Abasa

Summary

• 1-11 The Surah starts by rebuking someone for frowning on a blind person who came to him.
• 12-15 The Quran written in honourable, exalted, and pure volumes
• 16-23 Man cursed for turning aside from his Creator
• 24-32 It is God who provides man with food
• 33-37 On the judgment-day men will desert their nearest relatives and friends
• 38-42 The bright and sad faces of the resurrection-day

Period of revelation

Sunni perspective

According to traditional Sunni narration, the story behind the revelation of the first ten verses of the sura is as follows: Muhammad was preaching Islam to Walid ibn al-Mughira and other Quraysh chieftains in Mecca. Abdullah ibn Umm Maktum came along and asked Muhammad about something. Muhammad did not want to turn his attention away from the chieftains and frowned at ibn Umm Maktum. Allah admonished Muhammad for this action via the first ten verses of Abasa.

Shia perspective

The Shia interpretations are unanimous on the view that the person that frowned away was not Muhammad, but an elite from Banu Umayya. According to them, these verses were descended about the man from Banu Umayya who was sitting with Muhammad. At the same time, Abdullah bin Umm Maktum(Ibn Taymiyyah) entered, when the rich man saw the poverty stricken Abdullah he drew himself aside, not to get his dress dirty and contracted his facial expressions which got uneasy. In those verses God stated his acts and criticized and condemned them.

The tenses of grammar used

The word used was Abasa, which refers to 'He'. The Quran does not directly impose the frowning on Muhammad, instead it says "He frowned away", making it widely open for interpretation.

References

References

1. "The Quranic Arabic Corpus - Word by Word Grammar, Syntax and Morphology of the Holy Quran".
2. (1896). "A Complete Index to [[Sale's Text]], Preliminary Discourse, and Notes". Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, and Co.
3. Najafi, Shaikh Mohsin Ali. "Balagh ul Quran - Shaikh Mohsin Ali Najafi - بلاغ القرآن - شیخ محسن علی نجفی".
4. (September 2019)
5. "Learn Quran online".
6. "Surah 'Abasa [80]".
7. "Quran - Surah Abasa - Arabic, English Translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali".