Monday, July 7, 2025

'Abu Lahab' and His Wife

 

‘May the hands of Abu Lahab be ruined!

May he be ruined too!

Neither his wealth nor his gains will help him:

he will burn in the Flaming Fire–– and so will his wife,

the firewood-carrier, with a palm-fibre rope around her neck.

                             --- ( Holy Qur'an, Surah Al Masad, 111: 2-6 )

 

In the times of Holy Prophet Muhammad (sa), his uncle Abu Lahab was one of the wealthiest and influential Qurayshi leaders who most opposed the Prophet and persecuted the early Muslims. Material wealth and worldly rule intoxicated him with a fiery temperament. Raging impatience characterized this ‘Flame Man’. Abu Lahab’s wife Umm Jamil bint Harb was a scheming woman, known to support her husband in his excesses- even indulged in mocking the Prophet when he was ill. The Holy Qur’an makes an illustration out of the mindset of ‘Abu Lahabs’; the Book of God  roundly condemns such arrogance and hubris: ‘may his (hands) power perish and all that he possesses’.

 

According to the promised Massih Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), “[t]he term Abu Lahab in the Holy Quran implies a general connotation and does not refer to a specific individual. This term refers to any such person who possesses a flaming or fiery disposition. In the same manner, ‘the woman carrying firewood’ (hammala-tal-hatab) refers to any backbiting woman who engages in slandering and lighting the fire of mischief among men. Sa’di says: The wretched backbiter only adds firewood to the flame.’”

 

According to Hazrat Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, “just as the Prophet had to face this character, similarly others of his followers (Ummah) may have to face just such a character. However, if the dayee has become active for the sake of God in the real sense, then God’s help will be given to him. The inimical efforts of people like Abu Lahab will, by God’s grace, become ineffective and, in spite of all their means and resources, the antagonists will perish. They will themselves burn in the fire of their own jealousy and enmity. Their aim may have been to ensure that the call of God came to a miserable end, but the opponents themselves will be the ones to suffer that everlasting fate.”

 

Though revealed over millennia and more, the Holy Qur’an speaks to our present, for those who reflect on God’s words and think over contemporary events in international relations, there are many lessons to learn and profit by.  Through descriptions of characters and situations, the Book of God illustrates both the good and the bad in the human condition, while strongly urging us to choose wisely, to be just and fair in our dealings with one another; to resist the temptations of evil and unjust ways, embracing only the righteous path. 

 

Through its enduring verses, God’s timeless message for humanity is self-evident: wealth and power should not be abused; for true authority and dominance over affairs rests with God alone. As God’s creation, people should respect the bounds of equity and treat other nations with fairness and justice. Leaders who exceed the bounds of propriety and conspire to weaken the cause of fair dealings and wage war against fellow peoples in other lands shall cause their own decline and eventual downfall, indeed their riches and legacy will perish, and they will be reduced to cautionary tales in the ‘cauldron’ of history.


In this context, it is instructive to remember that in his Friday Sermon of 17 January 2014, Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius invoked the following Duah in the wake of polytheists and war criminals seeking to destroy the Muslim world:

 

‘Oh Allah, help us Muslims around the world and destroy our enemies in this constant war so that the truth prevails and that the enemies of Islam perish, and also those among the Israelis who are the real enemies of Muslims and want our loss. Oh Allah, do not let them torture our Muslim brothers, sisters and childrenAmeen, Summa Ameen, Ya Rabbul Aalameen.   

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