Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 27 of 111

Al-Isra 17:27

إِنَّ ٱلْمُبَذِّرِينَ كَانُوٓا۟ إِخْوَٰنَ ٱلشَّيَـٰطِينِ ۖ وَكَانَ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ لِرَبِّهِۦ كَفُورًا

“Indeed, the wasteful are brothers of the devils, and ever has Satan been to his Lord ungrateful.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Squanderers keep the devils' company and copy their habit, and the devil's habit is to turn every gift against the One who gave it.

A reflection

Brother of whatever you cling to

In one group of friends, a teenager is saved in everyone's phone as 'Sale Alert'. She messages the moment any shop drops its prices. It began as a joke. By the time she is twenty, it is simply who she is. Nobody remembers her as anything else.

Arabic did the same thing with a single word. The Arabs called a man the akh, the brother, of whatever he clung to. Brother of generosity, for the man who never stopped giving. Brother of travel, for the man always on the road. One commentary explains the ayah from exactly this usage. Whoever sticks to a people's way and follows in their tracks is called their brother.

So ikhwān al-shayāṭīn is not first an insult. It is a description of company. The squanderer has kept up a habit so long that he now belongs to its family. The commentaries give three readings, and each adds something. They are like the devils in this trait. Or they are their friends and followers, obeying them in what they urge. Or they will be paired with them later, a warning of where the company leads.

The root's picture is worth holding, though it is one derivation among others. The Arabs tethered a horse to a loop of rope buried in soft ground, called an ākhiyya. One view takes akh from it: a brother is tied to you as the horse is tied to its loop. Whatever you return to every day, you are tethered to.

That is the ayah's quiet warning. Nobody decides to become the devil's brother. A man simply keeps scattering money where it has no right, week after week. One day the habit has a family name, and he is in it.

The hopeful side sits in the same grammar. You can also become the brother of whatever you keep doing next.

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.