Al-Qari'ah · Makki · ayah 5 of 11

Al-Qari'ah 101:5

وَتَكُونُ ٱلْجِبَالُ كَٱلْعِهْنِ ٱلْمَنفُوشِ

“And the mountains will be like wool, fluffed up.[1976]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The mountains, the one thing no one can move, will drift apart like tufts of coloured wool: so what is the ego puffing itself up for?

A reflection

Puffed up, and hollow

A cat in a back garden meets a dog through the fence. In a second it doubles in size: back arched, every hair on end, tail like a bottle brush. It looks enormous. Underneath, it is exactly the same small, frightened cat.

The Arabs had a word for that look. The lexicons say a cat, a hyena or a bird tanaffasha when its fur or feathers stood out, 'as if it were afraid or shivering'. They add a telling definition: anything you see swollen out, yet slack and hollow inside, is mutanaffish. The ayah's word al-manfūsh comes from this root. Wool was nafasha when it was pulled and beaten until its fibres parted: bigger to look at, emptier to hold. That is established usage.

Now hear the ayah. The mountains, the Arabs' picture of whatever cannot be moved, will be like wool, manfūsh. On that Day Allah turns them into the loosest, lightest thing the first hearers knew: puffed out, hollow, drifting apart.

One classical commentator draws the obvious conclusion. If that is what the Striker does to mountains, what will it do to the human being who hears it? Woe to the son of Adam, he writes, unless his Lord's mercy reaches him.

The ego is a bristling cat. It swells when it feels threatened: the raised voice, the dropped name, the refusal to admit a mistake, the list of achievements recited once more. It looks like strength. The lexicon's definition fits it exactly: swollen outside, hollow within, and often puffed up precisely because it is afraid. Pride is fear in a big coat.

A doubt may follow. Why does God display His power like this? Isn't a show of might a kind of boasting? But boasting is a creature claiming a size it does not have. For Allah, might is simply the truth, and He needs nothing from our awe: 'You are the ones in need of Allah, and Allah is the Free of need, the Praiseworthy' (35:15). The display is for us. It lets the ego see its real size while there is still time to set it down.

So let the mountains do their work today. If they become wool, the things I puff myself up with are wool already. What would I stop defending if I truly saw that?

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.