Prophet Shuayb (AS) – The Preacher of Madyan حضرت شعیب علیہ السلام – مدین کے خطیب

Madyan was both a people and a place. The people descended, according to the genealogists cited by Ibn Kathir, from Madyan, a son of Ibrahim (AS) by his wife Qaturah, and so they were Arabs related by blood to the Children of Ismail. The place was the territory they settled, on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba in what is now the north-west of Saudi Arabia, stretching north into the lands bordering Palestine and the Sinai. The ruins at the site known today as Al-Bad' are traditionally identified with the town of Madyan, and it was to this region that Musa (AS) later fled from Egypt (Al-Qasas 28:22).

Madyan sat on the great caravan road that linked Yemen and the Hijaz with Syria and Egypt. Its people grew prosperous from trade, from the passage of goods through their land, and from the wells and pastures that sustained travellers. Prosperity brought a particular kind of corruption. The Quran singles out two sins that defined them: they associated partners with Allah, worshipping a tree or grove – which is why they are also called Ashab al-Aykah, 'the Companions of the Thicket' (Al-Hijr 15:78; Ash-Shu'ara 26:176) – and they cheated in the marketplace, giving short measure and short weight, and devaluing the goods and coins of others.

The scholars differ on whether the people of Madyan and the Companions of the Thicket were one nation or two. Ibn Kathir, after reviewing the evidence, holds that they were the same people called by two names: 'Madyan' after their ancestor and town, and 'the Thicket' after the dense trees they worshipped. The strongest proof is that the Quran attributes to both the same prophet, the same sins and the same reply, and the Quran never says 'their brother Shuayb' of the Companions of the Thicket, precisely because he was from Madyan by blood but was sent to the whole region. The view of a minority that they were two peoples and that Shuayb was sent twice is not supported by any sound report.

They were not ignorant of earlier revelation. They lived close to the ruins of the cities of Lut, which Shuayb would later point to as a warning (Hud 11:89), and the memory of Nuh, Hud and Salih was alive among the Arabs of their time. But they had turned religion into tradition and trade into fraud, and they were satisfied with both. The Quran describes them as 'spreading corruption in the land' (Al-A'raf 7:85), and the corruption took many forms: cheating in trade, highway robbery by their rougher element, and sitting on the roads to turn people away from the believers (Al-A'raf 7:86).

Into this people Allah sent one of their own. The Quran says: 'And to [the people of] Madyan [We sent] their brother Shuayb' (Al-A'raf 7:85; Hud 11:84; Al-Ankabut 29:36). 'Their brother' means that he was one of them by lineage and language, a man whose family they knew and whose honesty they had witnessed. This was the pattern of Allah with the Arab prophets – Hud to Ad, Salih to Thamud, Shuayb to Madyan – so that no one could say the messenger was a stranger whose ways they did not understand.

Shuayb's lineage is given in different ways by the genealogists; the most common chain makes him a descendant of Madyan ibn Ibrahim within a few generations, and some reports say that his mother or grandmother was a daughter of Lut (AS). None of this is certain. What the Quran establishes is that he was an Arab prophet of Madyan, sent after Lut and before Musa, and – as we shall see – endowed with a gift for argument that no other prophet's speeches in the Quran quite match.

Shuayb's message had two parts, and the Quran always presents them together. The first was the message of every prophet: 'O my people, worship Allah; you have no deity other than Him' (Al-A'raf 7:85; Hud 11:84). The second was unique in its emphasis: 'So fulfil the measure and weight and do not deprive people of their due, and cause not corruption upon the earth after its reformation' (Al-A'raf 7:85). No other prophet's call in the Quran is so closely tied to the marketplace. Shuayb was sent to a people whose faith was corrupt and whose scales were crooked, and he treated the two as one disease.

He began with evidence. 'There has come to you clear proof from your Lord' (Al-A'raf 7:85). The commentators note that the Quran does not specify what miracle Shuayb brought; the 'clear proof' may have been signs he showed, or the self-evident truth of his message, or both. What is clear is that he did not ask for belief without grounds. Then he spoke of blessing: 'And remember when you were few and He increased you' (Al-A'raf 7:86). Madyan had grown from a small clan into a wealthy nation, and Shuayb reminded them that the growth was Allah's gift, not their own cleverness.

