Tafsir of Al-An'am 6:9

The first pronoun refers to the warner—the one who spoke to the people on behalf of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace—which is understood from the context of the discourse and the support of the situation. The second pronoun refers to the angel, not to that which the first returned to. The meaning is: "If We had made the warner, whom you requested to be sent down, an angel, We would have made that angel appear to you as a man," because they would not have had the capacity to perceive an angel in its original form.

In choosing "a man" (rajulan) over "a human" (basharan), there is an indication—as has been said—that the making is by way of representation, not by way of altering reality, and it specifies what is being represented. It also contains an intimation, as `Isam al-Din and others have said, that a messenger cannot be a woman, which is a matter of consensus; the disagreement is only regarding her prophethood.

The shift from "if We had sent down an angel" to what is in this noble arrangement has its secret known from what preceded in the explanation of the intended meaning. It has been said: The shift is to observe parallelism with what follows.

The Sheikh al-Islam addressed the issue of not referring the first pronoun to the aforementioned angel—arguing that one would have to reverse the order of the two objects and say, "And if We had made him a warner, We would have made him a man," while still understanding the intent—by stating that it is to verify that the basis for presenting the first "making" in the form of a supposition and estimation, and the pivot of its necessitating the second, is the angelic nature of the warner, not the "warnership" of the angel. This is because, in the structure of the verb "made" (ja'ala), its first object ought to be the subject and the second the predicate, as it is in the sense of "to render" (tas-yir), which is transferred from the construction that enters upon the subject and predicate. There is no doubt that the point of benefit and the pivot of the entailment between the two sides of the conditional statement is the predicate of the protasis, not its subject. Since "if" (law) indicates the impossibility of the condition, and the intention is to explain the non-existence of the first making because it entails the obstacle which is the second making, it became necessary to make the pivot of entailment in the first part the second object, inevitably. Therefore, its counterpart in the second "making" was set likewise, as a demonstration of the complete contradiction between them, which requires the non-existence of the condition. This is not without merit.

Many have allowed that His saying, "And if We had made him," etc., is a response to a second request. This is because the disbelievers had two requests: one, that an angel be sent down to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in its original form such that the people could see it; and the other, that an angel be sent down to the people to be sent to them in place of the human messenger. For just as they used to say, "Why was an angel not sent down to Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—to be a warner with him?" they also used to say, "This is but a human like you, and if Allah had willed, He would have sent down angels." Thus, they were answered regarding their first saying with His Almighty’s words, "And if We had sent down an angel," etc., and regarding their latter saying with what has been mentioned. Thus, the pronoun in "made him" refers to the messenger sent down to the people. It is not hidden that treating it as an answer to another request is not apparent from the noble arrangement, and there is no impetus for it at all.

Some have made it another answer and attributed the pronoun to the "requested one." This was objected to on the grounds that the requested one is also an angel, and there is no meaning to saying, "If We had made the angel an angel," unless it is said that the intent is: "If We had made the angelic status of the requested one an angel." This was countered by saying that the requested one is the one descending alongside the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and in that case, there is no dust on the discourse, except that the necessity of making the descending angel a man because He made him an angel (as is understood from the second verse) contradicts the necessity of their destruction (as is understood from the first verse), because the second depends on the absence of the first, as its foundation is upon his descent in his form, not in the form of a man. In that case, the verse must be an answer to another request, not another answer to the first request, so that there is no contradiction.

It was answered that on the assumption of it being another answer, it is an answer by way of concession. The meaning is: "If We had sent him down as they requested, they would have perished; and if We assume they would not have perished, then he must be represented as a human, because they would not be able to bear seeing him in his true form," thus the sending would be futile and without benefit. You know that what we have relied upon, which is what is narrated from the "scholar of the nation" (Ibn Abbas), is free from such objections.

Indeed, some scholars mentioned a problem: it is established among the logicians that the truth of the converse is necessary for the truth of the original; thus, the falsity of the consequent necessitates the falsity of the antecedent. Therefore, the converse of this true proposition, which is "If We had made him an angel, We would have made him a man," is not true, since it would be "If We had made him a man, We would have made him an angel," and there is no doubt that this is not realized, for Allah the Almighty has made him a man and has not made him an angel.

