Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 20 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:20

يَكَادُ ٱلْبَرْقُ يَخْطَفُ أَبْصَـٰرَهُمْ ۖ كُلَّمَآ أَضَآءَ لَهُم مَّشَوْا۟ فِيهِ وَإِذَآ أَظْلَمَ عَلَيْهِمْ قَامُوا۟ ۚ وَلَوْ شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ لَذَهَبَ بِسَمْعِهِمْ وَأَبْصَـٰرِهِمْ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

“The lightning almost snatches away their sight. Every time it lights [the way] for them, they walk therein; but when darkness comes over them, they stand [still]. And if Allāh had willed, He could have taken away their hearing and their sight. Indeed, Allāh is over all things competent.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They walk a few steps in each flash of truth and freeze between, forgetting that their eyes are on loan.

A reflection

Eyes on loan

A wedding photographer wakes one morning to find the vision in her right eye blurred and grey. For a week she cannot work, cannot drive, cannot read her daughter's homework. Then, slowly, the sight returns. She says afterwards that she has never looked at a sunrise the same way since. She had always thought of her eyes as tools she owned. That week taught her they were lent.

This ayah ends a long portrait of people who refused to use their hearing and sight for the truth. Then it adds, almost in passing, that had Allah willed, He would have taken away their hearing and their sight. A concise commentary explains that He could take the outward faculties just as He had taken the inward ones. Another says that were it not for Allah's respite, He would have removed them. He is able to do so at any moment.

Then comes the phrase that closes the parables: inna Allāha ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr. Truly, Allah has power over everything.

The ego assumes ownership of what it uses every day. My eyes, my ears, my mind, my health. We speak of them as possessions, and we spend them as if they were ours to spend. The hypocrites used theirs to watch the believers and report back, to hear the Quran and mock it. Not once did they ask whose eyes they were.

A fair reader may ask whether this is a threat, the kind of thing a tyrant says. But notice what the ayah actually describes: power held back. He could have taken them, and He did not. Respite is mercy. He is free of all need (35:15); He gains nothing by leaving us our senses except the chance for us to use them well.

Tonight, before you sleep, close your eyes for a moment on purpose. Then open them again, and thank the One who lent them.

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.