Qutila alkharrasoon (surah zariyat: 10)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(51:10) Doomed are the conjecturers *8

Qutilal kharraasoon

*8) Here the Qur'an is warning man of an important truth. To judge or make an estimate on the basis of conjecture and speculation in the ordinary matters of worldly life may be useful to some extent, although it would be no substitute for knowledge, but it would be disastrous to make estimates and give judgments merely according to one's own conjectures and speculations in a question of such fundamental nature and importance as whether we are, or are not, responsible and accountable to anyone for the deeds and actions of our lifetime, and if we arc, to whom we are accountable, when and what shall be the accountability, and what will be the consequences of our success and failure in that accountability. This is not a question on which man may form an estimate merely according to his conjecture and speculation and then stake his entire life capital on the gamble. For if the conjecture proves to be wrong, it would mean that the man has doomed himself to utter ruin. Furthermore, this question is not at all included among those questions about which one may form a right opinion by the exercise of analogy and conjecture, For conjecture and analogy can work only in those matters which are perceptible for man, whereas this is a question which does not come under perception in any way, Therefore, it is not at all possible that a conjectural and analogical judgment about it may be right and correct. As for the question: What is the right way for man to form an opinion about the matters which are no perceptible and incomprehensible in nature? this has been answered at many places in the Qur'an, and from this Surah also the same answer becomes obvious, and it is this: (1) Man himself cannot reach the reality directly; (2) Allah gives the knowledge of the reality through His Prophets; and (3) man can ascertain the truth of that knowledge in this way: he should study deeply the countless signs that are found in the earth and heavens and in his own self, then consider seriously and impartially whether those signs testify to the reality that the Prophet bas presented, or to the different ideologies that the other people have presented in this regard. This is the only method of scientific investigation about God and the Hereafter that has been taught in the Qur'an. Doomed would be the one who discarded this method and followed his own analogies and conjectures. .