Tafsir of Al-An'am 6:10

(And messengers have already been mocked before you) This is a consolation to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, regarding what he encounters from his people, such as al-Walid ibn al-Mughirah, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, Abu Jahl, and their ilk. That is, you are not the first messenger to be mocked by his people; how many messengers of high standing have had this done to them! The nunation (tanwin) is for glorification and plurality. The particle min (from) denotes commencement and is connected to an implied descriptor acting as an attribute for "messengers," and the statement involves the omission of a genitive (mudaf). In starting the sentence with an oath and the particle of verification (laqad), there is a degree of emphasis that is not hidden. That the consolation is restricted to this amount is something that was hidden from some scholars, though it is apparent. You may say: The consolation is provided by this and what follows it from the words of the Almighty: (Then those who mocked among them were encompassed by that which they used to mock). This is because it implies that whoever mocked the messengers was punished, so it is as if the Almighty—glorified and exalted be He—promised him, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, the punishment of those who mocked him, peace be upon him, if they persisted in that.

Haaqa (encompassed) means ahata (surrounded), as narrated from al-Dahhak, and preferred by al-Zajjaj. Al-Farra interpreted it as: "the consequence of their affair returned upon them." It is also said: it means "befell," a view preferred by al-Tabari. Another says it means "descended," which is close to the previous one. Its meaning revolves around encirclement and encompassing, and it is rarely used except for evil, as the poet said: "He brought the horses' hooves to the courtyards of their homes, and there encompassed them the harm of a hitter who strikes."

Al-Raghib said: Its root is haqqa, and one of the two doubled letters was replaced with a weak letter, like tazannantu and tazannaitu, or it is like dhimmah and dhamah. The well-known usage in the language is that which al-Zajjaj chose. Al-Azhari said: Abu Ishaq made haaqa mean ahata, as if he derived its root from al-hawq (with a damma), which refers to what encircles the glans from its edges; it may also be pronounced with a fatha, as in the Qamus. One of the meanings of al-hawq (with a fatha) is encompassing. In it, it also says: haqa bihi yahiq (with the ya opened) means it surrounded him, like ahaqa. It also says the sword haka (cut/penetrated), and regarding them, the affair lazamahum (became binding/obligatory) upon them. Allah Almighty ahaqa (made encompass) their own plotting upon them. Al-hayq is whatever evil action encompasses a person. Its literal meaning is that haqa is a ya-root verb, and this is the view of the majority of linguists, which contradicts the apparent statement of al-Azhari that it is a waw-root verb.

(Minhum) is connected to (sakharu—mocked), and the pronoun refers to the messengers. It is said sakharu minhu and bihi (mocked him), just as haza'a minhu and bihi are used; thus, they are identical in meaning and usage. It is said that sukhriyyah and istihza' are the same in meaning, though sometimes they are governed by min and sometimes by ba'. In Al-Durr al-Masun, it is stated that one only says istahza'a bihi and it is not governed by min. Abu al-Baqa' permitted that the pronoun refer to the mockers, and the prepositional phrase would then be connected to an implied state (hal) from the subject pronoun in sakharu. This was rejected on the grounds that the meaning would then be "encompassed those who mocked, being among the mockers," and there is no benefit in this state since it is understood from the word "mocked." This was answered by saying this is built upon the premise that istihza' and sukhriyyah have the same meaning, which is not necessarily the case. Perhaps the one who makes the pronoun refer to the mockers considers istihza' to mean "seeking to mock," so the specification is valid and there is no repetition in the arrangement. According to al-Raghib, istihza' is the seeking of mockery, even if it is sometimes used to express the act of mocking, just as istijabah (responding/seeking a response) involves the act of responding, even if it is treated as a response itself.

It was permitted that the pronoun refer to the nations of the messengers, an opinion attributed to al-Hufi, which Abu Hayyan rejected on the grounds that it requires the pronoun to refer to something unmentioned. This was answered by saying that it is in the strength of being mentioned.

(Bi-alladhina) is connected to haqa, and its advancement before its subject—which is ma—is for the haste in declaring the arrival of evil upon them. Ma is either a masdariyah (infinitive) particle, and the pronoun in bihi refers to the messenger implied within "messengers," or it is a relative pronoun, and the pronoun refers back to it, with the statement involving an implied genitive (mudaf). That is: "and encompassed them the consequence of what they used to mock." It is sometimes said: there is no need to assume an implied genitive, and the speech employs the cause in place of the effect, because what encompasses them is the punishment and the like, not the mocking nor the one mocked. However, placing that in its position is for hyperbole. It is said: the intention of "that which they used to mock" is the punishment of which the messengers used to warn them, so there is no need to commit to the aforementioned metaphor or ellipsis. Imam al-Wahidi chose this, and the objection against it—that there is no context indicating that what is mocked is the punishment, rather the context is evidence that those mocked are the messengers, peace be upon them—is repelled by the fact that mocking the messengers, peace be upon them, necessitates their mocking of what they brought and the punishment they warned their people would befall them; and something like this, due to its clarity, does not require context.

Some people claimed that (haqa bihim) is a metonymy for their destruction, and attributing it to what it is attributed to is a figurative mental trope of the type "you brought me to your city" (when God is the one who brought him), as it is known from the doctrine of the People of Truth that there is no destroyer but Allah Almighty, so attributing it to other than Him can only be metaphorical. You know that hayq is encompassing, and its attribution to punishment is, without doubt, literal, and there is no impetus to interpret it as destruction and commit to a mental metaphor. Perhaps the intent of the one who interpreted it this way is to clarify the end result of the statement and its total meaning. Yes, if we say that encompassing only applies to physical bodies and not to abstract concepts, then one must resort to a metaphor in the speech when assuming it is attributed to punishment, but not in the way mentioned by this claim, as is not hidden. Regarding the plural in "they used to mock," it is what has passed more than once in its examples. And (bihi) is connected to what follows it, and its advancement is to observe the endings of the verses.