In Surah Hud his tone is tender. 'And O my people, give full measure and weight in justice and do not deprive the people of their due, and do not commit abuse on the earth, spreading corruption. What remains [lawful] from Allah is best for you, if you would be believers' (Hud 11:85-86). The phrase 'what remains from Allah' – baqiyyatullah – is the lawful profit that is left after one has given every person his due. Shuayb was telling merchants, in the language of merchants, that honest gain is a better investment than the extra coin squeezed by fraud, because it carries Allah's blessing and endures.

He also spoke of fear. 'I fear for you the punishment of an encompassing Day' (Hud 11:84). And he spoke of his own limits: 'And I am not a guardian over you' (Hud 11:86). He was a warner, not a policeman; their choice would be their own. In Surah Ash-Shu'ara the call is summarised in words that every prophet in that surah repeats: 'Will you not fear Allah? Indeed, I am to you a trustworthy messenger. So fear Allah and obey me. And I do not ask you for it any payment; my payment is only from the Lord of the worlds' (Ash-Shu'ara 26:177-180). Then comes the specific charge: 'Give full measure and do not be of those who cause loss. And weigh with an even balance. And do not deprive people of their due and do not commit abuse on earth, spreading corruption. And fear He who created you and the former creation' (Ash-Shu'ara 26:181-184).

Why did Allah tie worship and trade so tightly in Shuayb's message? Because fraud in the marketplace is a theological error before it is a commercial one. The cheat believes that his extra profit comes from his own cunning, that no one is watching, and that the provision of Allah is not enough for him. Every short weight is a small denial of Allah's lordship over provision. Shuayb saw this and said it: honour the scales because you honour your Creator. The Quran later made this a general law in Surah Al-Mutaffifin, which opens, 'Woe to those who give less [than due], who, when they take a measure from people, take in full; but if they give by measure or by weight to them, they cause loss' (Al-Mutaffifin 83:1-3).

Shuayb's gift for speech was evident from the first. His sentences are balanced, his reasoning moves from evidence to blessing to warning to appeal, and he never descends to insult. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is reported to have called him Khatib al-Anbiya, 'the Preacher of the Prophets', because of the beauty of his address to his people; this report is cited by Ibn Kathir and other scholars, but its chain is not strong, so the title should be understood as a scholars' description of his style rather than a certain saying of the Prophet ﷺ. The style itself, however, is right there in the Quran for anyone to read.

The people of Madyan did not simply ignore Shuayb; they answered him, and their answers are preserved in the Quran as a portrait of how a corrupt society defends itself. Their first reply was mockery dressed as a question: 'O Shuayb, does your prayer command you that we should leave what our fathers worship or not do with our wealth what we please? Indeed, you are the forbearing, the discerning!' (Hud 11:87). The last sentence was sarcasm – 'you, of all people, the wise and gentle one!' – and the question before it carried the whole creed of Madyan: our religion is our fathers' and our money is our own. They were saying that worship was a private habit and wealth a private right, and that no prophet had any business connecting the two.

Shuayb answered with calm reason. 'O my people, have you considered: if I am upon clear evidence from my Lord and He has provided me with a good provision from Him…?' (Hud 11:88). He was himself a man of means – the commentators say he was prosperous – and he pointed out that he was not preaching poverty but honesty, and that Allah had blessed him without his needing to cheat. Then came a sentence that every reformer should memorise: 'And I do not intend to differ from you in that which I have forbidden you; I only intend reform as much as I am able. And my success is not but through Allah. Upon Him I have relied, and to Him I return' (Hud 11:88). He did not ask of them what he did not do himself; his aim was reform, not domination; and the outcome he left to Allah.

