This chapter, containing five verses, was revealed at Makkah. This is the only passage in the Quran where an opponent of the Prophet is denounced by name. Abu Lahab, whose real name was Abdul Uzza, was a first cousin of the Prophet’s father. He was the only member of the Prophet’s clan who bitterly opposed him. Abu Lahab made it his business to torment the Prophet, and his wife took pleasure in strewing thorn bushes in the path the Prophet was expected to take. Consumed with grief on seeing many of the Quraysh leaders of the unbelievers killed at Badr, Abu Lahab died a week after Badr. Though this chapter refers, in the first instance, to a particular incident, it carries the general message that cruelty and haughtiness ultimately recoil upon oneself. Abu Lahab, the name of an actual person, has come to denote a particular kind of character. ‘Abu Lahab’ who was an uncle of the Prophet Muhammad has come to be a symbol of such an opponent of the call for Truth as will stoop in his hostility to meanness. Just as the Prophet had to face this character, similarly others of his followers (ummah) may have to face just such a character. However, if the dayee has become active for the sake of God in the real sense, then God’s help will be given to him. The inimical efforts of people like Abu Lahab will, by God’s grace, become ineffective and, in spite of all their means and resources, the antagonists will perish. They will themselves burn in the fire of their own jealousy and enmity. Their aim may have been to ensure that the call of God came to a miserable end, but the opponents themselves will be the ones to suffer that everlasting fate.
