mighty and majestic, and the feeling that these people are destroying themselves; so he feared for creation ﷺ. That is why you see the reproach, or the divine review of the Prophet ﷺ, as He, glorified is He, speaks to him: ﴿فَلَعَلَّكَ بَاخِعٌ نَفْسَكَ عَلَى آثَارِهِمْ إِنْ لَمْ يُؤْمِنُوا بِهَذَا الْحَدِيثِ أَسَفًا﴾ ("Then perhaps you would kill yourself through grief over them, [O Muḥammad], if they do not believe in this message, [out of] sorrow")^[2].

The Other Model: The Jinn Who Listened Attentively

And we are speaking very briefly, and had we gone into detail on the words and the connotations of the expressions you would have seen something wondrous in the Qur'an's depiction of people's psychologies. As for the other model, the receiver: ﴿وَإِذْ صَرَفْنَا إِلَيْكَ نَفَرًا مِنَ الْجِنِّ يَسْتَمِعُونَ الْقُرْآنَ فَلَمَّا حَضَرُوهُ قَالُوا أَنْصِتُوا﴾ ("And [mention] when We directed to you a few of the jinn, listening to the Qur'an; and when they attended it, they said, 'Listen attentively'"). So they said one thing in the first scene, and they said another in the second. What did they say in the first? ﴿أَجِئْتَنَا لِتَأْفِكَنَا عَنْ آلِهَتِنَا﴾: that is, you have come to change the beliefs of the elders there! And here they said: ﴿أَنصِتُوا﴾. And that is the beginning of all success, and the beginning of relief. That is, your listening attentively to people makes you understand what they have, grasp the dimensions of their thinking, discern their intentions, and find out what they want to do. Attentive listening is the key to hearts and minds, and attentive listening is the first source of perception. They said: listen attentively, not merely listen.

﴿فَلَمَّا قُضِيَ وَلَّوْا إِلَى قَوْمِهِمْ مُنْذِرِينَ﴾ ("And when it was concluded, they went back to their people as warners"). What does this mean? Mere attentive listening made them set off to their people to convey the message they had listened to.

Do We Pass On What We Hear?

And let me put a simple question in the middle: people are now sitting nodding their heads and delighted, ma shā' Allāh, beautiful words, good arrangement and so on; so which of us, when he listens to beneficial knowledge, passes these words on to others, whether to his family, to his home, to his wife? As the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ used to do: when they listened to his speech they would return to their homes to teach their wives what they had received from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. So even the mere conception of the idea needs to be passed on to others. And it need not be the home; it may be whoever receives it in your life and in your day.

And the point of the words: ﴿قَالُوا يَا قَوْمَنَا إِنَّا سَمِعْنَا كِتَابًا أُنْزِلَ مِنْ بَعْدِ مُوسَى مُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ﴾ ("They said, 'O our people, indeed we have heard a Book revealed after Moses, confirming what was before it'"). I imagine this is merely a recollection of the events that came before. And I will match this picture with the verse ﴿وَقَدْ خَلَتِ النُّذُرُ مِنْ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ﴾ that we saw in the first scene with the brother of ʿĀd; for the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, shows us the other picture: ﴿إِنَّا سَمِعْنَا كِتَابًا أُنْزِلَ مِنْ بَعْدِ مُوسَى مُصَدِّقًا لِمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ﴾. What is the meaning of "confirming what was before it"? That the words match. And how did he know that they match? Because he is aware of the implications of the earlier messages. There is a great difference between an ignorant person who contented himself with the conceit he has within himself and stopped at that level of comprehension, and a person who comprehends the fluctuating patterns of civilizations: "My friend, easy now, understand what happened to those who came before you, to those who were before you, so that you can rescue your state or your nation or your society, or at least rescue yourself, so do not be with the doomed like those who went before." ﴿يَا قَوْمَنَا أَجِيبُوا دَاعِيَ اللَّهِ وَآمِنُوا بِهِ يَغْفِرْ لَكُمْ مِنْ ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُجِرْكُمْ مِنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ﴾ ("O our people, respond to the Caller of Allah and believe in him; Allah will forgive for you some of your sins and protect you from a painful punishment").

Those Who Listened: Humans or Jinn?

Were those who listened to the Prophet ﷺ from mankind or from the jinn? ﴿وَإِذْ صَرَفْنَا إِلَيْكَ نَفَرًا مِنَ الْجِنِّ﴾ ("And [mention] when We directed to you a few of the jinn"). And the Qur'anic address that we picture and receive while we are concerned with it: are we humans or jinn? We are humans. So why does the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, mention the jinn to us here, and mention them again in Sūrat al-Jinn: ﴿قُلْ أُوحِيَ إِلَيَّ أَنَّهُ اسْتَمَعَ نَفَرٌ مِنَ الْجِنِّ﴾ ("Say, [O Muḥammad], 'It has been revealed to me that a group of the jinn listened'")? Why does the Lord of the worlds mention that to us? Listen: if you find no hope in those around you, know that Allah conveys your message to those beyond them, to those who are beyond your perception. Do you know that your call reaches even those who are beyond perception? So it is as though the Lord of the worlds, glorified is He, is giving the Prophet ﷺ the good news that his call precedes into what lies beyond sensory perception, that there is another world that can benefit from you.

And the point of the words: give what you can, as much as you can, with the tools in your hands, and know that Allah will carry out your message to what you perceive and what you do not perceive, to what you see and to what lies beyond what you see; for our Lord, glorified and exalted is He, is predominant over His affair.

Glory to Him Whose Words These Are

The verses carry a number of messages for us. And I was greatly enjoying the noble verses as they were recited with this simplicity, and with this divine arrangement of words and sentences, and the closing of the verses with divine comments. Glory be to Him whose words these are! Glory be to Him who sent down to us this great Book to teach us, to bring us up, to humble us, to discipline us, to admonish us and to remind us! Glory be to Him whose words these are, kindling within us the sense of the heart, the mind and perception! Glory be to Him whose words these are, restoring to us our confidence in our Lord and our confidence in ourselves and our ability to do more work!

We ask Him, mighty and majestic, to inspire us with what He commanded His Messenger at the end of the surah: ﴿فَاصْبِرْ كَمَا صَبَرَ أُولُو الْعَزْمِ مِنَ الرُّسُلِ وَلَا تَسْتَعْجِلْ لَهُمْ﴾. And we ask Allah, blessed and exalted, to make us pleased, and you, with His good pleasure.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Aḥqāf, verse 35. The verses mentioned after it are from the same surah: ﴿وَاذْكُرْ أَخَا عَادٍ…﴾ is verse 21 and what follows (the exchange and the destruction of the people in verses 22–25), and the account of the jinn is in verses 29–31. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat al-Kahf, verse 6. His words "Say: It has been revealed to me that a group of the jinn listened" are from Sūrat al-Jinn, verse 1. The sentence "You came to change…" could not be made out in the transcript, so it was rendered by its sense as it occurred. The transcript is also incomplete at the end of the khatira (a truncated supplication after "with His good pleasure"), so the truncated part was removed.