Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 45 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:45

وَٱضْرِبْ لَهُم مَّثَلَ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا كَمَآءٍ أَنزَلْنَـٰهُ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ فَٱخْتَلَطَ بِهِۦ نَبَاتُ ٱلْأَرْضِ فَأَصْبَحَ هَشِيمًا تَذْرُوهُ ٱلرِّيَـٰحُ ۗ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ مُّقْتَدِرًا

“And present to them the example of the life of this world, [its being] like rain which We send down from the sky, and the vegetation of the earth mingles with it[791] and [then] it becomes dry remnants, scattered by the winds. And Allāh is ever, over all things, Perfect in Ability.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The word for the withered stubble is the verb that named a famous man of Makkah, for breaking bread into broth in a famine.

A reflection

Power over the beginning, the middle and the end

The verse closes on a name built from a root the lexicons define first as measure. The exact amount of a thing, its extent and its limit. Only afterwards do they list power, as the ability to do, with no incapacity touching it. And then worth, which is giving a thing its due weight.

So capability, in this language, is inseparable from measurement.

One commentary spells out what the closing phrase covers. He is capable over the plant's coming into being at the start, over its growing in the middle, and over its nullifying at the end.

Three stages, one authority. We tend to picture divine power only at the first stage, as the making, and at the last, as the taking. The middle is quietly ours: the growing, the managing, the part where we are doing something.

A cheesemaker works to a thermometer. There is a window of about four minutes in which a vat becomes cheese, and outside that window it becomes whey and a wasted morning. He is not in charge of the milk, or of what the cows ate, or of the weather. He is in charge of four minutes, and he knows exactly how narrow his sovereignty is, which is why he never leaves the room.

Pride is almost always a misreading of the middle stage. We did the work, so we assume the authority sits where the work was.

The verse puts all three stages under one word, and that word is not primarily about force. It is about the exact amount of a thing being set by somebody. Including how long the green lasts.

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.