بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
In the name of Allah, the All-Beneficent, the All-Merciful
قُلْ أُوحِيَ إِلَيَّ أَنَّهُ اسْتَمَعَ نَفَرٌ مِنَ الْجِنِّ فَقَالُوا إِنَّا سَمِعْنَا قُرْآنًا عَجَبًا
Say, ‘It has been revealed to me that a team of the jinn listened [to the Quran] and they said, “Indeed we heard a wonderful Quran
يَهْدِي إِلَى الرُّشْدِ فَآمَنَّا بِهِ ۖ وَلَنْ نُشْرِكَ بِرَبِّنَا أَحَدًا
which guides to rectitude. Hence, we have believed in it and we will never ascribe any partner to our Lord
وَأَنَّهُ تَعَالَىٰ جَدُّ رَبِّنَا مَا اتَّخَذَ صَاحِبَةً وَلَا وَلَدًا
Exalted be the majesty of our Lord; He has taken neither any spouse nor son
وَأَنَّهُ كَانَ يَقُولُ سَفِيهُنَا عَلَى اللَّهِ شَطَطًا
The foolish ones among us used to speak atrocious lies concerning Allah
وَأَنَّا ظَنَنَّا أَنْ لَنْ تَقُولَ الْإِنْسُ وَالْجِنُّ عَلَى اللَّهِ كَذِبًا
We thought that humans and jinn would never utter any falsehood concerning Allah
وَأَنَّهُ كَانَ رِجَالٌ مِنَ الْإِنْسِ يَعُوذُونَ بِرِجَالٍ مِنَ الْجِنِّ فَزَادُوهُمْ رَهَقًا
Indeed some persons from the humans would seek the protection of some persons from the jinn, thus only adding to their rebellion
وَأَنَّهُمْ ظَنُّوا كَمَا ظَنَنْتُمْ أَنْ لَنْ يَبْعَثَ اللَّهُ أَحَدًا
They thought, just as you think, that Allah will not raise anyone from the dead
وَأَنَّا لَمَسْنَا السَّمَاءَ فَوَجَدْنَاهَا مُلِئَتْ حَرَسًا شَدِيدًا وَشُهُبًا
Indeed we made for the heaven and found it full of mighty sentries and flames
وَأَنَّا كُنَّا نَقْعُدُ مِنْهَا مَقَاعِدَ لِلسَّمْعِ ۖ فَمَنْ يَسْتَمِعِ الْآنَ يَجِدْ لَهُ شِهَابًا رَصَدًا
We used to sit in its positions to eavesdrop, but anyone listening now finds a flame waiting for him
وَأَنَّا لَا نَدْرِي أَشَرٌّ أُرِيدَ بِمَنْ فِي الْأَرْضِ أَمْ أَرَادَ بِهِمْ رَبُّهُمْ رَشَدًا
We do not know whether ill is intended for those who are on the earth, or whether their Lord intends good for them
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
Verses 1–10 — the jinn overhear the Qurʾān, recant their theology, and find the sky barred. The passage is framed as a revelation the Prophet is told to recount: "Say: it has been revealed to me that a company (nafar) of the jinn listened." Across all the present sources the opening establishes three things at once — that the Qurʾān reached non-human hearers, that those hearers immediately recognized it as inimitable, and that their response was instant monotheism: "We have heard a wondrous Qurʾān, guiding to rectitude; we have believed in it and will never associate anyone with our Lord."
What the passage says. A group of jinn hear the recitation, believe, and report to their people. They correct their inherited creed (God has no consort or child; their "foolish one" had spoken outrage against God; they had naïvely trusted that no one would lie about God), describe the older traffic between humans and jinn (men seeking refuge with jinn, "so they increased them in rahaq"), and recount a fresh cosmic event: the heaven, once open to their eavesdropping, is now "filled with mighty guards and flames," so that any listener meets a watching flame — leaving them unsure "whether evil is intended for those on earth, or their Lord intends guidance."
How the present sources read it. On the nature of the hearers, al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī agree on the standard schema — the three rational species are angels (from light), humans (from clay), and jinn (from fire) — and both draw the doctrinal corollary that the Prophet's mission extends to jinn and men, that the jinn are rational, accountable, Arabic-knowing, and able to recognize a miracle. al-Mīzān turns this into a sustained discourse on the jinn, marshalling the wider Qurʾān (Q 15:27; 46:18; 72:6; 51:56; 18:50) to show they are created before man and from fire, reproduce, are morally charged, and include Iblīs and his tribe.
The word jadd ("exalted is the jadd of our Lord") is the passage's key crux. al-Ṭabarsī and al-Ṭūsī collect the lexical range — majesty, greatness, and (via the root sense of "cutting") even "riches" or "fortune" — all resolving to God's grandeur; al-Qummī and al-Burhān preserve the blunt Imāmī gloss jadd = bakht ("the good fortune of our Lord") together with the striking report, traced to al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq, that God has no jadd — the jinn said it in ignorance and God merely recounted their words. al-Burhān extends this into law, citing al-Bāqir that the qunūt-like phrase "exalted is Your jadd" actually corrupts the ritual prayer, precisely because it echoes the jinn's untutored speech. al-Mīzān records both readings (greatness and fortune) without polemic and devotes its grammatical energy instead to the famous fatḥa/kasra alternation across the twelve "anna" clauses, judging the kasra the more apt since the verses are the jinn's own quoted speech.
On the human–jinn relationship in v. 6, al-Qummī and al-Burhān give the concrete mechanism — recourse to the kāhin (soothsayer) whom a devil supplies — where al-Ṭabarsī gives the desert-traveler's formula, "I take refuge with the lord of this valley." On the guarded heaven (vv. 8–9), al-Ṭabarsī (via al-Zuhrī) and al-Mīzān both confront the question whether the pelting was wholly new; al-Mīzān argues precisely that the verse asserts the newness of the jinn's being barred, not the origin of meteors. Finally, on v. 10's uncertainty "evil… or guidance," al-Mīzān notes the jinn's adab in naming their Lord as the author of guidance while leaving the agent of evil unnamed — while al-Qummī and al-Burhān carry the verse into history, reporting al-Ṣādiq's reading that the "evil intended" was realized "when they pledged allegiance to Muʿāwiya and abandoned al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī." That last is a distinctively Imāmī taʾwīl, reported here as the source gives it.