The second line of opposition was threat. The chiefs – 'the eminent ones who were arrogant among his people' – said: 'We will surely evict you, O Shuayb, and those who have believed with you from our city, or you must return to our religion' (Al-A'raf 7:88). Expulsion was the oldest weapon against prophets; Lut's people had used it, and Quraysh would use it against Muhammad ﷺ. Shuayb's reply was precise: 'Even if we were unwilling? We would have invented against Allah a lie if we returned to your religion after Allah had saved us from it. And it is not for us to return to it except that Allah, our Lord, should will' (Al-A'raf 7:88-89). To 'return' to falsehood, he said, would not be a change of opinion but a lie against Allah; then he placed his trust where it belonged: 'Upon Allah we have relied. Our Lord, decide between us and our people in truth, and You are the best of those who give decision' (Al-A'raf 7:89).

The third line was obstruction. The Quran records that they sat 'on every path, threatening and averting from the way of Allah those who believe in Him, seeking to make it [seem] deviant' (Al-A'raf 7:86). The commentators explain this in two ways: literally, that they posted men on the roads into Madyan to turn travellers away from Shuayb and to rob them; and figuratively, that they blocked every avenue by which the message could reach people. Both were true. A society that cheats in the market will also cheat in the matter of truth; it will not allow a fair hearing to what threatens its profits.

Finally came intimidation of the weak. The chiefs warned the people: 'If you should follow Shuayb, indeed, you would then be losers' (Al-A'raf 7:90). The 'loss' they meant was commercial and social: those who followed the prophet would be cut off from trade, mocked, and isolated. Many were frightened; some believed anyway. The believers of Madyan are among the unnamed heroes of the Quran, people who chose honest scales and a true God over the approval of the men who controlled the roads.

Through all this Shuayb did not weaken. He was threatened with exile and answered with a prayer for judgement. He was mocked for his gentleness and replied with more gentleness. He was accused of meddling with money and replied that honesty was the best protection of money. The chiefs had every worldly advantage: numbers, wealth, the roads, the fear of the people. He had evidence, eloquence and reliance on Allah. The next chapter shows what he did when words ran out.

When argument had been exhausted, Shuayb made one last address to his people, and the Quran records it in Surah Hud as a model of how a prophet speaks when he knows the end is near. 'And O my people, let not [your] dissension from me cause you to be struck by that which struck the people of Nuh or the people of Hud or the people of Salih. And the people of Lut are not from you far away' (Hud 11:89). He named four destroyed nations, and the last of them was close in both time and place: the overturned cities of the Dead Sea were a few days' journey from Madyan, and the memory of their destruction was recent. He was not speaking of distant legend but of ruins they could visit.

Then he turned from warning to mercy. 'And ask forgiveness of your Lord and then repent to Him. Indeed, my Lord is Merciful and Loving' (Hud 11:90). Of all the prophets, only Shuayb in the Quran describes Allah to his people as Wadud, 'Loving', in a moment of warning. He wanted them to know that the door was open even now; that the God whose punishment he feared for them was a God who loved those who returned to Him. Ibn Kathir remarks on the gentleness of this address: it combined the most severe threat with the most tender invitation, and left them no excuse.

Their reply was the reply of people who had already decided. 'O Shuayb, we do not understand much of what you say, and indeed, we consider you among us as weak. And if not for your family, we would have stoned you; and you are not to us one respected' (Hud 11:91). Each clause reveals something. 'We do not understand' – they understood perfectly, but a people that will not act on a message says that it cannot follow it. 'We consider you weak' – some commentators say he was elderly, or had lost his sight; the reports are not established, but the taunt shows that they measured a man by his power, not his truth. 'If not for your family, we would have stoned you' – the only thing that protected the prophet of Allah was the tribal standing of his relatives, and they wanted him to know it.

Shuayb's answer to this last point is one of the sharpest sentences in the Quran. 'O my people, is my family more respected to you than Allah? And you have taken Him behind your backs' (Hud 11:92). They feared his clan and did not fear his Lord. They would hold back from killing him because of a few men of Madyan, but would not hold back from idolatry and fraud because of the Creator of the heavens. He exposed the inversion at the heart of their society: honour for men, contempt for Allah. Then he closed: 'Indeed my Lord is encompassing of what you do' (Hud 11:92).

