Al-Fil · Makki · ayah 2 of 5

Al-Fil 105:2

أَلَمْ يَجْعَلْ كَيْدَهُمْ فِى تَضْلِيلٍ

“Did He not make their plan into misguidance?[1993]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The plan was years in the making and backed by an empire; He simply let it lose its way.

A reflection

The plan that lost its way

Kayd is effort forced out of a thing. The Arabs used it for flint struck slowly and hard until it gave a spark. They used it for a crow cawing with strain, and a dying man labouring out his last breath. From that strain came the word for a plan worked hard. And this plan was worked very hard. First a magnificent church was built in Yemen to draw the pilgrims away from Makkah. When that failed, an army was raised to remove the Kaaba altogether.

Allah answers all that labour with one phrase: fī taḍlīl, into straying. The plan did not collide with a stronger plan. It simply lost its way, like a traveller with no road. The Arabs said milk was 'lost' in water when it was poured in and could never be found again. That is what became of the scheme.

We are a planning species. Five-year strategies, launch timelines, the careful sequence of moves to win the promotion or the argument. The ego loves a plan, because a plan feels like control. It lets us believe that if the steps are right, the ending is ours.

This ayah does not forbid planning. Planning is part of taking the means Allah has put in your hands. The ayah removes the illusion that planning is power. A plan reaches its end only if He lets it arrive.

There is humility in this, and also a strange relief. If the arrival is not finally in your hands, neither is the whole weight of it. You can plan well, work hard, and then let go of the outcome, as a farmer lets go of the seed.

Hold your plans the way you hold a map in a strange city: useful, necessary, and never mistaken for the road itself. The road belongs to the One who can make any plan lose its way.

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.