Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 20 of 111

Al-Isra 17:20

كُلًّا نُّمِدُّ هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ وَهَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ مِنْ عَطَآءِ رَبِّكَ ۚ وَمَا كَانَ عَطَآءُ رَبِّكَ مَحْظُورًا

“To each [category] We extend - to these and to those - from the gift of your Lord. And never has the gift of your Lord been restricted.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Your Lord's giving reaches those who want only this world and those who want the next, and no fence can hold it back.

A reflection

The same wall feeds both beds

It is three in the morning on a respiratory ward. Above every bed, an oxygen outlet is set into the same wall. In bed four lies a retired bus driver who has not missed a dawn prayer in forty years. In bed five lies a man who told the nurse, on arrival, that he wanted no religious visitors. Both are breathing from the same pipe. Neither paid for the breath he is taking now.

That is the scene this ayah opens on. Kullan numiddu hāʾulāʾi wa-hāʾulāʾi: each We keep supplying, these and those. The two ayat before it described two crowds. One wants only the quick world. The other wants the Hereafter and strives for it as a believer. Now Allah says He feeds both, from one source.

Notice what He calls it: ʿaṭāʾ rabbika, the giving of your Lord. The lexicons picture the root as a hand reaching out and passing something across, from one hand into another. The concise commentaries say He supplies believer and denier alike as a kindness from Himself. One commentary adds that the supply is not earned by effort and work. It is sheer favour.

This is where the ego shrinks. Most of us carry a quiet ledger. My salary, my health, my talent: I earned them. The ayah tears up the ledger. The denier did not earn his breakfast by denying. The believer did not earn his by believing. Both are being handed things, every hour, by a hand that owes them nothing.

Does God need us to notice? It is a fair question. He is free of all need (35:15), and the reminder adds nothing to Him. It changes a great deal for the one who hears it. A person who knows he is being handed his life cannot strut through it, and cannot despise the man in the next bed.

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.