Surah Yunus ayat 16 Tafsir Quran 10:16

﴿قُل لَّوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ مَا تَلَوْتُهُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَلَا أَدْرَاكُم بِهِ ۖ فَقَدْ لَبِثْتُ فِيكُمْ عُمُرًا مِّن قَبْلِهِ ۚ أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ﴾
[ يونس: 16]

10:16 Say, "If Allah had willed, I would not have recited it to you, nor would He have made it known to you, for I had remained among you a lifetime before it. Then will you not reason?"

Say ‘If God had willed I would not have recited it to you nor would He have made it known to you nor would He have made you aware of it the lā of wa-lā adrākum is for negation and is a supplement to what preceded; a variant reading has the lām sc. la-adrākum ‘He would have made it known to you’ as the response to the conditional law ‘if’ in other words He would have made it known to you by the tongue of someone other than myself. For I have already dwelt among you a whole lifetime of forty years before this Qur’ān not relating to you anything of the sort so will you not understand?’ that this Qur’ān is not from myself?

Say to them Had- Allah willed He would not have sent down a Book and I would not have had to recite it to you nor instruct you in practical divinity nor furnish you with authoritative directions as to action. I have lived in your midst for years before it was revealed to me; can you not Reflect

Obstinance of the Chiefs of the Quraysh Allah tells us about the obstinance of the disbelievers of the Quraysh, who were opposed to the message and denied Allah.
When the Messenger ﷺ read to them from the Book of Allah and His clear evidence they said to him: "Bring a Qur'an other than this." They wanted the Prophet to take back this Book and bring them another book of a different style or change it to a different form.
So Allah said to His Prophet : قُلْ مَا يَكُونُ لِى أَنْ أُبَدِّلَهُ مِن تِلْقَآءِ نَفْسِى ( Say: "It is not for me to change it on my own accord; ) This means that it is not up to me to do such a thing.
I am but a servant who receives commands.
I am a Messenger conveying from Allah. إِنْ أَتَّبِعُ إِلاَّ مَا يُوحَى إِلَىَّ إِنِّى أَخَافُ إِنْ عَصَيْتُ رَبِّى عَذَابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ ( I only follow that which is revealed unto me.
Verily, I fear the torment of the Great Day (the Day of Resurrection ) if I were to disobey my Lord.) The Evidence of the Truthfulness of the Qur'an Muhammad ﷺ then argued with supporting evidence to the truthfulness of what he had brought them: قُل لَّوْ شَآءَ اللَّهُ مَا تَلَوْتُهُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَلاَ أَدْرَاكُمْ بِهِ ( Say: "If Allah had so willed, I should not have recited it to you nor would He have made it known to you..." ) This indicates that he brought this only with the permission and will of Allah for him to do so.
The proof of this was that he had not fabricated it himself and that they were incapable of refuting it, and that they should be fully aware of his truthfulness and honesty since he grew up among them, until Allah sent the Message to him.
The Prophet was never criticized for anything or held in contempt.
So he said, فَقَدْ لَبِثْتُ فِيكُمْ عُمُراً مِّن قَبْلِهِ أَفَلاَ تَعْقِلُونَ ( Verily, I have stayed among you a lifetime before this.
Have you then no sense ) Which meant "don't you have brains with which you may distinguish the truth from falsehood" When Heraclius, the Roman king, asked Abu Sufyan and those who were in his company about the Prophet , he said: "Have you ever accused him of telling lies before his claim" Abu Sufyan replied: "No." Abu Sufyan was then the head of the disbelievers and the leader of the idolators, but he still admitted the truth.
This is a clear and irrefutable testimony since it came from the enemy.
Heraclius then said: "I wondered how a person who does not tell a lie about others could ever tell a lie about Allah." Ja`far bin Abu Talib said to An-Najashi, the king of Ethiopia: "Allah has sent to us a Messenger that we know his truthfulness, ancestral lineage, and honesty.
He stayed among us before the prophethood for forty years."