His final words were a declaration that the argument was over and the decision had passed to Allah. 'And O my people, work according to your position; indeed, I am working. You are going to know to whom will come a punishment that will disgrace him and who is a liar. So watch; indeed, I am with you a watcher' (Hud 11:93). In Surah Al-A'raf the same moment is recorded differently: when the chiefs threatened exile, he prayed, 'Our Lord, decide between us and our people in truth, and You are the best of those who give decision' (Al-A'raf 7:89). A prophet does not call down punishment lightly; he prays for judgement only when every avenue of persuasion has been closed by the people themselves.

The Quran also mentions that the people of Madyan demanded a miracle of their own choosing. In Surah Ash-Shu'ara they say: 'You are only a human being like us, and indeed, we think you are among the liars. So cause to fall upon us fragments of the sky, if you should be of the truthful' (Ash-Shu'ara 26:186-187). This was the ultimate mockery: they asked for the very punishment he was warning them of, confident that it would never come. Shuayb replied only, 'My Lord is most knowing of what you do' (Ash-Shu'ara 26:188). He did not threaten a specific punishment, because he did not know its form. Allah did, and it would come, as the next chapter tells, in the form of the sky they had mocked.

The punishment of Madyan is described in the Quran with three different words in three different surahs, and the commentators explain that all three describe one event seen from its different sides. In Surah Al-A'raf: 'So the earthquake seized them, and they became within their home [corpses] fallen prone' (Al-A'raf 7:91). In Surah Hud: 'And the shriek seized those who had wronged, and they became within their homes [corpses] fallen prone' (Hud 11:94). And in Surah Ash-Shu'ara, the fullest account: 'And they denied him, so the punishment of the day of the black cloud seized them. Indeed, it was the punishment of a terrible day' (Ash-Shu'ara 26:189).

Ibn Kathir and the early commentators, drawing on Ibn Abbas and others, describe the Day of the Shade like this. Allah sent upon them a heat so intense that it stopped their breath; the air in their houses was like fire, and the water in their wells and springs boiled, so that nothing gave relief. Then a cloud rose over them, dark and heavy, and beneath it there was coolness and shade. They cried to one another and went out, all of them – men, women and children – to stand beneath it. When they were gathered there, the cloud rained fire upon them, the earth shook beneath their feet, and a cry from the sky struck them, and they died where they stood. The 'fragments of the sky' they had demanded in mockery (Ash-Shu'ara 26:187) had come.

This description of the heat and the cloud is from tafsir reports rather than from the text of the Quran or an authentic hadith. What the Quran itself establishes is that there was a 'shade' or 'cloud', an 'earthquake' and a 'shriek', and that the people died in their homes and in the open, fallen prone. Readers should hold firmly to the Quranic words and treat the details of the boiling springs and the fire from the cloud as the explanation of the early scholars, likely but not certain.

The Quran then adds a line of terrible finality: 'As if they had never prospered therein. Unquestionably, away with Madyan as Thamud was taken away' (Hud 11:95). The caravan town that had grown rich on the trade of three continents was left as though no one had ever lived there. In Surah Al-A'raf the same phrase is applied: 'Those who denied Shuayb – it was as though they had never resided there. Those who denied Shuayb – it was they who were the losers' (Al-A'raf 7:92). The word 'losers' answers the chiefs' threat of the previous chapter: they had warned the people that following Shuayb would make them losers, and Allah now declared who the losers really were.

And Shuayb? 'Allah saved Shuayb and those who believed with him by mercy from Us' (Hud 11:94). The believers who had been threatened with expulsion were the only ones who remained. The Quran then records the prophet's farewell to the dead, as it records the farewell of Salih to Thamud: 'And he turned away from them and said, "O my people, I had certainly conveyed to you the messages of my Lord and advised you, so how could I grieve for a disbelieving people?"' (Al-A'raf 7:93). There is sorrow in this, and also a drawing of the line. He had loved them and laboured for them; he had done everything a messenger could do. But grief for those who chose destruction over an open door would have been grief against the justice of Allah, and he would not allow himself that.

