SAY: "It has been revealed to me that some of the unseen beings gave ear [to this divine writ],
1 and thereupon said funto their fellow-beings]: "'Verily, we have heard a wondrous discourse,
Asad Translation Note Number :
I.e., had heard and accepted it: this being the meaning, in the above context, of the verbal form istama'a. - As regards the various meanings attributable to the plural noun jinn (rendered by me here as "unseen beings"), see Appendix III. As pointed out there, the jinn are referred to in the Qur'an in many connotations. In a few cases - e.g., in the present instance and in {46:29-32} - this expression may possibly signify "hitherto unseen beings", namely, strangers who had never before been seen by the people among and to whom the Qur'an was then being revealed. From 46:30 (which evidently relates to the same occurrence as the present one) it transpires that the jinn in question were followers of the Mosaic faith, inasmuch as they refer to the Qur'an as "a revelation bestowed from on high after [that of] Moses", thus pointedly omitting any mention of the intervening prophet, Jesus, and equally pointedly (in verse {3} of the present surah) stressing their rejection of the Christian concept of the Trinity. All this leads one to the assumption that they may have been Jews from distant parts of what is now the Arab world, perhaps from Syria or even Mesopotamia. (Tabari mentions in several places that the jinn referred to in this surah as well as in 46:29 ff. hailed from Nasibin, a town on the upper reaches of the Euphrates.) I should, however, like to stress that my explanation of this occurrence is purely tentative.
