Quranic Sciences

4. " And those who disbelieve say: 'This (Qur'an) is nothing but a lie which he (our Apostle) has forged, and other people have helped him at it; so indeed they have done injustice and (uttered) a falsehood."

Commentary

The Arabic word /ifk/ means lie, and the word /zur/ means a false word 8. In all of the Holy Qur'an only here the words /zulm/ (iniquity) and /zur/ have come together, because pagans prevented others from being guided by means of false accusation of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) and belying the heavenly Book. So this noble verse is about pagans' analysis or, in better words, their pretext-seeking against the call of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) when it says:

" And those who disbelieve say: 'This (Qur'an) is nothing but a lie which he (our Apostle) has forged, and other people have helped him at it;..."

In fact, in order not to shoulder the Truth - as those who in the course of history decided to be against divine leaders - they first accused him to calumny and falsehood, and especially, in order to scorn the Holy Qur'an, they used the word /haoa/ (this).

Then, in order to prove that he could not say such words by himself, because saying such meaningful words needs at least a lot of knowledge and they did not want to accept it, and in order to say that this was a calculated program, they said that he was not alone and others have helped him at it and that there was a conspiracy and they must stand against him.

Some of commentators have said that the purpose of/qaum un 'axarun/ (other people) is a group of Jews. And some others have said that the objective is three persons of the People of The Book, that is 'Adas', 'Yasar', and 'Hibr' (or 'Jibr').

Anyway, since such matters did not exist among the polytheists of Mecca and some part of it, such as: the story of the former prophets, was among Jews and the People of The Book, they had to drag the People of the Book into this accusation so that the people became less astonished and bewildered by hearing these verses.

But, in their answer here, the Holy Qur'an says only one sentence:

"...so indeed they have done injustice and (uttered) a falsehood." 9

It is /zulm/ (a wrong action) because they, as well as some of the People of the Book, accused a trustworthy, veracious and pure man such as the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) of giving a false impression of Allah and they did wrong action towards themselves and people. It is false and invalid, because their words were completely baseless and the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) had repeatedly called them to present some verses and Suras like those of the Holy Qur'an and,confronting this challenge of the Qur'an, they were somehow unable to achieve it.

This shows that these verses are not the product of man's mind, because if it were so, they could also present such verses with the help of the Jews and the People of the Book. Therefore, their inability to do it is the reason of their lie and their lie is the reason of their iniquity. So the short sentence saying: "... so indeed they have done injustice and (uttered) a falsehood." is a clear and expressive answer to their groundless claims.

The Arabic word /zur/ is in fact derived from a word that means the upper part of the chest. Then it was applied to whatever that inclines from the middle and, because lie deviates from truth and inclines toward falsehood, it is called /zur/.

Notes:

8. Lisan-ul-'Arab

9. Thr word /ja'u/ means to come, but here it means to bring.

Adapted from the book: "Interpretation of Sura al-Furqan" by: "Sayyid Kamal Faghih Imani and A Group of Scholars"