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Tafheem-ul-Quran - Abul Ala Maududi translation for Surah Al-Qasas — Ayah 57

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28:57
وَقَالُوٓاْ إِن نَّتَّبِعِ ٱلۡهُدَىٰ مَعَكَ نُتَخَطَّفۡ مِنۡ أَرۡضِنَآۚ أَوَلَمۡ نُمَكِّن لَّهُمۡ حَرَمًا ءَامِنٗا يُجۡبَىٰٓ إِلَيۡهِ ثَمَرَٰتُ كُلِّ شَيۡءٖ رِّزۡقٗا مِّن لَّدُنَّا وَلَٰكِنَّ أَكۡثَرَهُمۡ لَا يَعۡلَمُونَ ٥٧
They say: "If we were to follow this guidance with you, we should be snatched away from our land."1 Have We not established for them a secure sanctuary to which fruits of all kinds are brought as a provision from Us? But most of them do not know.2
Footnotes
  • [1] This was the most important excuse which the unbelieving Quraish made for not accepting Islam. To understand fully we shall have to see what was the position of the Quraish historically which they feared would be affected if they accepted Islam.
  • [2] Qira’at: Ibn Kathir read it as: “as though he were ascending in the sky.”Shuʻba read it as: “. . . as though he were ascending on and on in the sky.”
  • [3] A grammatical shift from 3rd person to 1st person.
  • [4] The importance that the Quraish gained initially in Arabia was due to them being genealogically the descendants of the Prophet Ishmael (peace be upon him), and therefore, the Arabs looked upon them as the children of the Prophets. Then, when they became the custodians of the Kaabah through Qusayy bin Kilab’s sagacity, and Makkah became their home, their importance grew, because they were the attendants of the most, sacred shrine of Arabia, and its priests too. Therefore, every Arab tribe had to have relations with them on account of the annual pilgrimage. Taking advantage of this central position the Quraish started gaining prominence as a commercial people, and to their great good fortune, the political conflict between the Eastern Roman Empire and Iran helped them to gain an important place in the international trade. Iran in those days had blocked entrance to all the trade routes between Rome, Greece, Egypt, and Syria in the north, and China, India, Indonesia and eastern Africa in the southeast. The only exception was the Red Sea route. This also was blocked when Yemen fell to Iran. After this, no way of the transit of trade goods remained except that the Arab merchants should transport merchandise of the Roman territories to the harbors of the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and then lift trade goods of the eastern countries from these harbors and transport them to the Roman territories. This sort of arrangement made Makkah an important center of the international trade, and the Quraish were its monopolists. But the chaotic conditions prevailing in Arabia did not allow smooth transit of the trade goods unless the Quraish had pleasant relations with the tribes through whose territories the trade caravans passed. For this the religious influence of the Quraish was not enough; they had to enter into treaties with the tribes concerned, pay them dividends from their profits, and make gifts to the tribal chiefs and other influential people. Besides, they also traded in money lending on a vast scale, which had ensnared the merchants and the chiefs of almost all the neighboring tribes.