Taha · Makki · ayah 32 of 135

Taha 20:32

وَأَشْرِكْهُ فِىٓ أَمْرِى

“And let him share my task”

Saheeh International

Essence

Musa asked for his brother with the very word that ruins worship, because a share given in the right place builds.

A reflection

The same word as shirk

Ashrikhu: make him a partner. Anyone who knows a little Islamic vocabulary will hear something startling in it. These are the letters of shirk, the one sin the Quran names as unforgivable for those who die upon it. Yet here a prophet uses the word in prayer, about his own brother, with no shadow on it at all.

The lexicons explain how. The Arabs lived by partnership. Two men might own shares in one field, one well, one camel. A shirk was a share. A sharīk was a partner: the thing belongs to both, and neither has it alone. There is nothing wrong in that. Musa wanted his brother to hold a share of his task, and the prayer was granted.

So what makes shirk with Allah so grave? It is the same act, done where it does not belong. It takes what is His alone and hands someone a share of it. The Quran draws the picture (39:29). One slave is owned by quarrelling partners, each pulling him a different way. Another belongs wholly to one master. Are the two alike?

That corrects a narrow first image. Many people think shirk means bowing to statues, and so they assume it has nothing to do with them. But the share can be given without any statue. Trust that belongs to Allah can be handed to a salary. Fear that belongs to Him can be handed to a boss. Hope can be handed to a person's approval.

Picture a man who runs his own business and prays regularly. Ask him what decides his future, and he says without hesitation: the market. He does not mean it as theology. But that sentence has quietly given the market a share in something that is not the market's.

Musa's prayer shows the healthy partnership: people sharing a task under one Lord. The danger begins only when a share of the Lord's place is handed out.

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.