Q. I put to you a question concerning the Qur’anic Verse 7: 172, asking whether it was true that information about all mankind is placed in the Black Stone in the Kaaba. You said that this was incorrect. I reported your answer to the scholar from whom I heard this, and he said that it is mentioned in Tafseer Al-Sawi. Could you please refer to this Tafseer and reconsider the question.
Najmuddin Habeeb
A. Al-Sawi did not write a commentary on the Qur’an, but rather he annotated a famous commentary, known as Tafseer Al-Jalalayn. In order to give you a full answer that could benefit other readers, it is better to quote the verses making the point in question. They read: “Your Lord brought forth their offspring from the loins of the children of Adam, and called them to bear witness about themselves. (He said): ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They replied: ‘yes, indeed, we bear witness to that.’ (This He did) lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were truly unaware of this;’ or lest you say, ‘It was our forefathers who, in times gone by, associated partners with God, and we were only their late offspring. Will You destroy us on account of what those inventors of falsehood did?’” (7: 172-3)
Now, what does Al-Sawi write in his annotation concerning this event that took place at a time known only to God Almighty? He simply quotes at length from someone called Al-Shaarani who goes into a long discussion about the fact of God’s gathering all mankind before they are born and asking them to acknowledge His Lordship. They all do so. Al-Shaarani raises 12 questions about this event, such as how was this done, and how could mankind be gathered, and from where in the bodies of their fathers were they assembled. Such information, if it could ever be ascertained, is of no use to us. God states that he gathered all mankind and brought them together before Him. We believe that God is able to do whatever He wishes. We believe what He says, even though we cannot visualize how it could be done. Whatever method He used cannot be known to us, because we cannot think in terms that transcend time or place. This event certainly transcends both. How can we imagine the method of its accomplishment? Nevertheless Al-Shaarani goes into such matters, but cannot think of them in any way other than what is familiar to us. This limits God’s knowledge and ability to what is seen in this world. Indeed it limits it to what is familiar to man in a particular time and place. As such, the whole argument is defective.
I will give you a simple example: If anyone told Al-Shaarani that people will be able to send each other written material over distances of thousands of miles in matters of seconds, as we do today by e-mail, he would not have believed it. If the same thing was said to him differently, stating that God will enable people to do so, he would accept it, but he would raise similar questions to those 12 and try to answer them within what was known in his own time. Such explanation would be defective as he would not be able to visualize a computer or Internet facilities.
None of the 12 points raised by this man is based on any solid basis. He himself states this and suggests that all possibilities raised are of mere conjecture. As such, the whole exercise is futile and useless. Only in the last point, about where the information is kept does he mention a Hadith that says, “It is held in the Black Stone, which has eyes, ears and tongue.” He does not mention anything about this Hadith: Neither the name of the reporter, nor its chain of transmitters, nor the collection where it can be found. As such, the point is insupportable. The Hadith quoted is simply unknown and cannot be taken as a basis for any conclusion. Nowhere else do we have any information about the Black Stone having any status other than what it serves for: A mark for the beginning and end of tawaf, the act of worship we do at the Kaaba. To say that it has eyes, ears and tongue means that it acquires and relays information. The question to be asked here is “to whom? To other stones; or to different creatures?” This is certainly absurd.
Perhaps we should ask: Since all this information is known to God, and is of no use to anyone else, why should it be placed or deposited anywhere other than with God? Does God need a place to store His information, or a record to keep it? The whole idea of storing it anywhere is faulty. We need not bother with it.