3ما وَدَّعَكَ رَبُّكَ وَما قَلىٰMir Ahmed AliHath1 forsaken not thee thy Lord, nor hath He been displeased (with thee)!In the early stages of the ministry, there was some suspense or a short interval between a revelation and another. The pagans of Mecca taunted that God had forsaken the Holy Prophet and started a slander to the effect. But neither this nor even the worst of the torturous persecution had in the least affected the feelings of the Holy Prophet, though an apostle of God like Jesus is reported by the christians themselves to have cried in the agony, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 16:34) the Crier was not in fact Jesus, the Spirit of God, but the one crucified in his stead. The brief pause is said to he only of a short duration viz. two or three days (SB.). The occasion was as follows: At the open declaration of Islam, the pagans of Mecca had written to the Madinites most of whom were Jews and Christians about the apostleship claimed by the Holy Prophet, to verify the matter with their scriptures and inform them of the troth or the fallacy in the claim with regard to any prophecy they might find about the advent of any one like him. The reply came telling them to put the three questions to the Holy Prophet and if he answers all the three or even two of them, he would surely he the Promised Apostle of God. The three questions were: (1) The story of the fellows of the rave. (2) The double-horned one and (3) What is a soul?The Holy Prophet replied that he never spoke anything but only that which was revealed to him and he would wait for the revelation of the answers from God. For some days together, no revelation came and the pagans started slandering and taunting that God has forsaken the Holy Prophet. The revelation came after a few days. The delay in the communication from God was obviously a divine plan to put the people to a trial and to disclose how eager they were and how impatiently they only waited for the least opportunity to persecute God’s apostle. It is also misinterpreted that since the Holy Prophet, while promising the replies to the questions, did not say ‘If God wills’ (i.e., he did not rely upon God) the consequence was the delay. This story is an untenable conjecture because the very fact that he said that he would reply only when God reveals to him the answers, which clearly implies dependence or reliance only upon God’s will. This verse was revealed not by way of any solace to relieve the Holy Prophet of the burden of any effect of the taunts of the disbelievers on his divinely conditioned mind, but it was only in reply to the taunts and slander and to remove the evil effect of it on the mind of the common man, this declaration was made. It is paradoxical to imagine that the one conditioned by God Himself for the fulfilment of His own plan to deliver His Final Word to mankind and to reform the human race as a whole in all aspects and all walks of life and who was purified to the maximum extent possible, to have still laboured under the common weakness of the mind to be affected by mere taunts from an ignorant and degenerate people like the pagans of Mecca, which even ordinary man with the common sense intact, would patiently bear.Regarding the occasion for the revelation of this passage, commentators have given different accounts. All that the passage itself implies is that due to some delay in revelation, the opponents remarked that God has forsaken him and God getting tired of him, which is negated by the passage—and from reading this with the subsequent verses the justification of the oath to begin with, is obvious to mean that “the life might have ups and downs, but this does not affect the fact that thou art in the constant care of the Lord.” (A.P.)