Col­lec­tion of Major Com­men­taries on Qur’an, 41:10 : ​“Six or Eight Days of Cre­ation” Revisited

We have not­ed in our ear­li­er rebut­tal to a Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary fan­ta­sy that A. Yusuf Ali had allud­ed to the com­men­taries of the major com­men­ta­tors for his expla­na­tion of Qur’an, 41:10. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Yusuf Ali did not cite the pre­cise quo­ta­tions of the com­men­taries that he was refer­ring to. Here, we would like to fill in that gap by cit­ing the rel­e­vant com­men­taries of the Qur’an­ic verse in question.

In his com­men­tary, Imam Ibn Kathir explains that Qur’an, 41:10 talks about events tak­ing place in two days and adds that :

They (both) with the pre­vi­ous two days com­plete four that’s why He says ​“in four Days“¹

Al-Qur­tubi says in his com­men­tary that :

​“in four Days” — In com­ple­tion of four days as one says : I walked from Bas­ra to Bagh­dad in ten days and to Kufa in fif­teen days mean­ing in com­ple­tion of fif­teen days. This has been said by Ibn-ul-Anbari and oth­ers.²

Al-Zamakhshari says that :

​“in four Days” — This is con­clu­sion of the peri­od of cre­at­ing earth and things which are in it, as if He says all this took place in exact­ly four days no more and no less.³

In Tafsir-un-Nasafi, we read that :

​“in four Days” — In com­ple­tion of four days, He means by com­ple­tion the two days as you say : I walked from Bas­ra to Bagh­dad in ten days and to Kufa in fif­teen days mean­ing in com­ple­tion of fif­teen days.⁴

Al-Baid­hawi notes that :

​“in four Days” — In com­ple­tion of four days as you say : I walked from Bas­ra to Bagh­dad in ten days and to Kufa in fif­teen days. Prob­a­bly, He said this and did not say in two days in order to to con­nect them with the pre­vi­ous two days. This expres­sion is for (the pur­pose of) con­clu­sion.⁵

Final­ly, we quote Imam Ash-Shawkani in his famous Tafsir, ​“in four Days”:

In com­ple­tion of four days includ­ing the pre­vi­ous two days. This has been stat­ed by Az-Zaj­jaj and oth­ers. Ibn-ul-Anbari says that this is as one says : I walked from Bas­ra to Bagh­dad in ten days and to Kufa in fif­teen days mean­ing in com­ple­tion of fif­teen days. So, the mean­ing is that occur­rence of cre­ation of earth and what fol­lowed it took four days.⁶

Now, we come to a rel­e­vant ques­tion : what is the rea­son for say­ing ​“in four Days”? Imam Az-Zamakhshari answers as follows :

If you say : Would­n’t it be bet­ter said : ​‘in two days’? And what is the ben­e­fit of this con­clu­sion ? I say : If He says in four days after He have said that earth was cre­at­ed in two days, it is acknowl­edged that things in it were cre­at­ed in two days. So, the choice between say­ing in two days and say­ing in four days becomes equal. But (say­ing) in four days has a ben­e­fit over (say­ing) in two days ; it is the indi­ca­tion that they were exact­ly four com­plete days no more and no less. If He said : in two days, while (the term) two days can be giv­en to most of the two days, it would be pos­si­ble that He meant by the first and the last two days the most of them.⁷

And only God knows best.

All praise is for God, the Lord of the Worlds and Mas­ter of the Day of Judge­ment. God’s wrath is invoked upon those who say ​“God has a Son!”, for He is free from all the attrib­ut­es they have ascribed to Him. And since there was nev­er such thing as a ​“Tri­une” god, we also reject the pet­ty threats of its wor­ship­pers and denounce that the non-exis­tent ster­ile ​“Tri­une” pagan god is a fan­ta­sy. And it is to our Rabb alone that we sub­mit in total obe­di­ence, even though the dis­be­liev­ers may dis­like it.

1. Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Vo. 7, p. 108[↩]
2. Tafsir-ul-Qur­tubi, Vol. 15, p. 290[↩]
3. Az-Zamakhshari, Tafsir-ul-Kashaf, Vol. 4, p. 104[↩]
4. Tafsir-un-Nasafi, Vol. 2, p. 491[↩]
5. Tafsir-ul-Baidawi, Vol. 5, p. 25[↩]
6. Ash-Shawkani, Fath-ul-Qadir, Vol. 4, p. 665[↩]
7. Az-Zamakhshari, op. cit., p. 104[↩]