(10:16) Tell them: 'Had Allah so willed, I would not have recited the Qur'an to you, nor would Allah have informed you of it. I have spent a lifetime among you before this. Do you, then, not use your reason? *21

Say, "If Allah had willed, I would meaning

*21).
This is indeed a very weighty argument in refutation of the unbelievers' allegation that the Prophet ( peace be on him ) had himself authored the Qur'an and subsequently ascribed it to God.
So far as other arguments are concerned, they might be considered as somewhat remote.
But the argument based on the life and character of the Prophet ( peace be on him ) was particularly weighty since the Makkans were thoroughly familiar with the whole of his life.
Before his designation as a Prophet, he had spent a full forty years in their midst.
He was born in their city.
They had observed his childhood, and then his youth, and it was in their city that he had reached his middle age.
He had also had a variety of dealings with them.
He had had social interaction, business transactions, matrimonial ties, and relationships of every conceivable nature with his people so that no aspect of his life was hidden from their view.
Could there be a more powerful testimony to the truth of his claim to prophethood than his blameless life and character?
Two things about the life of the Prophet ( peace be on him ) were especially clear and were quite well known to all Makkans.
First, that during the forty years of his life before his designation as a Prophet, he had received no instruction from, or even enjoyed the company of learned people which could have served as the source of the ideas which began to flow, as would a stream, from his lips as soon as he claimed, at the age of forty, that he had been designated as a Prophet.
Before that he was never seen to have been concerned with the problems, or to have discussed the subjects, or to have expressed the ideas which frequently recur in the Qur'an.
In fact none of his closest friends and relatives had foreseen in his pre-Prophetic life any signs indicative of the great message which he suddenly started to preach at the age of forty.
These pieces of evidence, taken together, provide incontrovertible evidence that the Qur'an is not a product of the Prophet's mind; that it had come to the Prophet ( peace be on him ) from without.
For no human being can produce something for which traces of growth and evolution are not found in the earlier period of his life.

This explains the fact that when some of the more crafty Makkan unbelievers realized the sheer absurdity of their allegation that the Prophet ( peace be on him ) was the author of the Qur'an, they chose to propagate that there must be some other person who had taught the Prophet ( peace be on him ) the Qur'an.
Such a statement, however, was even more preposterous since they failed to convincingly point out who that other person was who was the true source of the Qur'an.
Even leaving aside Makka, the fact is that there was not a single person throughout the length and breadth of Arabia who possessed the competence needed for the authorship of the Qur'an.
Had such an extraordinary person existed, how could he have remained hidden from the sight of others?
Second, the pre-Prophetic life of Muhammad ( peace be on him ) clearly shows him to be a man of exceptionally high moral character for there was not the least trace of any evil - whether lies, deceit, vile cunning or trickery.
On the contrary, all those who came into contact with the Prophet ( peace be on him ) were impressed by him as a person of flawless character, as one utterly truthful and trustworthy.

An illustration in point is the incident related in connection with the re-building of the Ka'bah five years before his designation as a Prophet.
There was a serious dispute between the various families of the Quraysh on the question as to who should have the privilege of placing the Black Stone in its place in the edifice of the Ka'bah, In order to reach an amicable accord, they resolved that they would abide by the ruling given by the first person who entered the Ka'bah the following day.
The next day people saw it was the Prophet ( peace be on him ) who was the first to enter.
They exclaimed: 'Here is a trustworthy man ( amin ).
We agree [ to follow his ruling ].
He is Muhammad.' ( Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat, vol.
1, p.
146 - Ed. ) Thus, before designating
Muhammad ( peace be on him ) as a Prophet, God had the whole body of the Quraysh testify to his trustworthiness.
No room was left, therefore, for suspecting that he who had never resorted to lying or deceit throughout his life would suddenly resort to fabricating a gigantic lie; that he would first compose something, then deny that it was his work, and would then ascribe it to God.

