Tafsir of Ad-Dhariyat 51:33

Surah Adh-Dhariyat (51): Verse 33

{لَنُرْسِلَ عَلَيْهِمْ حِجَارَةً}

We will send down upon them stones...

We have already explained this in [the commentary on] Al-`Ankabut (The Spider), stating that this indicates the obligation to stone the practitioners of liwat (sodomy). There are several issues concerning this:

What need was there for a group of angels, when one of them could have overturned the cities with the tip of his wing?

Response: The powerful King (Allah) may command a lowly thing to destroy a mighty person, and command a mighty person to serve a lowly individual, to demonstrate the execution of His command.

1. Since He destroyed many people with lice, locusts, mosquitoes, or even with the very wind that sustains life, this was a greater manifestation of His power.
2. Since He commanded thousands of angels to destroy the people of Badr, despite their small number, this was a greater manifestation of the execution of His command.

There is another benefit: When someone under the obedience of a great king faces an enemy and seeks the king's aid, and the king assists him with his most senior troops, this is a form of glorification for that person. The greater the enemy and the more numerous the reinforcements, the greater the glorification.

However, Allah Almighty aided Lot with ten [angels], while He aided our Prophet (peace be upon him) with five thousand. The difference between these two numbers is significant, as we have mentioned glimpses of this in the exegesis of the verse: {And We did not send down upon his people after him any army from the heaven} (Ya-Sin 36:28).

What is the benefit of emphasizing that the stones are {from clay}?

Response: This is to refute the notion held by some people who refer to hail as "stones." The phrase {from clay} negates this misunderstanding.

Know that some who claim to use rational inquiry suggest that nothing descends from the sky except stones of clay, rounded like hail or like the pellets used by slingers. They argue that the cause is this: A whirlwind ascends dust from vast, uninhabited deserts. The winds drive this dust to a certain region, and it happens to reach a humid atmosphere, turning it into wet clay. When this wet substance descends, it separates and rounds up.

Evidence for this: If you throw water upwards and then observe it, you will see it descending in rounded spheres like large pearls. Furthermore, during its descent, if it happens to be struck by the fire present in the atmosphere, it becomes hardened like baked brick, and then it descends, causing destruction by the decree of Allah. Often, much of it descends in uninhabited areas, unseen and unnoticed.

This is why the text says {from clay}, because that which is not from clay—like the stones found in lightning strikes—would not descend in such abundance as to constitute a rainstorm.

Critique of this View: This is an over-stretching of interpretation (ta'assuf). A person of sound intellect would reflect on what this claimant said and conclude: If that whirlwind was caused by a natural event, then if another event caused that event, it leads to an infinite regress (tasalsul). It must terminate in an Originator who is not an event. That Originator must be an active, choosing agent. It is within the choice of that Agent to do what was mentioned, or to create the stones from clay in another manner, without fire or dust.

However, reason has no way to definitively establish the method of its creation. That which reason cannot grasp must be taken via transmission (naql). The explicit text mentions it, so we accept it. We do not know the how, but we know that the descent of stones from clay is stranger and more astonishing than other types of stones, because ordinarily, they require exposure to fire to become hardened.

{مُسَوَّمَةً عِندَ رَبِّكَ لِلْمُسْرِفِينَ}

Marked with your Lord, for the transgressors.