Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 105 of 111

Al-Isra 17:105

وَبِٱلْحَقِّ أَنزَلْنَـٰهُ وَبِٱلْحَقِّ نَزَلَ ۗ وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَـٰكَ إِلَّا مُبَشِّرًا وَنَذِيرًا

“And with the truth We have sent it [i.e., the Qur’ān] down, and with the truth it has descended. And We have not sent you, [O Muḥammad], except as a bringer of good tidings and a warner.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Quran left its Sender with truth and arrived with truth, untouched on the way; the Messenger brings good news and warns, nothing more.

A reflection

Sent with truth, and it arrived with truth

Try a children's party game. Ten children stand in a line, and a full cup of water passes from hand to hand. By the tenth child, half of it is on the carpet. Nobody meant to spill. Hands are simply hands.

Human words travel the same way. A remark is repeated, a detail added, a tone softened. By the third telling, the speaker would not recognise his own sentence.

Now read the ayah slowly. Wa bil-ḥaqqi anzalnāhu wa bil-ḥaqqi nazal: with truth We sent it down, and with truth it came down. Why say it twice? One explanation preserved in a commentary is striking. In Arabic you can say 'I sent it down, and it did not come down', when something blocks the way. The second clause shuts that door. What was sent is exactly what arrived.

Another commentary spells out the route. It reached the Prophet ﷺ guarded and protected, mixed with nothing else, with nothing added and nothing taken away. It was carried by the angel of great strength, trusted and obeyed on high. A third adds that it was guarded on its way down from any meddling by devils.

Here the ego should go quiet. We cannot carry a cup of water down a line of children. We cannot pass on a piece of family news without adding something. Our memories edit our own stories in our favour, and we call the result honesty.

He sent speech from above the heavens, through an angel, into the heart of a man who did not read. Not one word arrived bent. And He said He would guard it Himself: 'It is We who sent down the Reminder, and We are its guardians' (15:9).

Is it strange for Allah to insist on His own truthfulness? People who protest their honesty are often hiding something. But this is said to listeners who had just accused the Prophet ﷺ of invention. The insistence is for their sake, not His. He gains nothing from being believed.

Pride says, 'My version is the true one.' The humble reader says, 'His version reached me intact. Let me not be the place where it spills.'

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.