In view of the above, God directs the Prophet ( peace be on him ) to ask the unbelievers to use their brains before levelling such a stupid allegation against him.
For the Prophet ( peace be on him ) was after all no stranger to them; he had spent virtually a whole lifetime in their midst.
In view of the well-known and uniformly high level of his conduct and character, how could it even be conceived that he would falsely ascribe the Qur'an to God if God had not actually revealed it to him.
( For further elaboration see al-Qasas 28, n.
109. )
 

Obstinance of the Chiefs of the Quraysh Allah tells us about the obstinance of the disbelievers of the Quraysh, who were opposed to the message and denied Allah.
When the Messenger ﷺ read to them from the Book of Allah and His clear evidence they said to him: "Bring a Qur'an other than this." They wanted the Prophet to take back this Book and bring them another book of a different style or change it to a different form.
So Allah said to His Prophet : قُلْ مَا يَكُونُ لِى أَنْ أُبَدِّلَهُ مِن تِلْقَآءِ نَفْسِى ( Say: "It is not for me to change it on my own accord; ) This means that it is not up to me to do such a thing.
I am but a servant who receives commands.
I am a Messenger conveying from Allah. إِنْ أَتَّبِعُ إِلاَّ مَا يُوحَى إِلَىَّ إِنِّى أَخَافُ إِنْ عَصَيْتُ رَبِّى عَذَابَ يَوْمٍ عَظِيمٍ ( I only follow that which is revealed unto me.
Verily, I fear the torment of the Great Day (the Day of Resurrection ) if I were to disobey my Lord.) The Evidence of the Truthfulness of the Qur'an Muhammad ﷺ then argued with supporting evidence to the truthfulness of what he had brought them: قُل لَّوْ شَآءَ اللَّهُ مَا تَلَوْتُهُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَلاَ أَدْرَاكُمْ بِهِ ( Say: "If Allah had so willed, I should not have recited it to you nor would He have made it known to you..." ) This indicates that he brought this only with the permission and will of Allah for him to do so.
The proof of this was that he had not fabricated it himself and that they were incapable of refuting it, and that they should be fully aware of his truthfulness and honesty since he grew up among them, until Allah sent the Message to him.
The Prophet was never criticized for anything or held in contempt.
So he said, فَقَدْ لَبِثْتُ فِيكُمْ عُمُراً مِّن قَبْلِهِ أَفَلاَ تَعْقِلُونَ ( Verily, I have stayed among you a lifetime before this.
Have you then no sense ) Which meant "don't you have brains with which you may distinguish the truth from falsehood" When Heraclius, the Roman king, asked Abu Sufyan and those who were in his company about the Prophet , he said: "Have you ever accused him of telling lies before his claim" Abu Sufyan replied: "No." Abu Sufyan was then the head of the disbelievers and the leader of the idolators, but he still admitted the truth.
This is a clear and irrefutable testimony since it came from the enemy.
Heraclius then said: "I wondered how a person who does not tell a lie about others could ever tell a lie about Allah." Ja`far bin Abu Talib said to An-Najashi, the king of Ethiopia: "Allah has sent to us a Messenger that we know his truthfulness, ancestral lineage, and honesty.
He stayed among us before the prophethood for forty years."

( Say ) O Muhammad: ( If Allah had so willed ) i.e. for me not to be a Messenger ( I should not have recited it to you ) I should not have recited the Qur’an to you ( nor would He have made it known to you ) and He would not have made the Qur’an known to you. ( I dwelt among you a whole lifetime ) 40 years ( before it ) before the revelation of the Qur’an, and before that I never said anything. ( Have ye then no sense? ) do you not have the sense to understand that it is not of my accord?

Say (O Muhammad SAW): "If Allah had so willed, I should not have recited it to you nor would He have made it known to you. Verily, I have stayed amongst you a life time before this. Have you then no sense?"

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