This Soorah starts with highlighting the loyalty, obedience and the utmost devotion that domesticated animals demonstrate towards their human masters. Although it is true of many domesticated animals such as camels, horses and dogs, the example used here is the battle-trained horses that run so hard and manoeuvre so fast for the sake of their riders that they generate panting sounds from their nostrils, sparks from the iron of their hooves and clouds of dust from the ground[1]. Such horses were extremely dear and valuable to the Arabs because of their frequent battles with and raids on each other. They used to travel for such raids at the late hours of the night and then raid suddenly early in the morning. It was to alert people about these kinds of raids that the Arabs had devised the warning cry "waa sabaahaa" which was uttered as soon as someone noticed a sign of attack.

By using these battle horses for an oath, the Soorah presents their loyalty, obedience and utmost devotion as witness to the ingratitude of human beings towards Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta`aala. Human beings have not created these animals. They merely feed them and take care of them. In return, the animals are so loyal and so devoted that they put their best efforts using every bit of their energy for the sake of their masters. In contrast, people disobey Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta`aala despite the fact that He has created them, provided for their needs and even created those animals and pre-programmed them to obey human beings and to be useful to them. Even their morning raids are in disobedience of Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta`aala and a sign of human ingratitude.

1The steeds that run panting, 2produce sparks striking with their hooves, 3make raids at dawn, 4stir up thereby clouds of dust, 5then penetrate in that manner into the midst of an assembly – present witness that 6man indeed is ungrateful to his Lord; 7and most surely he himself is a witness of that; 8and most surely he is intense in the love of wealth.

If people look inwards and listen to their conscience, they know that they are doing wrong. It is only their intense love of wealth, power and glory that spurs them to do bad things and suppress their conscience through various excuses to justify their behaviour. It is for their ungrateful behaviour to Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta`aala and for their going against their own conscience that they will be held accountable on the Day of Judgment. The Day of Judgment is necessary to administer justice. Although the pinching of their conscience and their sinister motives that make them do the wrong things are hidden from others in this world, they will be open and evident at the time of accountability on the Day of Judgment.

9Does he not know when whatever is in the graves will be tumbled out, 10and whatever is in the minds will be brought open. 11Most surely their Lord that day shall be perfectly informed about them.

Thus the Judgment by Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta`aala will be based not only on the complete record of deeds but also on the witness of people’s own conscience and Allaah Subhaanahu wa Ta`aala’s perfect knowledge of the actions, as well as the motives behind those actions.

Foot Notes

[1] Because the horses have been described only by their attributes without using the word “horses”, some people opined that these verses are about camels. Other commentators have responded to that opinion by indicating that all four attributes such as the particular panting sound and the sparks from hooves, etc are applicable only to horses, not camels.

Some people have tried to specify these horses to be those of Muslim warriors who defended Muslims against enemy attacks, but that opinion is totally baseless. There is absolutely nothing in these verses to base that conclusion upon. In fact, it goes completely against the statement for which this oath has been used – “Man indeed is ungrateful to his Lord.”

People usually stretch their imagination to draw these kinds of meanings only on the mistaken notion that the items used for oaths must be very special, sacred or great in their nature. This notion has already been refuted and the true roles of the oaths in the Qur-aan in the commentary on Soorah At-Teen have been explained.