Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 22 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:22

سَيَقُولُونَ ثَلَـٰثَةٌ رَّابِعُهُمْ كَلْبُهُمْ وَيَقُولُونَ خَمْسَةٌ سَادِسُهُمْ كَلْبُهُمْ رَجْمًۢا بِٱلْغَيْبِ ۖ وَيَقُولُونَ سَبْعَةٌ وَثَامِنُهُمْ كَلْبُهُمْ ۚ قُل رَّبِّىٓ أَعْلَمُ بِعِدَّتِهِم مَّا يَعْلَمُهُمْ إِلَّا قَلِيلٌ ۗ فَلَا تُمَارِ فِيهِمْ إِلَّا مِرَآءً ظَـٰهِرًا وَلَا تَسْتَفْتِ فِيهِم مِّنْهُمْ أَحَدًا

“They [i.e., people] will say there were three, the fourth of them being their dog; and they will say there were five, the sixth of them being their dog - guessing at the unseen; and they will say there were seven, and the eighth of them was their dog. Say, [O Muḥammad], "My Lord is most knowing of their number. None knows them except a few. So do not argue about them except with an obvious argument[785] and do not inquire about them among [the speculators] from anyone."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah lists the guesses about how many they were, calls the guessing a thrown stone, and forbids the argument.

A reflection

He is told to say that he does not know

Read the instruction carefully. The Prophet is not given the number to announce. He is told to say that his Lord knows it.

One commentary puts it exactly: Allah commanded His Prophet, in this ayah, to refer the knowledge of their number back to Him. And then the ayah adds that only a few among people know it, which the commentaries read as a very small number of individuals indeed. One Companion is reported as saying: I am one of that few.

So the man who was being tested on this question is handed, as his answer, a sentence about not being the one who knows.

On a trawler's bridge the sounder shows a mark under the boat and everyone has a figure. The skipper says four tonnes and the mate says less. The engineer, thirty years at it, says the mark is the wrong shape for that. They are not fools and they are not guessing wildly. Nobody on that bridge will know anything until the bag comes up over the stern.

Pride has a particular appetite for numbers, because a number sounds like knowledge and costs nothing to produce. It is how a man makes himself the person in the room who knows.

And the correction here is not aimed at liars. It is aimed at an argument between sincere people, and the answer given to the best of creation was: say that your Lord knows.

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.