At-Takathur · Makki · ayah 5 of 8

At-Takathur 102:5

كَلَّا لَوْ تَعْلَمُونَ عِلْمَ ٱلْيَقِينِ

“No! If you only knew with knowledge of certainty...[1981]”

Saheeh International

Essence

'If only you knew with certainty…' The sentence breaks off, and your own heart has to finish it.

A reflection

The sentence that breaks off

Read the ayah slowly and notice that it stops. Law taʿlamūna ʿilma al-yaqīn: if you knew with the knowledge of certainty… And then nothing. The commentators agree that the second half of the sentence has been left out.

They suggest what it might have been. You would not have been distracted by the race for more. You would have held to what is required of you. If you knew what you were created for, you would have busied yourselves with it. And one explanation says the gap is the point. The answer is left out so the mind runs to every length. You would have done things that cannot be described or fathomed.

A classical commentary adds that leaving the answer unsaid is the more powerful choice in speech like this. It cites other places where the Quran does the same. If only those who disbelieve knew the time when they cannot keep the Fire from their faces (21:39). And the sentence ends there too.

Imagine an engineer shining a torch at the crack above your ceiling. 'If you knew what I can see here…' He stops, and asks everyone to leave the house. No sentence he could finish would frighten you more than the one he did not.

The gap is also an invitation. Fill it in honestly. Start with the words: if I knew with certainty that I will stand before Allah, I would. Write the first three things that come to mind.

Whatever you write first is probably what this ayah came to tell you. And the fact that you can write it at all means part of the knowledge is already there. It is waiting to become certainty.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.