And the final verdict which was conveyed to the Messenger ﷺ must have deeply shaken him—for in it, even before the Day of Requital, certain individuals were declared as "doomed" (abtar), based entirely on their own inner selves and disposition against his person.
إِنَّ شَانِئَكَ هُوَ ٱلْأَبْتَـرُ ٣
• (Do not pay attention to anyone's remarks)—It is a certain fact about whoever is maligner and depreciator of you the Messenger [Muhammad Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam]: he stands doomed permanently. [notwithstanding he is a believer or a non believer in public eye] [108:03]
This sentence is declarative verdict—whoever bears resentment, bitterness, foul speech, or harbors disregard toward the Messenger, and expresses such emotions, he has become eternally deprived of well-being—without a doubt, he is "Al-Abtar". Such a disrespectful person is morally and spiritually bankrupt. The use of the separated pronoun هُوَ after إِنَّ intensifies the eloquence. It implies that there is absolutely no room left for exception—no leniency. The term شَانِئَكَ is a genitive construct (iḍāfa) and is the subject of "inna" (اسم إنَّ).
It is beyond comprehension why many classical and modern Urdu translators and commentators rendered this word as "enemy". Examples from well-known translations:
• Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri: "Indeed, your enemy is the one who will be cut off."
• Ahmad Raza Khan: "Indeed, your enemy is the one who is deprived of every good."
• Fateh Muhammad Jalandhri: "There is no doubt that your enemy shall remain childless."
• Shabbir Ahmad: "Certainly, the one who is your enemy will be without legacy."
• Maulana Maududi: "Your enemy is the one who is truly rootless."
The behavior of these translators and exegetes is baffling. Whenever it suits them, they replace a Qur'ān word with a different Arabic term and then translate or interpret based on that substitute. Here, they replaced "شَانِئَكَ" with "عَدُوَّكَ", even though the latter is not used in the Qur'ān.
These two words have entirely different roots:
• ش ن ء (Shīn-Nūn-Hamzah): to hate, detest, harbor grudge.
• ع د و (ʿAyn-Dāl-Wāw): to oppose, be hostile, be an enemy.
Ibn Fāris explained the core idea in the root ش ن ء as:
"It denotes hatred, aversion, holding rancor toward someone, and the desire to avoid or stay away from them."
These feelings are the complete opposite of love and respect; they negate decency and proximity.
So, whoever is "شَانِئَكَ"—harboring and expressing inner resentment, bitterness, or disdain against the Messenger ﷺ—is without a doubt "Al-Abtar", permanently severed from any good or lasting benefit. There are no exceptions. The first ever " شَانِئَكَ " was in fact a blood-relative of the Messenger ﷺ—his uncle—who, along with his wife, adopted a derogatory and insulting tone during the earliest days of revelation. At that very time, divine judgment was passed against them, and even the burden of kinship was removed from the Messenger's ﷺ back:
تَبَّتْ يَدَآ أَبِـى لَـهَبٛ وَتَبَّ ١
• The two hands of a person metonymically called "Father of yellowish reddish flame" [Abu Lahab مزاج شعلہ famous for his fiery temperament] have perished him and he stands perished. [111:01]
In its seemingly brief composition, Sura Al-Kawthar encompasses the grandeur of the Divine Gift, the towering status of the Final Messenger ﷺ, and the fate of those who degrade his position. It is a microcosm of the Qur'ān's rhetorical precision and metaphysical vastness. The chapter unveils how divine generosity manifests not merely in material terms, but as boundless access to knowledge, certainty, and clarity—al-Kawthar. To grasp this Sura is to stand at the threshold where the finite touches the infinite, where language unveils revelation, and where respect for the Chosen One ﷺ becomes the dividing line between eternal elevation and irreversible loss.
Despite having read and understood this Divine declaration of Allah the Exalted, whoever has uttered words about my guide Lord, the all time exalted Messenger Sal'lallaa'hoalaih'wa'salam that reflect disrespect, insolence, or moral depravity, lack of reverence and respect, explicit or implicitly words of derogatory and inferior import—such a person is ruined, regardless of how fiery their speech may be or how highly regarded they might be in the eyes of the public.
Those who have likened themselves to him or dared to equate their rank with his are indeed in the lowest depths of Hell. No one till the last moment equals with all time greatness of his immediate followers and companions.
In our era, two well-known examples of such "al-abtar" individuals are Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and Rashad Khalifa.