The answer is that what the logicians mentioned is a later terminology, so it is not necessary for their rule to conform to the rule of the linguists. This is not satisfactory, for it has been established that that rule does not contradict the rule of language and is a matter on which there is no disagreement.

It was answered after preparing a premise: that the conditional "if" (law) has two linguistic usages:

1. In the sense of the non-existence of the second due to the non-existence of the first, as in: "If you had come to me, I would have honored you." The concept of the proposition in this case is the information that something did not occur due to the non-existence of something else.
2. In the sense of logical necessity, as recognized by the logicians. They classified it as a tool of connection—by necessity or by coincidence—and the truth of the proposition containing it is by the conformity of the judgment of necessity to reality; they judge it false if it lacks necessity, even if both its sides are realized. Linguists have also used it in this sense, either through sharing or metaphor, as one says: "If Zaid were in the country, someone would have seen him." And in some traditions: "If al-Khidr were alive, he would have visited me." It is clear that the goal is to infer the absence from the absence, not to indicate that the non-existence of the second is the cause of the non-existence of the first. They count among this usage: "Had there been within the heavens and earth gods besides Allah, they both would have been ruined."

These two usages were confused by Ibn al-Hajib, leading him to say what he said. For if the objector meant by "the converse of a true proposition, etc." that the true proposition is the one taken by the first usage, we do not concede that its converse is what he mentioned; the converse of "If you had come to me, I would have honored you" is not "If I had honored you, you would have come to me." That would only be the case if the judgment in this usage were between the condition and the result by way of connection, but it is not so. Rather, the proposition is the resultant sentence, and the condition is a restriction upon it, as al-Sakkaki explicitly stated. Moreover, some leaders of interpretation said that the intent of the verse is: "If We had made him an angel, We would have made him in the form of a man," and that the goal is to explain the invalidation of their purpose behind their saying, "Why was an angel not sent down to him?"—meaning that the descent of an angel would not benefit them because they—being who they are—would not be able to observe the angel in the form he possesses unless He makes him represented in the form of a human at a level of descent such that they have an affinity with him, and thus see him. In this view, the verse is far removed from being a matter where one investigates its converse, or its state of truth and falsity, for it was not proposed to explain the necessity of the second "making" for the first, such that one could infer the non-existence from the non-existence or existence from existence. The relation of this research to the verse is like the relation of a fish to a sky-dweller.

If he meant that the true proposition is the one taken by the logical, conventional usage, it is conceded that its converse must be true if the original is true, but we do not concede the falsity of the converse here on that assumption. For if it is supposed that the necessity of "making him a man" for the first "making" is absolute in all scenarios, then the necessity of "making him an angel" for "making him a man" is true in some situations and assumptions, which is the required entailment in their rules. Furthermore, his statement that "Allah the Almighty has made him a man and has not made him an angel" is not fit to be issued by one like him, because it is an inference of the invalidity of the necessity from the absence of the consequent while the antecedent exists, which is like one saying: "If we say that if Zaid is a 'neighing one,' he is an animal, its converse does not hold, which is: if Zaid is an animal, he is a neighing one, because in reality, he is not a neighing one." The origin of this is the belief that the non-realization of one or both sides contradicts necessity. You are aware that the truth of necessity does not depend on the realization of the sides nor the realization of the antecedent.

