Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 51 of 111

Al-Isra 17:51

أَوْ خَلْقًا مِّمَّا يَكْبُرُ فِى صُدُورِكُمْ ۚ فَسَيَقُولُونَ مَن يُعِيدُنَا ۖ قُلِ ٱلَّذِى فَطَرَكُمْ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍ ۚ فَسَيُنْغِضُونَ إِلَيْكَ رُءُوسَهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ مَتَىٰ هُوَ ۖ قُلْ عَسَىٰٓ أَن يَكُونَ قَرِيبًا

“Or [any] creation of that which is great[752] within your breasts." And they will say, "Who will restore us?" Say, "He who brought you forth the first time." Then they will nod their heads toward you[753] and say, "When is that?" Say, "Perhaps it will be soon -”

Saheeh International

Essence

Even death, the largest thing in your chest, cannot stop the One who first split you into being; asked when, the answer is: perhaps soon.

A reflection

Nobody was present at their own beginning

They ask man yuʿīdunā: who will bring us back? The answer is not a theory. It names Someone they already know: the One who faṭarakum, who originated you, the first time.

The word carries a picture. Ibn ʿAbbās said he did not understand fāṭir, the Originator of the heavens, until two Bedouins came to him quarrelling over a well. One of them said: anā faṭartuhā. I began it; I was the first to dig it. The root is splitting open. A shoot splits the soil. A young camel's tooth splits the gum. Faṭara is to break something open into being where nothing was before.

So the reply points at a well no one else dug. You were split out of nothing. You were not consulted, and you contributed nothing. You did not choose your eyes, your voice or the century you were born into. The first time was entirely His.

That is where the ego grows quiet. We are a species of signatures. Picture a painter who has signed the bottom corner of every canvas for fifty years. He stands in a hospital corridor holding his first grandson, a few hours old. He studies the fingernails, smaller than grains of rice, and the creases at the wrist. There is nowhere to sign. He made none of it.

Someone may hear self-congratulation here: a God who keeps reminding people that He made them. But the reminder answers their own question. They asked who could do it. The only honest answer is the One who already has. Allah does not need their thanks for it (35:15). He gives the answer so that their question does not become their ruin.

Elsewhere the Quran puts the logic in a single line. He begins creation, then brings it back, and that is easier for Him (30:27). The one who has already dug the well does not find it hard to draw water from it again.

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.