Appearance
Composure in the Cave
إِلَّا تَنصُرُوهُ فَقَدْ نَصَرَهُ ٱللَّهُ إِذْ أَخْرَجَهُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ ثَانِىَ ٱثْنَيْنِ إِذْ هُمَا فِى ٱلْغَارِ إِذْ يَقُولُ لِصَـٰحِبِهِۦ لَا تَحْزَنْ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَنَا ۖ فَأَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ سَكِينَتَهُۥ عَلَيْهِ وَأَيَّدَهُۥ بِجُنُودٍ لَّمْ تَرَوْهَا وَجَعَلَ كَلِمَةَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ ٱلسُّفْلَىٰ ۗ وَكَلِمَةُ ٱللَّهِ هِىَ ٱلْعُلْيَا ۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ
(9:40) If you do not help him, then Allah certainly helped him when the faithless expelled him, as one of two [refugees], when the two of them were in the cave, he said to his companion, ‘Do not grieve; Allah is indeed with us.’ Then Allah sent down His composure upon him, and strengthened him with hosts you did not see, and He made the word of the faithless the lowest; and the word of Allah is the highest; and Allah is all-mighty, all-wise.
The question
In “Then Allah sent down His composure (sakīnah) upon him, and strengthened him with hosts you did not see”, does “him” refer to the Prophet or to his companion in the cave, Abū Bakr — and what merit does the verse give the companion?
Views answered: commentators who take “him” to be Abū Bakr, the narrations from Ibn ʿAbbās and Ḥabīb b. Abī Thābit, al-Manār, al-Ālūsī's version of a narration from Anas
Al-Mizan's argument
Al-Mizan accepts that the “companion” in the cave was Abū Bakr, and argues that the composure and the unseen hosts were sent down upon the Prophet: the pronouns before and after refer to him; the verse is about the help God gave His Prophet when no one else could help him; and it leads to one conclusion — God made the word of the faithless the lowest. It answers the objection that the Prophet always had composure (God sent it down upon His Messenger at Ḥunayn, and in Sūrat al-Fatḥ), and shows why reading the verse as about Abū Bakr cuts it off from its context. In the narrations it examines the report that the verse praises Abū Bakr and censures everyone else, explains what being “the second of two” and “his companion” can and cannot mean by itself, sets aside the narrations that apply the composure to Abū Bakr as weak and not from eyewitnesses, and answers al-Manār's defence of them.
Reading guide
Each part opens the commentary at that point.
- The companion in the cave
- Composure was sent down upon the Prophet
- First: the pronouns before and after
- Second: help when no one else helped
- Third: one conclusion for the whole verse
- Objection: the Prophet always had composure
- Commentators who make Abū Bakr the recipient
- Why that reading cuts the verse from its context
- Narrations: “God censured all the people and praised Abū Bakr”
- What “the second of two” and “his companion” mean
- The narrations applying composure to Abū Bakr
- Why they carry no authority
- Al-Manār's defence, answered
- A narration from Anas, in two versions