Maryam · Makki · ayah 91 of 98

Maryam 19:91

أَن دَعَوْا۟ لِلرَّحْمَـٰنِ وَلَدًا

“That they attribute to the Most Merciful a son.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Five words give the cause of creation's near collapse: that people called a child into the lineage of the Most Merciful.

A reflection

When one wall falls, it calls the next

The verb in this ayah is daʿaw: they called, they named, they attributed. It is the verb of duʿāʾ, prayer, and its root has one of the most surprising pictures in the lexicons.

The root is drawing something towards you with your voice. When milking, the Arabs left a little in the udder, the dāʿiya, to call the next milk down. An empty house had no dāʿī, no one to call out in it. And when one wall fell and brought the next down after it, the walls were said to tadāʿat. The first wall had called the second. The image is established.

Read that beside the previous ayah. The heavens almost burst, the earth splits, the mountains fall with a crash. Now this ayah gives the reason in one word: an daʿaw, that they called. A rhetorical commentary sets out the chain of cause. The falling is caused by the crashing, and the crashing by their attributing a son to the Most Merciful.

So the word for the cause carries, in its own root, the picture of the effect. A wall falls and calls the next down. A claim is called out, and creation nearly comes down after it, one part bringing down another.

That is worth carrying into everyday speech. Words call things towards us. A blessing called out draws more blessing down, like the milk left in the udder. A false word called out can bring one collapse after another.

What are you calling, and what will come down after it?

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.