In Surah Al-Ankabut the story is given in a single, compressed verse that gathers the whole lesson: 'And to Madyan [We sent] their brother Shuayb, and he said, "O my people, worship Allah and expect the Last Day and do not commit abuse on the earth, spreading corruption." But they denied him, so the earthquake seized them, and they became within their home [corpses] fallen prone' (Al-Ankabut 29:36-37). Worship, accountability, honesty – and then, for those who refused all three, the end.

The Quran does not describe Shuayb's death, and there is no authentic hadith about it. The later history of Madyan, however, is tied to the greatest of the prophets of the Children of Israel. When Musa (AS) fled from Egypt, 'he directed himself toward Madyan' (Al-Qasas 28:22), found two women unable to water their flock at the well, watered it for them, and was invited to the house of their father, 'an old man' who gave him one of his daughters in marriage and employed him as a shepherd for eight or ten years (Al-Qasas 28:23-28).

Was this old man Shuayb? Many commentators, including some of the early ones, say that he was, and the view is widespread in popular tellings. Ibn Kathir examines it carefully and raises doubts. The Quran does not name the old man of Madyan. The time between the destruction of Madyan and Musa's flight appears long; Shuayb's people had been destroyed, and the Madyan Musa found was inhabited and at peace. Some reports say the old man was a nephew of Shuayb, or a righteous man of his people; others say he was Shuayb himself, having lived to a great age. Ibn Kathir concludes that the identification is possible but not established, and that Allah knows best. This is the honest position: the reader may have met the view that Musa's father-in-law was the Prophet Shuayb, and should know that it is a matter of opinion, not of revealed fact.

What is established is Shuayb's rank among the messengers. He is counted by the scholars among the Arab prophets, with Hud, Salih and Muhammad ﷺ. He appears in the great series of warning stories in Al-A'raf, Hud, Ash-Shu'ara and Al-Ankabut, always after Lut and before Musa, so that his story is the hinge between the age of the Arabian prophets and the age of the Children of Israel. And he is the one prophet whose preaching the Quran preserves at such length that his method can be studied line by line.

The lessons of his story begin with that method. He reasoned before he warned. He reminded his people of blessings before he spoke of punishment. He never asked them to do what he did not do himself. He described Allah to them as Merciful and Loving even as he foretold their ruin. He answered mockery with argument and threats with prayer. When he was told that only his clan protected him, he turned the insult into the sharpest proof against them. If the Prophet ﷺ and the scholars called him the Preacher of the Prophets, it was because his words in the Quran show what preaching should be.

The second lesson is the heart of his message: honesty in trade is part of faith, not a separate matter of ethics. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ built on this. He said: 'The truthful, trustworthy merchant will be with the prophets, the truthful and the martyrs' (Jami' at-Tirmidhi 1209 – its chain is discussed, but its meaning is confirmed by other reports). He said: 'Whoever cheats is not of me' (Sahih Muslim 102). He said: 'The two parties to a sale have the option [to cancel] as long as they have not separated; if they are truthful and make things clear, they are blessed in their sale, and if they conceal and lie, the blessing of their sale is wiped out' (Sahih al-Bukhari 2079; Sahih Muslim 1532). This is the theology of Shuayb: lawful gain carries blessing, fraud destroys it.

The third lesson is for societies, not individuals. Madyan was destroyed not only for idolatry but for corruption of the market and obstruction of the road. A nation that will not let truth be heard, that sits on the paths and frightens the weak, is already in the condition that invites punishment. The chiefs of Madyan thought that wealth and control of the trade routes made them secure. The Quran's epitaph on them – 'as if they had never prospered therein' (Hud 11:95) – is the answer to every society that has ever believed the same.

And the final lesson is Shuayb's own last word: 'My success is not but through Allah. Upon Him I have relied, and to Him I return' (Hud 11:88). He did not save Madyan. He did not win the argument in any way that the chiefs would acknowledge. But he conveyed the message, kept his trust in Allah, and was saved with those who believed. That is what Allah asks of those who call to Him, and it is enough.