Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 21 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:21

وَكَذَٰلِكَ أَعْثَرْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ لِيَعْلَمُوٓا۟ أَنَّ وَعْدَ ٱللَّهِ حَقٌّ وَأَنَّ ٱلسَّاعَةَ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهَآ إِذْ يَتَنَـٰزَعُونَ بَيْنَهُمْ أَمْرَهُمْ ۖ فَقَالُوا۟ ٱبْنُوا۟ عَلَيْهِم بُنْيَـٰنًا ۖ رَّبُّهُمْ أَعْلَمُ بِهِمْ ۚ قَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ غَلَبُوا۟ عَلَىٰٓ أَمْرِهِمْ لَنَتَّخِذَنَّ عَلَيْهِم مَّسْجِدًا

“And similarly, We caused them to be found that they [who found them] would know that the promise of Allāh is truth and that of the Hour there is no doubt. [That was] when they[783] disputed among themselves about their affair and [then] said, "Construct over them a structure. Their Lord is most knowing about them." Said those who prevailed in the matter, "We will surely take [for ourselves] over them a masjid."[784]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The sign arrived in the middle of an argument about whether the dead are raised, and four words interrupt the argument.

A reflection

Four words dropped into a conversation

This short clause sits between one group's proposal and another's. One commentary offers two readings of who is speaking.

It may be the disputants themselves. They had been going back and forth over the sleepers. Their lineages, their condition, how long they had been there. And when they could not reach the truth of it, somebody said: their Lord knows best about them.

Or it may be Allah's own speech, cutting across the whole discussion. A rebuttal, the commentary says, of the talk of those who waded into their story. And it adds a possibility that lands close to home. Perhaps of those disputing about them in the Prophet's own time, from the People of the Book. The men, in other words, who had set the question in the first place.

At a cattle market there is a competition in which everyone writes a guess for a bullock's weight on a slip. The slips are confident. Then the beast walks onto the weighbridge, and the number appears, and the whole room goes quiet in exactly the same way every time.

Pride feeds on having a view about what cannot be checked. It is the cheapest possible way to feel substantial, which is why it is the most common.

And those four words were enough to stop a crowd that had already decided it was qualified.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.