Tafseer - Nouman Ali Khan (summarized)

Surah Naba | Ayah 1

(We will be starting tafseer from the 30thjuz because it is the one that is most commonly memorized and most commonly recited during prayers.)

Surah Naba is the 78thsurah of the Quran; surah #77 (the surah before this) is Surah Al-Mursalaat. Like we discussed earlier, surahs are connected to each other so it's important to explore what was being discussed in the previous surah before we go any further.

The fundamental theme in Surah Al-Mursalaat is the mukaddhibeen – the people who deliberately lie against the truth; they were propagators of falsehood and would try to invalidate the truthful people.

[Translation: Woe, that Day, to the deniers. ]

The above ayah is repeated many times throughout the surah. Now, Surah Naba's first ayah begins by the question:

[Translation: About what are the asking one another?]

Here, Allah is commenting on a discussion that is taking place between the disbelievers. In general, when a group of people are mutually discussing a question among themselves, it is done for one of two reasons: either they're genuinely curious and want an answer to their question or they're being sarcastic and trying to undermine the other person.

The Prophet (s.a.w) was presenting people with phenomenal truths of the afterlife; he was telling them that huge things were going to happen (like the sun rising from the west, like people being resurrected after dying) and the disbelievers would reply by saying, 'Do you know what he's talking about? Us, coming out of our graves like locusts? What's he talking about?' They were trying to make him look insane; they were trying to insult him. In the previous surah, takzheeb (lying) is talked about; one of the most effective ways of doing that is mocking or undermining the other person by asking sarcastic questions amongst yourselves.

In this ayah, we realize that while the disbelievers are discussing this amongst themselves, there's a third party listening to their discourse: Allah. Allah is responding to their sarcastic comments in this surah. We learn that, in this ayah, Allah is depicting His reaction; He has taken offense to their sarcasm and the way they speak about the Hereafter.