Surah Al-Anbiyaa (21) — Ayah 3

(Ayah 3) ➊ {لَاهِيَةً قُلُوْبُهُمْ وَ اَسَرُّوا النَّجْوَى …: ’’ لَاهِيَةً ‘‘ ’’ لَهِيَ يَلْهٰي ‘‘} (ع) or {’’ لَهَا يَلْهُوْ‘‘} (ن) is the feminine active participle form. {’’ لَهْوٌ‘‘} is that thing which distracts a person from his necessary and important tasks to some other activity. (Raghib) Just as materialistic people abandon concern for the Hereafter and are only engrossed in seeking the world. In today’s sciences and arts, there is nothing that reminds one of the Hereafter; rather, all these enlightenments are day by day taking people further away from the thought of death and the Hereafter. See also Surah Ar-Rum (6, 7).

➋ { وَ اَسَرُّوا النَّجْوَى :} Here, there is a famous question in grammar: when the subject is explicit, whether it is singular, dual, or plural, the verb comes with the singular form. Here, despite the subject {’’ الَّذِيْنَ ظَلَمُوْا ‘‘} being explicit, why has the verb come in the plural form? The answer is that the subject of {’’ اَسَرُّوا ‘‘} is a plural pronoun and {’’ الَّذِيْنَ ظَلَمُوْا ‘‘} is its substitute, meaning the disbelievers, through mutual secret consultation, decided to keep people away from you (peace be upon him) by secretly agreeing to say this to the people, and the reason for keeping it secret was that if people found out that this was their decided statement, they would not be influenced by it.

➌ {هَلْ هٰذَاۤ اِلَّا بَشَرٌ مِّثْلُكُمْ … :} That is, he is not an angel, but a human being like you; now, when he shows miracles and people are being captivated by hearing this speech, all of this is magic. The disbelievers criticized his (peace be upon him) prophethood in two ways: first, that he is a human and a human cannot be a prophet. Allah Almighty has mentioned this in several places, for example, see Surah Bani Isra’il (94), Taghabun (6), Qamar (24), Mu’minun (33, 34), Furqan (7), and Ibrahim (10). Previously, the disbelievers and polytheists used to say that a human cannot be a prophet; nowadays, some people say that a prophet cannot be a human—the point is the same, «{ بَلْ قَالُوْا مِثْلَ مَا قَالَ الْاَوَّلُوْنَ }» [المؤمنون : ۸۱ ] “Rather, they said as the former ones said.” Allah Almighty refuted this ahead. The second criticism was that the Qur’an is not the word of Allah but magic. Allah Almighty has also mentioned this criticism of the disbelievers in several places, for example, see Surah Muddathir (24) and Dhariyat (52).

3. 1. That is, the Prophet being a human is unacceptable to them, then they also say, do you not see that he is a magician, why do you get entangled in his magic while seeing and knowing?

3. Their hearts are distracted with other matters, and these wrongdoers confer in secret, saying: "Is this not but a human being like yourselves [4]? Will you then be ensnared by his magic with your eyes wide open?"

[4]
What Measures Did the Chiefs of Quraysh Take to Protect Themselves from the "Magic" of the Quran?

The Quraysh of Makkah were staunch opponents of the message of the Quran, but they themselves acknowledged its style, eloquence, and magical-like effect, and for this reason, they called the Quran "magic." To prevent the influence of this "magic," they initially adopted the method that all the chiefs of Quraysh made an agreement together to impose a ban on listening to and reciting the Quran as much as possible. The ban on listening was imposed upon themselves, but even these Qurayshi chiefs could not abide by this restriction and would secretly listen to the Quran themselves, because their hearts and their minds wanted to enjoy the delight of the Quran. Thus, once, three chiefs were standing around the Ka'bah at night, listening to your recitation of the Quran. Later, when this secret was revealed, one of the chiefs asked Abu Jahl, "What do you think about the Quran you have heard?" Instead of giving a proper answer to this question, he turned the conversation in another direction and said, "We and Banu Abd Manaf were equal in everything; now how can we accept their superiority by accepting their Prophet?" [ابن هشام: ص 108]
From Abu Jahl's answer, two things become clear. First, that all the Qurayshi chiefs were affected by the influence of the Quran, and second, that the only thing preventing them from accepting his ﷺ prophethood was not just that he was a human being, but there were several other reasons as well. And they had imposed a ban on Muslims reciting the Quran aloud, because they feared that their women and children would be influenced by listening to the Quran, and this ban remained in place on the Muslims until the Hijrah of the Prophet ﷺ. In addition, they adopted another measure: whenever the Quran was being recited somewhere, they would create a lot of noise and commotion so that the sound of the Quran would not reach anyone's ears. These were the methods they adopted to protect themselves from the harm of this "magic."