Taha · Makki · ayah 114 of 135

Taha 20:114

فَتَعَـٰلَى ٱللَّهُ ٱلْمَلِكُ ٱلْحَقُّ ۗ وَلَا تَعْجَلْ بِٱلْقُرْءَانِ مِن قَبْلِ أَن يُقْضَىٰٓ إِلَيْكَ وَحْيُهُۥ ۖ وَقُل رَّبِّ زِدْنِى عِلْمًا

“So high [above all] is Allāh, the Sovereign,[861] the Truth.[862] And, [O Muḥammad], do not hasten with [recitation of] the Qur’ān before its revelation is completed to you, and say, "My Lord, increase me in knowledge."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The famous prayer for knowledge follows a command to slow down: let it finish, then ask for a bigger vessel, not a faster pour.

A reflection

The King who is Real, and the learned ego

The ayah does not begin with the prayer. It begins with a cry of praise: fa-taʿālā Allāhu al-maliku al-ḥaqq. Exalted is Allah, the King, the Real.

Taʿālā comes from a root of height. The lexicons give the mountain's summit, the upper part of a spear. One commentary explains al-Ḥaqq here: His kingship does not pass, does not change, and was not handed to Him by anyone else. Every other crown is borrowed and returned. His is simply true.

Why put this right before a lesson about knowledge? Because knowledge is where human pride grows most quietly. Wealth makes some people arrogant. Learning makes almost everyone a little arrogant. The specialist stops listening to the junior. The one who has read the book corrects the one who lived it. The religious student, a year into his studies, starts to look down on his own mother's prayers.

Picture a retired professor of engineering, a man who corrected everyone for forty years. He has started learning to read the Quran. His teacher is a ten-year-old girl from the flat upstairs, patient and unimpressed. She makes him repeat a letter eleven times. He finds, to his surprise, that he does not mind.

That is what Exalted is Allah, the King, the Real does to the learned ego. It sets every degree and title under a height that no one climbs. One classical commentator noticed that the prayer itself carries the same humility: to say 'increase me' is to admit you have less than you need.

Does a King who exalts Himself need our praise? The commentaries answer that He is free of benefit and harm from His servants. The praise is not for Him. It is the ladder the learner needs, so that what he learns lifts him towards the Real instead of towards himself.

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.