Salaam and welcome to another episode of our weekly series titled “Path towards Enlightenment” which is an endeavour to make you and us familiar with an easy and fluent explanation of God’s Final Scripture to all mankind, the holy Qur’an, which was revealed to the Last and Greatest of all Messengers, Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny).

We start from where we left you last week, and here we present the explanation of Ayahs 15 and 16 of Surah Zukhruf:

“They ascribe to Him (God) offspring from among His servants! Man is indeed a manifest ingrate.”

“Did He adopt daughters from what He creates while He preferred you with sons?”

If you remember, last Friday in our explanation of the previous Ayahs of this Surah we said since we benefit from bounties of the world of creation, it is natural for us to remember God and thank Him for His infinite favours by admitting our inability before the All-Glorious Creator. In the same manner, while traveling we ought to contemplate that life itself is a journey towards the final destination decreed by God since the time of birth.

The Ayahs that we recited to you now refer to the illogical belief of some of the pagans who imagined that God Almighty has daughters, and out of ignorance they considered angels as the female offspring of the All-Glorious Creator even though He is far above such attributes and has created angels without gender. Such an inappropriate attribution is a manifest token of ingratitude.

Ayah 16 is a rhetorical question to expose the fallacious belief of the pagans who prided on male issue and considered females as weak, unwanted, and causes of shame, fitting to be only the ‘angelic’ offspring of God. Such attributions reveal their ignorance since daughters and sons are both the creation of God and blessings for the parents, who ought to give them their respective shares, while God the Originator of the universe is One, Glorified, and Free from corporeality as is mentioned in Surah Towheed:

“He neither begat, nor was begotten; And He has no equal.”

From these Ayahs we learn:

1. It is a form of ingratitude for the pagans to consider angels as the daughters of God, and to regard females as weak and causes of shame.
2. The holy Qur’an does not differentiate between sons and daughters and considers both of them as blessings of God for the parents with specific duties and shares for them.

Now we listen to Ayahs 17, 18, and 19 of the same Surah:

“When one of them is brought the news of what he ascribes to the All-Beneficent, his face becomes darkened (because of the birth of a daughter) and he chokes with suppressed agony, [and says]:

“What! One who is brought up amid ornaments and is inconspicuous in contests?’”

“And they have made the angels —who are servants of the All-Beneficent— females. Were they witness to their creation? Their testimony will be written down and they shall be questioned.”

These Ayahs refer to the misconstrued belief in society of the superiority of the male and the discrimination against the female. In other words, those filled with grief upon being informed of the birth of a daughter and imagine that sons are better, suffer from polytheistic superstitions.

Ayah 17 is a reproach to the pagans regarding their gloom on the birth of a daughter, even though they used to consider angels as daughters of God, Who is far too glorious to have any need of offspring. Both sons and daughters are the blessings of God, but the polytheist mind is unable to understand this dynamic factor for procreation and progress of the human race.

As the next Ayah says, these dimwitted persons think that sons are a great help at work and in contests, based on their ability to augment earnings, while daughters are unfit for such tasks and have to be raised in an atmosphere of comfort with the liking for ornaments and trinkets, which require expenses.  

Ironically, despite such absurd logic of the apprehension of disgrace that daughters might bring to the family, the pagans, as Ayah 19 means to say, felt no inhibitions in visualizing angels as females and the daughters of God. This Ayah reveals their unworthy and baseless words regarding their false beliefs, and poses the question: Were you present at the time of creation to witness the manner of your making and realize the gender decreed for you – whether male or female? Thus, their false words and testimonies will be recorded and they will be questioned on the Day of Resurrection before being punished for their words and actions.

From these Ayahs of Surah Zukhruf we learn that:

1. Both males and females are the creatures of God and necessary for survival of the human race, since each of them have his/her own exclusive characteristics in helping shape family and bring up good children.
2. Love for ornaments is in the innate nature of girls and women.
3. Angels are not children but the creatures of God without having any gender and have been created without possessing any emotions in order to discharge the duties entrusted to them.

RM/AS/SS