Surah Abasa — He Frowned

Introduction to Surah Abasa

Forty-two verses, Meccan, eightieth in the written order. It opens by describing something the Prophet did, and disapproving of it.

The correction

(The Prophet) frowned and turned away, Because there came to him the blind man (interrupting). But what could tell thee but that perchance he might grow (in spiritual understanding)?- (80:1–3)

The traditional accounts describe the occasion: the Prophet was in conversation with men of standing in Mecca whose acceptance would have mattered a great deal to the mission, and a blind man came asking to be taught, not knowing who else was present, and was turned from.

Two things about the passage are worth noticing. The first is grammatical — the opening verses are in the third person, describing the act at a remove, and only afterwards does the address turn to thou. Commentators have long remarked on it. The second is what the surah does with the two men: the one who thinks himself self-sufficient receives attention, and the one who came striving and in fear was the one neglected. The criticism is about the allocation of attention, and the surah then states the principle plainly — that this is a reminder, and whoever wills may remember it.

That the passage concerns Ibn Umm Maktum is established: Aisha reports it, and at-Tirmidhi grades the narration sahih (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 3331). The addition usually told with it — that the Prophet afterwards greeted him as the man on whose account his Lord had reproached him — is not in the canonical collections at all. It belongs to the commentary literature, and is given here as that rather than as a narration. What is not in dispute is that the verses were preserved, recited, and have been recited ever since by the community of the man they correct.

The rest

The surah turns from this to the human being in general, and it is unusually blunt: that man is destroyed, how ungrateful he is; that God created him from a drop and proportioned him and made the way easy for him; then causes him to die and assigns him a grave; then, when He wills, raises him. And that he has not done what he was commanded.

Then an inventory of food — grain, grapes, fresh vegetation, olives, dates, dense-treed gardens, fruits and fodder — and the note that it is provision for you and for your cattle.

How it ends

On the day a man will flee from his brother, his mother, his father, his wife and his children, each having enough concern of his own to make him indifferent to the others. The surah that opened on a man being ignored ends with everyone ignoring everyone.