Al Rūm

وَلَئِنْ أَرْسَلْنَا رِيحاً فَرَأَوْهُ مُصْفَرّاً لَّظَلُّوا مِن بَعْدِهِ يَكْفُرُونَ

فَإِنَّكَ لاَ تُسْمِعُ الْمَوْتَي وَلاَ تُسْمِعُ الصُّمَّ الدُّعَآءَ إِذَا وَلَّوْا مُدْبِرِينَ

51. “And if We send a wind (from which) they see (their tilth turned) yellow, they certainly become, thereafter, disbelievers (ungrateful).”
52. “For verily you can not make the dead to listen nor can you make the deaf to hear the call, when they turn away backward.”

The fatal winds and those winds that cause impediments are not undue and accidental. The destructive winds are less than the useful winds. The previous verses were about the bountiful winds which are the harbingers of the rains that bring mercy. Now, the first verse points to harmful winds. It says:

These are some weak and incapacious people. They are such that before rainfall they are hopeless and after it they are very happy. If one day a poisonous wind blows and their life temporarily faces with some difficulties, they cry and become disbelievers. On the contrary, the true believers who are happy and gratitude with the bounties of Allah, when they face with afflictions and difficulties they are patient and steadfast. The changes of material life never affect in their faith and they are not as the blind-hearted people whose faith is weak and with the blow of a wind they become faithful and with the blow of another wind become disbelievers.

The Arabic word /musfarran/ is derived from /sufrih/ which means ‘yellow’, and as the majority of commentators believe, the pronoun in the word /ra’auhu/ refers to the plants and trees that as the result of harmful winds they may become yellow and faded. Some commentators have also said that the pronoun may refer to ‘cloud’, because the yellow clouds are naturally some thin clouds which usually have not rain while dark and intensed clouds often bring rain.

Some others also believe that ‘wind’ is the antecedent of the pronoun, since the ordinary winds are usually colourless and the poisonous winds, which sometimes carry the dust of the desert with them, are yellow and dim. There is also a fourth probability which indicates that the Arabic term /musfar/ means ‘empty’, because as Raqib says in Mufradat: an empty plate and a stomach empty of food and vessels empty of blood in Arabic called /safir/. Thus the above meaning is an indication to the winds which are empty of rain. (In this case the pronoun in the word /ra’auhu/ (they see it) refers to ‘wind’.) (Be careful).

But the first commentary is the most famous one among them all. This point is also worthy to be noted that here the useful winds, which cause rain to fall, are said in plural form, while the harmful winds are stated in singular form. This matter implies that most of the winds are useful, and the poisonous winds are expressed as an exceptional one, which sometimes blows once a month or once a year, while useful winds blow during all days and nights.

Or it points to this fact that useful winds are beneficial if they come repeatedly, while the harmful winds affect their evil only once. The last matter, which is necessary to be mentioned here, is the difference between the Qur’anic term /yastabširun/ (they rejoice) which has been stated about useful winds in former verses, and the Qur’anic sentence:

This difference shows that they see those masses of great and continuous blessings of Allah (s.w.t.) and become happy, but if there comes an affliction once and for one day to them, they cry so severely and go toward disbelief that as if they did not desist from it. It is just like those who are safe for a life time and do not say a word of gratitude, but one night when they burn in fever they say all words of disbelief and ingratitude; and this is the state of ignorant and faithless people.

In this regard, there have been stated some other matters in the commentary of verse 35 of the current Surah, and Surah Hud, No. 11, verses 9 and 10, and Surah Al-Hajj, No. 22, verse 11.