Abd al-Wahhab ibn Muhammad al-Khatib informed us; Abd al-Aziz ibn Ahmad al-Khallal reported to us; Abu al-Abbas al-Asamm reported to us; al-Rabi reported to us; al-Shafi‘i reported to us from a trustworthy narrator, from al-Zuhri, from Thabit ibn Qays, from Abu Hurayrah, who said:
A wind struck the people on the road to Mecca while Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, was performing Hajj, and it grew severe. Umar said to those around him, “What knowledge has reached you concerning the wind?” But they gave him no answer. Then I learned what Umar had asked concerning the wind (1), so I urged my mount onward until I caught up with Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, for I had been at the rear of the people. I said, “Commander of the Believers, I was informed that you had asked about the wind. I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: ‘The wind is from Allah’s mercy; it brings both mercy and punishment. So do not revile it. Ask Allah to grant you its good, and seek refuge in Him from its evil.’” (2)
Abd al-Razzaq also narrated it from Ma‘mar, from al-Zuhri, with the same chain of transmission. (3)
His saying, Exalted is He: “Until, when they have carried heavy clouds”: that is, when the winds have borne clouds heavy with rain, “We drive them”—the pronoun refers back to the clouds—“to a dead land,” meaning a lifeless land in need of water. It was also said that it means: to bring a dead land, in which there is no vegetation, back to life. “Then We send down water by it,” that is, by means of the clouds. It was also said: by means of that dead land. “Then We bring forth thereby every kind of fruit. Thus do We bring forth the dead, so that you may take heed.” He cited the revival of the earth after its death as evidence for the resurrection of the dead.
Abu Hurayrah and Ibn Abbas said: When all people die at the first blast of the Trumpet, Allah will send down upon them rain resembling the semen of men, from water beneath the Throne called the water of life. They will then grow in their graves as crops grow, until their bodies are fully formed. Then He will breathe the spirit into them, after which He will cast sleep upon them, and they will sleep in their graves. Then they will be gathered at the second blast of the Trumpet, while still sensing the taste of sleep in their heads and eyes. At that point they will say, “Woe to us! Who has raised us from our resting place?” [Yasin 52]
His saying, Exalted is He: “As for the good land, its vegetation emerges by permission of its Lord”: This is a parable that Allah, Exalted is He, has set forth for the believer and the disbeliever. The believer is like the good land: rain falls upon it, and its vegetation emerges by permission of its Lord. “But that which is barren” refers to saline soil, whose vegetation “does not emerge except scantily.” Abu Ja‘far recited it as nakadan, with a fathah on the letter kaf, while the others recited it as nakidan, with a kasrah on it; that is, it emerges with difficulty, only in scant measure, and through toil and hardship.