Sad · Makki · ayah 67 of 88

Sad 38:67

قُلْ هُوَ نَبَؤٌا۟ عَظِيمٌ

“Say, "It is great news”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Prophet ﷺ is told to say plainly that what he brings is momentous news: grave, beneficial, and from beyond anything his hearers could see.

A reflection

What is the 'it'?

Qul huwa nabaʾun ʿaẓīm: Say, it is momentous news. The ayah does not name 'it'. The commentators gathered the possibilities, and the list is instructive in itself.

Many early authorities said 'it' is the Quran. Another said it is the Day of Resurrection, as in the surah that begins: 'About what are they asking one another? About the momentous news' (78:1–2). One commentary takes it as everything he had told them: that he is a messenger who warns, and that Allah is One with no partner. Others proposed the story of Adam about to be told, the earlier prophets' stories, or the quarrel of the people of the Fire just described.

A classical commentator saw a pattern in the options. The surah opened with three claims that Makkah rejected: one God, a true messenger, a coming reckoning. The pronoun can point to any of them, he says, or to the Quran's own matchlessness. The open 'it' gathers up everything the surah has argued.

The word nabaʾ suits that. The lexicons picture it as something arriving from somewhere else. It was a stranger turning up from another land, or a flood coming down from rain that fell out of sight. Nabaʾ is news that reaches you from beyond your horizon. The ayat that follow make exactly this point: 'I had no knowledge of the exalted assembly when they disputed' (38:69). The news came from where he could not have looked.

The surah ends by returning to the same word. 'It is only a reminder to the worlds. And you will surely know its news after a while' (38:87–88). One commentator cites that ending as the reason 'it' here means the Quran.

So when you open the Quran, you are not opening a book of opinions. You are opening a report. Its subject is the oneness of your Lord, the messenger He sent, and the day you will stand before Him. 'It' is all of that, delivered to you.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.