Inna arsalna AAalayhim reehan sarsaran fee yawmi nahsin mustamirr (surah Al Qamar: 19)

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

(54:19) We sent a tumultuous wind against them on a day of unremitting misfortune, *16

Innaa arsalnaa `alaihim reehan sarsaran fee Yawmi nahsim mustamirr

*16) That is, on a day the ill luck of which continued to rage for several days. In Surah Ha Mim As-Sajdah: 16, the words are: fi ayyam in nahisat: "in a few iII-omened days," and in Surah AI-Haqqah: 7, it has been said: "This wind storm continued to rage for seven nights and eight days. "It is said that the day on which the storm started was Wednesday. From this the idea spread that Wednesday was a day of iII-luck, and no work should be started on this day. Some very weak traditions also have been cited to support this view, which have further strengthened the idea that this day is iII-omened. For example, there is Ibn Marduyah and Khatib al-Baghdadi's tradition that the last Wednesday of the month is iII-omened, the iII-omen of which is endless. Ibn Jauzi regards this tradition as fabricated and Ibn Rajab as unauthentic Hafiz Sakhavi; says that aII the methods through which this tradition has been reported, are weak. Likewise, Tabarani's tradition ("Wednesday is a day of perpetual iII-luck") also has been declared as weak by the scholars of Hadith. In some other traditions one is also forbidden to start a journey, to do business transactions, to pare the nails, or to visit the sick on a Wednesday. They also say that leprosy starts on this day. But aII these traditions are weak and these cannot be made the basis of any belief. The scholar Munawi says: 'To abandon Wednesday taking it as ill-omened and to entertain the astrologer's whims in this regard is forbidden, strictly forbidden, for aII days belong to AIIah; no day is beneficial by itself nor harmful." 'Allama Alusi says: 'AII days are equal; Wednesday has no peculiarity about it. There is no hour in the night or day which might be good for one person and bad for another. It is AIIah Who creates favourable conditions for some people and adverse for others."