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qāla ʾinna fīhā lūṭan qālū naḥnu ʾaʿlamu bi-man fīhā la-nunajjiyannahū wa-ʾahlahū ʾillā mraʾatahū kānat mina l-ghābirīna
He said, ‘Lot is in it.’ They said, ‘We know better those who are in it. We will surely deliver him and his family, except his wife: she shall be one of those who remain behind.’
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-‘Ankabut - Verse 32
32. “Said (Abraham to the messenger angels): ‘Verily Lot is in it.’ They said: ‘We know very well who is in it; we shall certainly deliver him and his family, except his wife; she shall of those who stay behind’.”
The social title is not important, but the Faith and righteous deed are criterions. Being the prophet’s wife alone is not a value, but being in his accompany and following him is a value. The wives of prophets are not sinless. (Even among the wives of the Prophet of Islam (S) only a few of them were favoured by the special grace of Allah. This noble verse indicates that when Abraham heard this statement, he worried about Lot, the great prophet of Allah, and he asked about his fate.
The verse says:
Then the messenger angels, in answer to him, immediately said that he should not be worried:
They meant that never Allah chastises evildoers and good doers with together and His program is completely accurate and calculated. Then, they added:
It is understood from this verse that in all of those cities there was only one pure faithful family and Allah delivered them on time, either; as it is mentioned is Surah Ath-Thariyat:
And, moreover, the wife of Lot was also out of the row of believers and, therefore, she was punished. The Arabic word /qabirin/ is the plural form of /qabir/ with the sense of ‘the one whose companions go only he one remains. The woman who was among the family of prophethood must not separate from the Muslims and believers, but her infidelity, polytheism, and idolatry caused her separation. This makes clear that her deviation was only from the point of belief, and it is not improbable that she had got this deviation from her own environment while at the beginning she had been faithful and monotheist; and in this case there will be no objection to Lot that why he married such a woman.
By the way, if there were some other people who had believed in Lot, they would certainly have migrated from that polluted land before this event. It was only Lot and his family that had to stay there until the last hour that he thought his teaching and warning might have an effect in them. There may arise a question here that did Abraham (as) think that probably the punishment of Allah might seize Lot, too, that he expressed his worry about Lot before the angels and they assured him that Lot would be delivered?
The clear answer to this question is that Abraham knew the matter but for the certainty of his heart he asked, as this very great prophet had a similar condition about Resurrection and by restoring the birds to life Allah illustrated the scenery of Resurrection in front of him. But ‘Allamah Tabataba’i, the great commentator, believes that the aim of Abraham was that he took the existence of Lot among that nation as a reason for removing the punishment from them, and ‘Allamah takes help from Surah Hud, No. 11, verses 74-76 for this purpose, because these verses say:
But we believe that the answer that the angels gave here about the deliverance of Lot and his family clearly shows that in these verses only Lot was spoken of, while the verses of Surah Hud pursue a separate matter and, as we said, Abraham (as) asked this question only for being assured more. (Be careful)
Footnotes