Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 2 of 111

Al-Isra 17:2

وَءَاتَيْنَا مُوسَى ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ وَجَعَلْنَـٰهُ هُدًى لِّبَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ أَلَّا تَتَّخِذُوا۟ مِن دُونِى وَكِيلًا

“And We gave Moses the Scripture and made it a guidance for the Children of Israel that you not take other than Me as Disposer of affairs,[726]”

Saheeh International

Essence

After the Night Journey comes Musa's Book, and its whole guidance narrows to one line: lean your affairs on no one but Me.

A reflection

'We gave', then 'besides Me'

Read the pronouns slowly. Ātaynā: We gave Musa the Book. Jaʿalnāhu: We made it guidance. This is the plural of majesty, the royal 'We'. Then the ayah reaches its point, and the pronoun narrows to one: min dūnī, besides Me. When the matter is whom you lean on, there is no 'We'. There is only Me.

A wakīl is the one to whom you hand your affairs. The command is short: take no other.

Pride works against this from two sides. One side wants to be someone's wakīl. Think of a ward sister who has not taken her full leave in six years because, she says, the ward falls apart without her. Some of that is devotion. Some of it is the quiet pleasure of being the one everything rests on. The other side wants a human wakīl to hide behind: a patron, a powerful cousin, a name that opens doors. Both are the ego arranging the world around something other than Allah.

Someone may ask whether this is possessive. Why should God insist on being the only one trusted? One classical scholar answered with care. The Lord is called wakīl because He suffices His servants and takes charge of their affairs. It is not the human arrangement, where the one who appoints an agent ranks above him.

And He gains nothing from your reliance. He is the Rich, free of need (35:15). The command protects you. Every other wakīl sleeps, forgets, moves away or dies. The ward survives the sister's holiday, and the patron's influence ends at his funeral.

One classical theologian linked this ayah to the one before. There is no ascent higher, he wrote, and no rank nobler, than to rely on Allah alone in every matter. The Prophet ﷺ was taken up in a night. This ayah offers everyone else an ascent of their own.

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.