Al-Baqarah · Madani · ayah 36 of 286

Al-Baqarah 2:36

فَأَزَلَّهُمَا ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ عَنْهَا فَأَخْرَجَهُمَا مِمَّا كَانَا فِيهِ ۖ وَقُلْنَا ٱهْبِطُوا۟ بَعْضُكُمْ لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ ۖ وَلَكُمْ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ مُسْتَقَرٌّ وَمَتَـٰعٌ إِلَىٰ حِينٍ

“But Satan caused them to slip out of it and removed them from that [condition] in which they had been. And We said, "Go down, [all of you], as enemies to one another, and you will have upon the earth a place of settlement and provision for a time."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Satan could not push them out, only make them slip; the descent began a story of enmity, settlement and provision, for a time.

A reflection

He cannot push, only trip

A delivery driver steps down from his van on a January morning. The pavement looks wet. It is black ice. One foot is gone before he knows it, and he lands hard, parcel still in his arms. Nobody pushed him. The ground simply stopped holding.

Fa-azallahumā al-shayṭān: Satan made them slip. The classical lexicons agree on the picture inside the word. Zalla is a foot sliding from its place. It is said of a man losing his footing on a rock, and of an arrow glancing off a coat of mail. The same verb covers a slip in mud, in speech, in judgement and in religion. A mazilla is a slippery place where feet will not stay firm. A lapse is called zalla by comparison, because the one who errs slides off the path of what is right. One early dictionary adds the detail that matters most: the foot slides without its owner meaning it to.

The first hearers knew this picture from their own poetry. The commentaries on this ayah quote an old line about a smooth rock that makes whoever steps down onto it slide. And the Prophet ﷺ used the same word for the Bridge over the Fire. Asked what it was, he described it as slippery, a place where feet slide (Sahih al-Bukhari).

One classical commentator draws a sharp point from the word. Satan has no power to move anyone from place to place, he writes. His only power is to lead a person into a slip. The slip then becomes the cause of the fall. The concise commentaries describe the method the same way: he kept whispering and making it look fair until they slipped. The Quran's own account adds the detail. He offered 'the tree of eternity' (20:120), and swore that he was a sincere adviser (7:21).

This is how temptation usually works. It does not grab you by the collar. It makes the ground look safe. A lexicon notes the related form, istazalla: to draw someone on until they slip (3:155). It adds a warning. A small sin, once a person grows relaxed about it, smooths Satan's path to the next.

There is comfort in this as well as warning. If Satan could only trip, then the footing matters. Where you stand, what you allow near you, what you tell yourself is 'only small': these are in your hands. Satan himself will say on the Last Day, 'I had no authority over you except that I called you, and you answered me' (14:22).

The driver now carries grit in the van. He has not stopped delivering. He has stopped trusting pavements that only look wet.

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.