Ar-Ra'd · Madani · ayah 25 of 43

Ar-Ra'd 13:25

وَٱلَّذِينَ يَنقُضُونَ عَهْدَ ٱللَّهِ مِنۢ بَعْدِ مِيثَـٰقِهِۦ وَيَقْطَعُونَ مَآ أَمَرَ ٱللَّهُ بِهِۦٓ أَن يُوصَلَ وَيُفْسِدُونَ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۙ أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ لَهُمُ ٱللَّعْنَةُ وَلَهُمْ سُوٓءُ ٱلدَّارِ

“But those who break the covenant of Allāh after contracting it and sever that which Allāh has ordered to be joined and spread corruption on earth - for them is the curse, and they will have the worst home.[639]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The mirror of the good home: those who unpick the pledge and cut the ties end up cut off themselves, driven far from mercy.

A reflection

A house nobody comes into

This ayah nearly repeats 2:27, but here it stands as the mirror of the four ayat before it. They join; these cut. They feared the evil of the reckoning; these receive the evil of the home. They had the good end of the home, with angels coming in through every door saying peace.

For these, the ayah says, is al-laʿna. The lexicons give the root one picture: driving away and keeping far off. The wolf was called laʿīn, the one chased off, and so was a man cast out by his people. From Allah, another lexicon adds, it means being cut off from His mercy.

So the two endings face each other. One house has visitors at every door. The other is the place of someone kept at a distance.

A sceptic may hear 'curse' as a spiteful word, odd on the lips of a merciful God. But notice its shape here. Those who cut what Allah ordered joined end up cut off. Picture a man who walked out of the family group chat in a rage two years ago. Nobody banished him. Now he notices that he hears every wedding and every illness late. The distance he chose has quietly become the distance he lives in. Laʿna is that, made final.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.