Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 109 of 111

Al-Isra 17:109

وَيَخِرُّونَ لِلْأَذْقَانِ يَبْكُونَ وَيَزِيدُهُمْ خُشُوعًا ۩

“And they fall upon their faces weeping, and it [i.e., the Qur’ān] increases them in humble submission.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They fall on their faces again, now weeping, and each hearing of the Quran leaves them lower, quieter and more humble than before.

A reflection

Knowledge that does not make you weep

An early scholar drew a severe conclusion from this passage. Whoever is given knowledge that does not make him weep, he said, is likely not to have been given knowledge that benefits. His reason was this very description. Allah described the people of knowledge, and the description was falling on their faces and weeping. Three of the great commentaries preserve his words.

It is an unsettling standard in an age of credentials. We measure knowledge by degrees, citations and confidence. The ayah measures it by what it does to the knower's face.

Picture a retired structural engineer walking under a road bridge he designed forty years ago. Thousands of cars cross it every day. He still glances up at the joints every time. He knows exactly what wind, frost and load do to steel. That knowledge has not made him casual. It has made him the most careful man on the bridge.

Knowledge of Allah works like that, only more so. The more you know of His greatness, His promise and His warning, the less casually you stand before Him. Ignorance is relaxed in the presence of what it does not understand. Knowledge trembles.

The verb reinforces this. Yabkūn, they weep, is a verb in the continuous form, not a noun. One commentary explains the choice. Weeping comes from awe, awe comes from reflection, and reflection keeps renewing itself. So the verb shows weeping that keeps being renewed. These are not people who cried once at a dramatic moment. Their knowledge keeps producing fresh tears, because they keep thinking.

This is not a demand to manufacture tears. Some hearts weep inwardly, and dry eyes are not proof of a dry heart. But it is a question worth asking of everything we learn. Has it made me softer before Allah, or only better at talking about Him?

A student of the Quran who grows more argumentative each year has certainly learned something. Perhaps not the thing this ayah calls knowledge.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.