Surah Al-Ma'idah 5:58
ﱁ ﱂ ﱃ ﱄ ﱅ ﱆ ﱇ ﱈ ﱉ ﱊ ﱋ ﱌ ﱍ
And when you call to prayer, they take it in ridicule and amusement. That is because they are a people who do not use reason.
Tafsir of Al-Ma'idah 5:58
Tafsir
Mafatih al-Ghayb
Verse range: 5:58
| Al-Ma'idah (The Table Spread): (58) And when you call to...
When the previous verse recounted how they mocked the religion of the Muslims as jest and play, here He mentions some of what they took as jest and play from this religion, saying: **{And when you call to the prayer, they take it as a jest and a play.}**
There are several issues concerning this:
Issue 1: The Pronoun in {they take it}
The pronoun in the phrase {they take it} (ittakhadhūhā) refers either to the Prayer (al-Ṣalāh) or the Call (al-Nidā’).
- One narration states that a Christian man in Medina, whenever he heard the caller to prayer (mu’adhdhin) say: "I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah," he would say: "May the liar be burned!" One night, his female servant entered with fire, and a spark flew out, setting the house ablaze, burning him and his family.
- Another narration suggests that when the Messenger of Allah's caller announced the prayer and the Muslims stood up for it, the Jews would say mockingly: "They stood up, may they never stand up! They prayed, may they never pray!"—as a form of mockery, and the verse was revealed.
- Another view is that the hypocrites would laugh when people stood up for prayer, discouraging others from it.
- Another view is that they said: "O Muhammad, you have innovated something unheard of before. If you are a prophet, then in what you have introduced, you have contradicted all previous prophets. Where did you get this cry like the braying of a donkey?" Then Allah revealed this verse.
Issue 2: Proof of the Call to Prayer (Adhan)
They said: This verse proves the establishment of the Adhan (Call to Prayer) by explicit text from the Book, not merely from a dream (manām).
Issue 3: The Meaning of {Jest and Play}
The phrase {jest and play} (huzwan wa la‘iban) refers to two things:
- When the prayer is established, they say that the actions they perform are in mockery and derision of the Muslims, believing that the Muslims think they are following the same religion as them, when they are not.
- Because they believed there was no benefit or utility in it, neither in this world nor the next, they called it mere play.
Then the Almighty said: {That is because they are a people who do not reason} (dhālika bi-annahum qawmun lā ya‘qilūn). This means: If they possessed complete intellect, they would know that honoring and serving the Creator, the Bestower of blessings, is accompanied by the utmost reverence; it cannot be jest and play. Rather, it is the noblest of deeds for servants and the most honorable of their actions. Therefore, some wise men said: "The most noble of movements is the Prayer, and the most beneficial of stillness is the Fasting."