Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 206 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:206

وَإِذَا قِيلَ لَهُ ٱتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ أَخَذَتْهُ ٱلْعِزَّةُ بِٱلْإِثْمِ ۚ فَحَسْبُهُۥ جَهَنَّمُ ۚ وَلَبِئْسَ ٱلْمِهَادُ

“And when it is said to him, "Fear Allāh," pride in the sin takes hold of him. Sufficient for him is Hellfire, and how wretched is the resting place.”

Saheeh International

Essence

A hardened heart shows itself in how it hears 'fear Allah': pride seizes it like a captor, and it digs deeper.

A reflection

Taken prisoner by his own pride

A father is told by his sixteen-year-old daughter, very gently, that he raises his voice at her mother. He feels the heat rise in his face. Then he shouts louder, to show he is not the kind of man who shouts.

'When it is said to him, Fear Allah, pride seizes him into sin'. The word for pride here is ʿizza. Its root pictures an eagle's nest on the highest crag, out of every hand's reach. In Allah it is true might. In this man it is a false height he will not come down from.

A later commentator notices the verb. Akhadhathu: it seized him. It can also mean to take someone captive. Pride makes him its prisoner, he says, bound in the chain of his sin, unable to get free. The man thinks he is defending his dignity. In fact he has been taken hostage.

A Companion of the Prophet ﷺ is reported to have named a sin that is enough on its own. A brother says 'fear Allah', and the man replies 'mind your own business'.

The test is not whether we are ever corrected. Everyone is. It is what happens in the half-second after. The heat in the face is human. What we do with it is the choice.

The father could have said: 'You're right. I'm sorry'. It would have cost him one breath of pride. It would have freed him from a prison he did not know he was in.

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.