God bless him and grant him peace, for what they possessed in excess of humans. He did not praise the humans for their superiority over the jinn in eagerness for further knowledge through remaining silent during his recitation. Especially since the Real says to them, “When the Qurʾan is recited, listen to it and be silent” [7:204]. The surah is one whole in itself, like speech not yet completed, so they remain silent until he completes it.
The human Companions thus combined two excellences that God's Messenger, God bless him and grant him peace, did not mention, while he mentioned the jinn's excellence in what they uttered. Their utterance openly declared servanthood with the outward tongue, while with the inward tongue they were also servants: through this utterance and answer they combined both tongues. The human Companions did not do this during the recitation, and thus lacked this tongue. God's Messenger's rebuke of them was therefore instruction in what situations deserve—I mean the situations of speaking tongues—so that they might take heed and not miss this good of action, for at that time they were engaged in the good of knowledge. Knowledge cannot rival the ruling of action in its proper situation, for the ruling belongs to the situation. Nor can action rival the ruling of knowledge in its proper situation. The jinn are strangers to the outward, so they hasten toward outward manifestation to make known that they have gained a footing within it, since they are concealed and closer to the inward than to the outward. The recitation was with the outward tongue. Humans stand in the rank of the outward, and what veiled them from the answer given by the jinn was their being
Notes
Translator’s note TN3722-1: The ruling belongs to the particular situation: the answer distinguishes the occasions appropriate to action and to knowledge, rather than ranking either unconditionally above the other. The jinn's relation to concealment and humans' relation to outward manifestation explain their different responses.
