Taha · Makki · ayah 134 of 135

Taha 20:134

وَلَوْ أَنَّآ أَهْلَكْنَـٰهُم بِعَذَابٍ مِّن قَبْلِهِۦ لَقَالُوا۟ رَبَّنَا لَوْلَآ أَرْسَلْتَ إِلَيْنَا رَسُولًا فَنَتَّبِعَ ءَايَـٰتِكَ مِن قَبْلِ أَن نَّذِلَّ وَنَخْزَىٰ

“And if We had destroyed them with a punishment before him,[869] they would have said, "Our Lord, why did You not send to us a messenger so we could have followed Your verses [i.e., teachings] before we were humiliated and disgraced?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah sent the messenger before any reckoning so that no one could say ‘nobody told us’: the excuse was answered before it could be spoken.

A reflection

What about those who never heard?

One of the most common questions people ask about faith is this. What about those who never heard the message? Is it fair that they should be punished for not believing in what never reached them?

This ayah gives the Quran's principle. Allah describes what the Makkans would have said, had He destroyed them before sending a messenger. Our Lord, if only You had sent us a messenger, we would have followed Your signs before we were humiliated and disgraced. The point is that such an excuse would have been valid. So Allah did not act before sending the messenger. Elsewhere the Quran says it plainly: We never punish until We have sent a messenger (17:15).

The commentaries preserve a report about people who died in a gap between messengers, along with those without reason and small children. In it they plead on the Day: no messenger came to me, I could not understand, I was too young. And they are given a test there, on that Day. One classical commentator notes that the report is also given as a Companion's own words, and that its chain has problems. Nothing rests on its details. But it shows that the early Muslims did not imagine anyone being condemned for a message they never received.

Picture a teenager after Friday prayer, quietly asking the imam a question that has been bothering him for weeks. 'My grandmother lived her whole life in a village in the mountains. She never met a Muslim. She was the kindest person I knew. What happens to her?' The imam does not pretend to know her fate. He says: Allah does not punish anyone before a messenger reaches them. He knows her heart better than you do. Leave her with Him.

That is the honest answer this ayah supports. What remains open is how each person will be judged. What is closed is the idea that God is arbitrary.

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.