Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 86 of 111

Al-Isra 17:86

وَلَئِن شِئْنَا لَنَذْهَبَنَّ بِٱلَّذِىٓ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَيْكَ ثُمَّ لَا تَجِدُ لَكَ بِهِۦ عَلَيْنَا وَكِيلًا

“And if We willed, We could surely do away with that which We revealed to you. Then you would not find for yourself concerning it an advocate against Us.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Even the revelation stays by Allah's will; if He took it, there would be no one anywhere to plead for its return.

A reflection

Word-perfect, and still on loan

It is the twenty-third night of Ramadan. The imam has led the night prayers in this mosque for eighteen years, always from memory. Halfway down a page he has known since he was twelve, the next line is simply not there. The silence lasts two seconds. Then a voice from the second row supplies the word, and he goes on.

Afterwards he sits alone for a while. Nothing like it has happened to him in years. He knows it was not tiredness alone.

This ayah would not have surprised him. It is addressed to the Prophet ﷺ himself, the one man the revelation was given to. If We willed, We would take away what We revealed to you. One commentator ties it straight to the ayah before. You have been given only a little knowledge; and if I willed to take even that little, I could.

That is a sentence to stand under. The ego treats what it knows as property: my memory, my training, my fluency, my years of study. We say 'my Qur'an' when we mean the part we have memorised. The ayah says the most secure knowledge ever given to a human being stayed by His will. Then mine stays the same way.

The Prophet ﷺ carried this into everyday speech. Sahih al-Bukhari records him saying: how bad it is for one of them to say, I forgot such-and-such an ayah. Rather, he was made to forget. Keep the Qur'an fresh, for it slips from men's chests faster than camels.

Is it a display of power for its own sake, to speak to His beloved like this? Read the next ayah before deciding. The sentence runs on: except as a mercy from your Lord. The power is stated so that the mercy can be seen. Allah gains nothing from our knowing who holds the gift. He is free of all need (35:15). We are the ones who need to know it, so that pride has nothing left to stand on.

The imam rescued by a voice from the second row learned something that night. The surah is still his to recite. It was never his to keep.

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.