Maryam · Makki · ayah 4 of 98

Maryam 19:4

قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّى وَهَنَ ٱلْعَظْمُ مِنِّى وَٱشْتَعَلَ ٱلرَّأْسُ شَيْبًا وَلَمْ أَكُنۢ بِدُعَآئِكَ رَبِّ شَقِيًّا

“He said, "My Lord, indeed my bones have weakened, and my head has filled[807] with white, and never have I been in my supplication to You, my Lord, unhappy [i.e., disappointed].”

Saheeh International

Essence

An old man lays his failing body before his Lord as evidence, then rests his request on one fact: You have never let me down.

A reflection

Not a complaint about getting old

Most of us hear the first half of this ayah as a lament. An old man describes his ageing body: the bones are weak, the hair is white. It sounds like the preamble to a sad story, or a list of reasons the request is hopeless.

Look at how the prayer is actually built, and it is nothing of the kind.

One classical commentator notices that Zakariya puts three things in front of his request before he makes it. First, his weakness. Second, that his Lord has never turned his prayer away. Third, in the next ayah, that what he wants serves the faith. Only then does he ask.

So the weakness is not an obstacle he apologises for. It is the first line of his case. The same commentator explains why. Admitting weakness inside and out is a way of leaning wholly on Allah's power, and of letting go of every visible means. An old man with a barren wife cannot point to anything he has. He can only point to whom he has.

Notice too how he begins and how he pauses. My Lord, he says, at the start. Then, in the middle of his second sentence, he says it again: never have I been, my Lord, disappointed. One commentary observes that placing the word there, between the verb and its completion, is a deliberate intensifying of the plea. It is a man stopping mid-sentence to say His name again.

The worn reading hears an old man complaining about age. The words show an old man presenting his age as evidence. Not evidence that he deserves anything. Evidence that only One can help.

That is a very different thing to bring to a prayer mat.

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.