Mawla al-'Ala'i criticized this, firstly, by saying that the claim that the proposition is the resultant sentence and the condition is a restriction is a statement mentioned by some Arabists but rejected by the Master (al-Sayyid al-Sanad), who established the agreement of both parties that the sentence is the whole. How, then, can the answer be based on that? Secondly, that the objector did not infer the invalidity of the necessity from the absence of the consequent while the antecedent exists, as is not hidden to the one who looks at his expression. The correct approach is to say: The usage of "if" (law) among the Arabists is mostly for two meanings: 1. What the answerer mentioned (non-existence of the second due to non-existence of the first); 2. Indicating that the result is necessarily existing at all times according to the intention of the speaker, when the condition seems unlikely to necessitate that result, and the opposite of that condition is more suitable to necessitate that result. Thus, the result must necessarily continue upon the existence or non-existence of the condition, as in: "Suhaib is an excellent servant; if he did not fear Allah the Almighty, he would not have disobeyed Him." The verifiers have stated that the verse is either of the first category—i.e., if We had made your companion an angel whom they could observe, or the Messenger sent to them an angel, We would have made that angel in the form of a man, and We did not make that angel in the form of a man because We did not make the companion or the Messenger an angel—or it is of the second category—i.e., even if We had made the Messenger an angel, he would have been in the form of a man, so how much more so if he were a human? Neither of these accepts the aforementioned converse, and there is no third category. So reflect. The research still needs more expansion, and if we were to expand it, it would bore the readers.

Some have made this the response to a hidden condition, i.e., "And if We had made him a man, We would have confused," etc. It is as if the motivator for this is the repetition of the lam of the response, as it implies its independence and that there is no necessary link between sending an angel and confusing them; rather, it is not a cause for it, but the opposite. It is permissible for it to be a conjunction to the response of "if" (law) mentioned, and there is no harm in conjoining a necessity of the response to it. The point of repeating the lam is that the necessity of a thing is as the thing itself, as if it were a garment. Labs (confusion/covering) originally means covering with a garment, and it is used for preventing the soul from perceiving a thing by what is like a cover for it. It is said, "I labastu (confused) the matter for the people," i.e., I made it problematic for them. Ibn al-Sikkit said: "You labasta (confused) the matter for him" means you mixed it up for him so he would not know its aspect—i.e., we would have confused them regarding what they confuse themselves with by representing him as a man, saying to him, "You are only a human and not an angel." And if he were to provide evidence of his angelic nature through a miracle like the Quran and the like, they would deny him just as they denied Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The attribution of the labs to Him, the Almighty, is because it is by His creation, the Almighty, or because it is a necessity of His making him a man.

It is also possible that the meaning is: We would have confused for them, in that case, what they currently confuse themselves with in their denial of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and their attribution of his clear signs to magic. Ma (what), according to what he chose in al-Kashf, is relative in the first case, and in the second, it is permissible for it to be an infinitive particle (masdariyyah), which is more apparent due to the continuous omission of the object in such phrases as "I struck the striking of the prince." It could also be relative, i.e., "like that which they confuse." The object of "confuse" in both cases is "themselves." It is understood from the words of al-Zajjaj that it refers to their weak ones, where he said: "They used to confuse their weak ones regarding the matter of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—saying: 'This is but a human like you.' Allah the Almighty informed them that if We had made the one sent to them an angel, We would have shown him to them in the form of a man, and then the same confusion would have afflicted them as afflicted their weak ones."

Ibn Muhaisin read it as wa-labasna with a single lam, and al-Zuhri read it as wa-la-labasna with the tashdid. The Imam al-Razi, in explaining the aspect of wisdom in making the angel—if he were to be sent down—in the form of a human, mentioned several points:

1. The genus is more inclined to its own genus.
2. Humans cannot bear to see an angel.
3. The acts of worship of an angel are powerful, so they would despise the worship of a human and perhaps not excuse their persistence in sins.
4. Prophethood is a favor from Allah the Almighty, so He singles out for it whom He wills of His servants, whether it be an angel or a human.

It is not hidden that the third point is open to criticism: it is only complete if the reality of the angel (whose descent is hypothesized) is changed into the reality of a human, and this, besides being a transformation of realities, is contrary to what is understood from the books of the leaders of interpretation, which is that the transformation is formal, not real. And the fourth point does not show why it is wisdom to depict an angel in the form of a human.

As for al-'Ala'i’s statement: "Perhaps the aspect of it is that the depicted one, who was decreed to be a prophet, when it encompassed two aspects—humanity in form and angelhood in reality—it would not be far-fetched for it to be evidence that prophethood is a favor from Allah the Almighty, which He singles out for whom He wills, whether it be an angel like this depicted one (considering his reality) or a human like him (considering his form)," this does not have a clear aspect of acceptance.