Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 35 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:35

وَدَخَلَ جَنَّتَهُۥ وَهُوَ ظَالِمٌ لِّنَفْسِهِۦ قَالَ مَآ أَظُنُّ أَن تَبِيدَ هَـٰذِهِۦٓ أَبَدًا

“And he entered his garden while he was unjust to himself.[788] He said, "I do not think that this will perish - ever.”

Saheeh International

Essence

He crosses into his own garden with the verdict already written into the middle of the sentence, then says what nobody can know.

A reflection

A hedge welded to an absolute

Look at the sentence he actually says. I do not think this will ever perish. Two halves, pulling opposite ways.

The first half is cautious. He does not say I know. He says I do not think, and the lexicons describe that root beautifully. It spans the whole range from doubt to a certainty reached by thinking things through. The image they give for the weak end of it is a desert well you cannot see down into. Is there water in it or not. The word for such a well comes from this root, and so does a debt you may never get back.

The second half is total. Ever. The lexicons give that root as time that cannot be cut into pieces, and note that in a negation it becomes never.

So he opens with a well he cannot see into and closes with a stretch of time that cannot be divided. He is guessing, and the guess is forever.

That is exactly how our own certainties are built, and the hedge is what makes them durable. A flat claim invites argument. A hedged claim nobody troubles to check.

In one county archive a note was written on a box in the eighteenth century saying the contents were probably complete. Three generations of cataloguers copied the entry forward. By the twentieth century the finding aid simply said complete. Nobody could say when the probably had come off, because it came off in a copy rather than a decision.

Most of what you are certain about got certain that way. Check the wording of something you would bet your life on and you may find a probably still in it, four copies back.

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.