Transliteration:( Huwal lazee ba'asa fil ummiyyeena Rasoolam min hum yatloo 'alaihim aayaatihee wa yuzakkeehim wa yu'allimuhumul Kitaaba wal Hikmata wa in kaanoo min qablu lafee dalaalim mubeen )
3. This means the Holy Prophet ? who is called Ummi, ie Messenger sent to the people who were uneducated, or appearing in Makkah, the city of all cities, or the son of a most dignified mother, whose likeness is not seen till today, or a Messenger fully taught in all the mystical knowledge, while still in the womb of the mother.
4. So that the people are able to read the Holy Qur'aan. For this reason to them' is used. recites. The Holy Prophet ? the Holy Qur'aan in order to teach us.
5. This tells us that purity of the heart is received from the Holy Prophet ? and deeds are the means of obtaining this purity. Furthermore,that the Holy Qur'aan and Hadith are not easy to understand, that any person can understand them through his own thinking. If this were the case, then the Holy Prophet ? would not have been sent to teach them.
6. By 'Book' is meant the Holy Qur'aan and by wisdom is meant Hadith Shareef. Thus, we learn that Hadith Shareef is also necessary for obtaining guidance. Thus, do not try to understand the Holy Qur'aan merely through your own intelligence, but rather through the teaching of the Holy Prophet ?. Otherwise, you will go astray. Says the Holy Qur'aan: "Allah sends astray many by it and guides many"(S2:V26).
7. This means the common Arabs had gone stray. There were a few among them who were on the path of guidance, like Waraqa in Naufal, Zaid ibn Fudail and Qais ibn Sacedah Or, the ancestors of the Holy Prophet ? amongst them was a as none polytheist,all of whom were believers and monotheists. From this we learn that the Holy Prophet was no one's pupil in the world, because at the time of his advent, the common people were all ignorant.
The tafsir of Surah Jumuah verse 2 by Ibn Kathir is unavailable here.
Please refer to Surah Jumuah ayat 1 which provides the complete commentary from verse 1 through 4.
(62:2) He it is Who has sent to the gentiles a Messenger from among themselves,[2] one who rehearses to them His verses, purifies their lives, and imparts to them the Book and the Wisdom[3] although before that they were in utter error;[4]
2. Here the word ummi (gentile) has been used as a Jewish term and there is a subtlety in it. The verse means: The All- Mighty and All-Wise Allah has raised a Messenger (peace be upon him) among the Arabs whom the Jews contemptuously consider the gentiles and much below themselves, The Messenger (peace be upon him) has not risen of his own wish and will, but has been raised by Him Who is the Sovereign of the universe, Who is All-Mighty and All-Wise, Whose power can be resisted and opposed only to one’s own loss and peril.
One should know that the word ummi has occurred in the Quran at several places but in different meanings at different places. At one place it has been used for the people who do not possess any revealed scripture, which they may he following, as in (Surah Aal-Imran, Ayat 20), where it has been said: Ask those who possess the Book and those who do not possess (ummis); Have you accepted Islam. Here, the ummis imply the Arab polytheists, and they have been regarded as a separate class from the followers of the Book, i.e. the Jews and the Christians. At another place, it has been used for the illiterate people among the Jews and Christians, who are ignorant of the Book of Allah, as in (Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayat 78): Among the Jews there are some illiterate people (ummis) who have no knowledge of the Book but are guided by mere conjecture and guesswork. At still another place, this word has been used purely as a Jewish term, which implies all the non-Jewish people, as in (Surah Aal-Imran, Ayat 75) (The actual cause of this dishonesty of theirs is that they say): We are not to be called to account for out behavior towards the non-Jews (ummis). This third meaning of ummi is implied in the verse under discussion. It is a synonym of the Hebrew word goyim, which has been translated gentiles in the English Bible and implies all the non-Jewish or the non-Israelite people of the world.
But the real significance of this Jewish term cannot be understood only by this explanation of it. The Hebrew word goyim originally was used only in the meaning of a nation, but gradually the Jews reserved it first for the nation other then themselves, then they gave it the special meaning
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