Exegesis of Surat al-Masad and the significance of this surah.

The Shaykh : As for the second surah, it is the saying of Allah the Exalted: .
Glory be to Allah! This Qur'an contains many indications that clearly point to the fact that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) is the truth. It is not due to his high status, his nobility, or the leadership of his people, never. The uncles of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) divided into three groups in their treatment of him and their treatment of his Lord, Mighty and Majestic:
One group believed in him, fought with him, and submitted to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.
And one group supported and assisted him, but they remained upon disbelief, refuge with Allah from that.
And one group: defied and opposed him, and they were disbelievers.
As for the first group: it was al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, and Hamzah ibn Abd al-Muttalib. The second is better than the first, because the second is among the best of the martyrs in the sight of Allah, Mighty and Majestic. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) described him: . He was martyred (may Allah be pleased with him) at Uhud in the second year of the Hijrah. May Allah gather us and you with him in the Gardens of Pleasure.
As for the one who supported and assisted while remaining upon the remnants of disbelief, that is Abu Talib. Abu Talib stood with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in the best manner in defending him and supporting him, but, refuge with Allah from that, a word of torment had preceded for him. He did not submit, even at the end of his life, in the last moment of this world. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) offered him submission, but he refused. He died upon his statement: "I am upon the religion of Abd al-Muttalib," .
As for the third, who defied and opposed him, that is Abu Lahab. Allah revealed a complete surah concerning him, which is recited in the prayers, whether obligatory or voluntary, in secret and in public. A person is rewarded for reciting it with ten good deeds for every letter. That is to say: the one who reads the biography of Abu Lahab in this surah has ten good deeds for every letter. But if you read the biography of Abu Bakr from the biography of Ibn Ishaq, or from *Al-Bidaya wa al-Nihayah*, or others, you would not get this reward. So it is as if a person is being called with a definite call to read the biography of Abu Lahab. Every letter you read from it, "Tabbat" (perished) for you with ten good deeds.
He, Mighty and Majestic, says: : And this is a response to his statement—that is, the statement of Abu Lahab—when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) gathered them to call them to Allah, so he gave glad tidings and warned. Abu Lahab said: "Perish you! For this you have gathered us?" This gesture is for belittling, meaning: this is a trivial matter that does not require gathering the chiefs of Quraysh. And this is like their saying: meaning: they criticize it and curse it, referring to the Messenger. Quraysh says: The meaning is: belittling, there is nothing in it and no attention is paid to it. As they said: .
So the result is: Abu Lahab said: "Perish you! For this you have gathered us?" So Allah responded to him with this surah . And "Tabbat" means loss, as He, the Exalted, said: meaning: loss. And He began with his hands before his self, because the hands are the instrument of action, movement, taking and giving, and the like. And this title, Abu Lahab, is a title that fits his state and his end perfectly. The point of similarity is: that this man will be in a blazing fire, refuge with Allah from that, blazing with a great flame. So his kunya (patronymic) matches his state and his end. The poet says:
"And rarely have your eyes seen one with a title *** Except that its meaning, if you think of his title, is present".
And when Suhayl ibn Amr came in the story of the Battle of Hudaybiyyah, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: because the name matches the action.
Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says: : "What": This may be interrogative, and the meaning is: What did his wealth and what he earned avail him?
The answer: Nothing.
And it is possible that "What" is negative, meaning: His wealth and what he earned did not avail him anything. And both meanings are concomitant.
And their meaning is: that his wealth and what he earned did not avail him anything, even though the custom is that wealth is beneficial. A person brings wealth to himself. If an enemy seized him and said: "I will give you so much and so much of wealth and release me," he would release him. But he might ask for a lot or a little of wealth. If he became ill, he would benefit from his wealth. If he became hungry, he would benefit from his wealth. So wealth is beneficial. But the benefit that does not save its owner from the Fire is not beneficial.
For this reason, He, the Exalted, said: meaning: from Allah, anything.
And His saying: It was said: the meaning is, and what he earned of children. As if he said: What did his wealth and his children avail him? Like the saying of Noah: So they made his saying: meaning thereby the child.
And they supported this statement with the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): .
And the correct view is: that the verse is more general than this, and that the verse includes the children, and includes the acquired wealth that is not in his hand now, and includes what he earned of honor and status. Everything he earned that increases his honor and nobility, it does not avail him anything.
The sin in His saying: : is for the realization that is useful for the truth and the nearness, meaning: that Allah, the Exalted, promised him or threatened him that he will enter a fire with flame. I told you the sin is for realization and nearness, meaning: that he will soon enter a fire with flame. Because the staying in this world, however long it is, the Hereafter is near. Even the people in the barzakh (the interval between death and resurrection), even if millions of years have passed for them, it is as if it were an hour. He, the Exalted, said: , and something estimated as an hour of the day. I think we agree that it is near and nothing.
He, Mighty and Majestic, says: : This sin is useful for nearness and realization, so that his entering the fire with flame is a realized and near matter.
meaning: and so is his wife with him—refuge with Allah from that—and she is a woman from the nobles of Quraysh. But her nobility did not avail her anything, because she participated with her husband in aggression, sin, and remaining upon disbelief.
And His saying: : It was read with the accusative and the nominative:
As for the accusative, it becomes a state (hal) from "woman," meaning: and his wife, in the state of being the carrier of firewood. Or it is accusative for the sake of blame, because the separated adjective is permissible to be accusative for the sake of blame, meaning: I blame her as the carrier of firewood.
And as for the reading with the nominative, it is a description of "woman."
What is the firewood that she carries, and she carries it in abundance?
Meaning: "Hamalatu" (carrier) is a form of exaggeration. They mentioned that she carries the firewood that has thorns and puts it in the path of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), refuge with Allah from that, in order to harm the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him).
And His saying: Meaning: that she is wearing a rope of fiber, with which she goes out to the desert to tie the firewood that she brings to put in the path of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)—we seek refuge with Allah from that—and it is an indication of the lowness of her status and that she humiliated herself. A woman from Quraysh, from the great tribes of Quraysh, goes out to the desert and puts this rope around her neck, which is of fiber, with what is in it of humiliation, but in order to harm the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). We ask Allah for safety.
And with this, the speech ends with what Allah, Mighty and Majestic, made easy on these two surahs. And now to the round of questions, we start with the question from the right.