Ask them ˹O Prophet˺ about ˹the people of˺ the town which was by the sea, who broke the Sabbath.¹ During the Sabbath, ˹abundant˺ fish would come to them clearly visible, but on other days the fish were never seen. In this way We tested them for their rebelliousness.

 

 

When some of ˹the righteous among˺ them questioned ˹their fellow Sabbath-keepers˺, “Why do you ˹bother to˺ warn those ˹Sabbath-breakers˺ who will either be destroyed or severely punished by Allah?” They replied, “Just to be free from your Lord’s blame, and so perhaps they may abstain.”

 

 

When they ignored the warning they were given, We rescued those who used to warn against evil and overtook the wrongdoers with a dreadful punishment for their rebelliousness.

 

 

But when they stubbornly persisted in violation, We said to them, “Be disgraced apes!”

(Al-A'raf 163-166)

 

You are already aware of those of you who broke the Sabbath. We said to them, “Be disgraced apes!”

(AlBaqara 65)

 

 

 

The Story:

 

The story happened in a coastal village called Ayla.

As it was on the coast, fishing was the main work and livelihood of its inhabitants.

The main characters of this incident are a group of Jews who are the inhabitants of this village

The Sabbath is considered the holy day for the Jews (like Friday for Muslims, when there is a Friday prayer and there is an hour when supplications are accepted) and the Jews did not work on the Sabbath, but devoted themselves to worshipping God.

God imposed on them not to be preoccupied with the affairs of this world on the Sabbath after they asked Him to allocate a day for them to rest and worship, in which there is no work except to get closer to God with different types of worship.

 

The Faith of Allah took place in His creation. And it's time to test them. A test of their patience and following God's law

God Almighty afflicted them by making the fish come on the Sabbath to the coast, and from their abundance the villagers easily see them jumping on the surface of the water (as you see the sails of boats in the sea), so they are easy to catch.

But it disappears the rest of the week. The villagers could not get any catch.

After a period of adhering to the command of God Almighty, one of the Jews could not be patient with this test and decided to follow a method of obtaining fish (believing that he could deceive God Almighty) so he threw nets on the Sabbath and the fish gathered in them but did not take them until the next day. The villagers even noticed the smell of fish in his house when they could not get it, and when they asked him, he denied several times that he had fish, but in the end he confessed to them in his way.

 

Here, the villagers were divided into three groups:

The first imitated him and began to take fraudulent methods to get the fish that appear on the Sabbath in different ways, such as erecting pits and barriers for the fish to gather in and then take it the next day.

The second is a band adhering to God's command, so do not disobey him and do not hunt on the Sabbath, olso they adviced the first group and warns violators of God's disobedience.

The third did not share them in sin and did not disobey God, but did not forbid evil. This group also argued with the second sect that forbade evil and said to them: What is the use of your advice to these disobedient people? They will not be reconciled to their fraud, and they will be tormented by God for their actions. There is no point in warning them after God has decreed destruction on them for violating His sanctities

With the rigor of the believer who knows his duties, the deceitful ones would answer: We are doing our duty in enjoining good and denying evil, to please God Almighty, and not be an argument on the Day of Resurrection. Perhaps these words will help, so they will come to their senses, and abandon their disobedience.

 

And the matter continued like this, and they did not refrain from disobeying God, but they were arrogant and insisted on it, and they did not learn from the advice of the second band to them until the command of God came and His punishment was solved for them

The day came when the people of the second division woke up and found a strange calm in the villag, as if it had become empty. And they went out of their homes to find out the reason, but they did not find any of the owners of the first disobedient band, so they went to their homes and found the doors and windows closed, they tried to look inside the houses to find out why they did not go out that day and the surprise was, they found only monkeys inside their homes. So they opened the doors and asked the monkeys, are you so-and-so, and the monkey nodded his head in the affirmative, and they also asked them, haven't we warned you?" And he says with his head yes

 

God has turned them into apes as a punishment for their arrogance and disregard for the command of God Almighty. And when these monkeys came out of their homes, God eliminated them all and they died, and this was the end of the first disobedient division.

 

God insulted them by transforming them into monkeys before eliminating them because of the greatness of their guilt and their disregard for God Almighty.

As for the second sect, which obeyed the command of Allah, which advised them and forbade them from disobeying them, Allah Almighty honored them and saved them.

As for the third group, which did not disobey God but did not forbid evil, and kept silent about it as if it did not concern them, in addition to that they decided that the disobedient will not stop and that God will not forgive them if they respond to advice and repent, God treated them as appropriate for them, so He kept also silent about their fate and neglected them and did not mention them of the Qur'anic text.

 

Sayyid Qutb may Allah have mercy on him says:

Perhaps as an underestimation for them – even if they were not taken for punishment – as they refrained from positive denial, and stood at the limits of negative denial. So they deserved to be neglected, even if they did not deserve the punishment.

 

What did I gain from the story of the Sabbath owners?

• Beware of following those who violate God's law, no matter how strong their argument is.

• Beware of falling into sins, and disobeying God's rules.

• Surrender to the command of God - Almighty - and His laws in life.

• Realize that surrender to God and all that he commanded and forbade is one of the reasons for obtaining the happiness of the two worlds

• Refraining from the command of God - Almighty - is one of the reasons for the destruction of nations and their clear loss

• Enjoining good and forbidding evil is one of the reasons why a Muslim survives.

• Whoever sells his religion in this world has lost and failed.