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fa-dhakkir fa-mā ʾanta bi-niʿmati rabbika bi-kāhinin wa-lā majnūnin
So admonish. By your Lord’s blessing, you are not a soothsayer, nor mad.
— Ali Quli Qarai
52Aṭ-ṬūrالطورVerse 29 of 49
The Mount52. Aṭ-Ṭūrالطور
al-Ṭūr
The Mount
MeccanVerse 29 of 49
Surah al-Tur - Verses 29-30
29. Thus, remind [people] that by the Grace of Allah, you are neither a soothsayer, nor a madman.
30. Or do they say: He is a poet! We await his calamitous death!”
In the twain blessed Verses God Almighty thus addresses His Messenger bidding him to remind disbelievers of fulfilling their duty against Allah and says unto him to fulfill his obligations toward Allah. He is further told that God Almighty has bestowed upon him such exalted state. He is neither a soothsayer, nor a madman, nor a lunatic. The word
soothsayer
is applied to someone who may perform extraordinary things through the medium of jinn and devils. Such person claims to be aware of the unseen thus rendering falsehood as truth for people and most of his words are false and baseless and there may have been soothsayers who falsely claimed to be Prophets. The word
madman
is likewise applied to someone who performs acts beyond common practice and his acts are carried out without discipline and thought. Poetry is applied to rhythmical words adorned with rhymes. It is however a source of surprise that the three characteristics attributed to the most prominent person in the world of existence, namely the Noble Prophet of the Islamic faith (S) are contradictory and one single person may not possess all the three attributes, since soothsaying springs from self-mortification and despite the fact that it is satanic, it is done through reason polluted with imagination and estimative faculty and the soothsayer intends to draw conclusions out of his own acts.
How may such characteristic be found in someone together with madness which stems from unconsciousness and alienation. The people of Mecca were speakers of the Arabic tongue and could notice the eloquence of the Holy Qur’an and were aware that Qur’anic Verses was different from poetry and their own speech, but they pretended ignorance and termed the Noble Prophet (S) as poet.
In short, all these baseless accusations stemmed from jealousy, envy, arrogance, and obduracy rather than from ignorance. It was out of their vile disposition that they expected some ailment or another affliction fall upon the Noble Prophet (S) such that he may cease his Prophetic Call and receiving Divine Revelation of the inimitable Qur’anic Verses and thereby people may not follow him through converting to the Islamic faith.