Al-Anbya الأنبياء

Makki · 112 ayat · 112 with pondering

• Ayah 1The reckoning is already walking towards everyone, and the tragedy is not that it comes but that people meet it looking the other way.
• Ayah 2Every fresh word from their Lord found them listening, and still playing: the ears were present, the heart was elsewhere.
• Ayah 3With distracted hearts they whispered the two oldest dismissals of truth: he is only one of us, and whatever moves you must be a trick.
• Ayah 4Answering a whispered campaign, the Prophet simply named his Lord: the One who knows every word spoken anywhere, the Hearing, the Knowing.
• Ayah 5Tangled dreams, then a forgery, then poetry, then 'show us a miracle': when the labels keep changing, the problem was never the message.
• Ayah 6Every town that got the miracle it demanded still refused it and fell; the miracle withheld from Makkah was not a refusal but a mercy.
• Ayah 7Every messenger before was a human being who received revelation; if that seems strange, ask the people who kept the earlier record.
• Ayah 8The prophets had bodies that needed bread and lives that ended; what made them messengers was never that they were more than human.
• Ayah 9Every promise to the messengers was kept: they and whoever He willed were brought clear, and the wasters were ended.
• Ayah 10The Book they mocked held their own honour, their own story and their own reminder; the only question was whether they would use their minds.
• Ayah 11Town after town that lived by wrong was snapped like a back, and others were raised in its place.
• Ayah 12They would not believe what they were told, only what they could feel; and the moment they felt it, all they could do was run.
• Ayah 13As they fled, they were told to go back to their luxuries: the comforts they had trusted were offered back, and could not shelter them.
• Ayah 14At last they said the true sentence, 'we were wrongdoers', but to their ruin rather than their Lord, and too late.
• Ayah 15Their one cry never stopped until they lay like cut corn and a fire gone cold: whole towns ended in two words.
• Ayah 16Sky, earth and everything between were not made as a game; a world this deliberate cannot end in nothing.
• Ayah 17He needs no pastime, companion or child; had He wanted one, it would have come from His own presence, not from anything we carve.
• Ayah 18Truth is not argued into place; it is hurled from above onto falsehood's hollow head, and falsehood is simply gone.
• Ayah 19Everyone in the heavens and the earth is His; the ones nearest Him are never too proud to serve Him, and never tire of it.
• Ayah 20Night and day, without a lull, the angels declare Him far above every flaw, and the words they use are offered to us too.
• Ayah 21They took gods dug out of the earth, yet whatever cannot bring the dead back to life has no claim to be worshipped.
• Ayah 22Had there been other gods besides Allah in the heavens and the earth, both would have fallen into ruin; their steady order is His signature.
• Ayah 23No one stands above Allah to call Him to account, while every creature, however exalted, will be asked about what it did.
• Ayah 24Faced with gods taken beside Him, the Quran does not shout; it holds out its hand and asks for the evidence.
• Ayah 25Every messenger ever sent carried the same sentence, spoken by Allah in the first person: there is no god but Me, so worship Me.
• Ayah 26The angels were called His children; the ayah corrects it in three words: they are servants, and honoured ones.
• Ayah 27The noblest servants never let their word run ahead of His, and they act only by His command: a portrait of perfect courtesy.
• Ayah 28Even the angels are fully known to Him, intercede only for those He approves, and tremble with a fear that is really tenderness.
• Ayah 29No rank in creation, not even the angels', would survive the claim "I am a god": the measure is the same for all.
• Ayah 30Heaven and earth were sealed like a stitched seam until He opened them; from water He made every living thing.
• Ayah 31He anchored the earth with mountains so it would not tilt beneath us, and cut wide passes through them so we could find our way.
• Ayah 32The sky is a roof held up without pillars; people use everything it gives and turn from what it says.
• Ayah 33He made night and day, the sun and the moon, and each glides through its own round course like a swimmer.
• Ayah 34No human before the Prophet was granted endless life; so if he dies, will those who gloat over it live for ever?
• Ayah 35Every soul will taste death; in between, both the hard days and the good ones are the test, and then we return.
• Ayah 36They mocked the Prophet for criticising their idols, while they themselves refused the mention of the Most Merciful.
• Ayah 37Haste runs so deep in us that we seem made of it; He shows His signs in His own time.
• Ayah 38Straight after "do not hurry Me" comes the hurry itself: a smirking "when, then?" thrown at those who recite the promise.
• Ayah 39If only the mockers knew the moment they demand: fire at face and back, no hand to push it away, no helper.
• Ayah 40It will not come at a time they choose: it will arrive suddenly, leave them speechless, and allow no turning back and no delay.
• Ayah 41After the warnings comes consolation: messengers before you were mocked too, and the mockery closed round the mockers like their own trap.
• Ayah 42Ask them who keeps them safe through every night and day, if not the Most Merciful; yet they turn from even thinking of Him.
• Ayah 43Their protectors cannot even protect themselves, and no one keeps company with them against Him; only His company is a shelter.
• Ayah 44A long, comfortable life convinced them it would last; yet the land is trimmed from its edges, and they are not winning.
• Ayah 45The Prophet's only tool is revelation; but no warning, however loud, reaches ears that have been deliberately stopped.
• Ayah 46Deaf to every warning, they would confess at the first faint breath of what was promised: so confess now, while it still helps.
• Ayah 47On that Day the scales are justice itself: no mustard seed of good is lost, no grain of wrong added, and He suffices as Reckoner.
• Ayah 48Musa and Harun were given a book that parts truth from falsehood, shines with its own light, and reminds: but only the careful are reminded.
• Ayah 49The mindful fear their Lord when no one sees and they cannot see Him, and their hearts stay tender about the Hour.
• Ayah 50The Quran is a reminder in which good has knelt down to stay, close at hand: how can anyone fail to recognise it?
• Ayah 51Long before Musa, young Ibrahim was given the sense to find the straight road, by the One who knew exactly whom He was giving it to.
• Ayah 52Ibrahim's first move was a quiet question that named their gods for what they were: carved likenesses that people had chained their hearts to.
• Ayah 53Asked why they worshipped statues, they had only one answer, that their fathers did, and a habit is not a reason.
• Ayah 54Ibrahim refused to let the revered dead excuse the living: an error does not become a road because many generations have walked inside it.
• Ayah 55Unable to believe anyone could challenge them in earnest, they asked if he was only playing: the oldest way to dismiss an uncomfortable truth.
• Ayah 56Ibrahim's answer to 'are you joking?' was the whole sky: your Lord split the heavens and the earth into being, and I stand witness to it.
• Ayah 57When words were not enough, Ibrahim swore a quiet oath to act, chose his moment, and trusted Allah to make an impossible thing easy.
• Ayah 58Ibrahim broke the idols into rubble but left the biggest standing, a question in stone, so that his people might come back and think.
• Ayah 59Standing over their shattered gods, the people had to ask one another who did it, because the gods themselves could not say.
• Ayah 60They dismissed him as 'some youth called Ibrahim', not knowing that the name they tossed aside would be blessed in every prayer for ever.
• Ayah 61Meaning to shame Ibrahim before the crowd, his accusers handed him the biggest stage in the city, exactly the stage he had been hoping for.
• Ayah 62Before the whole city they asked only whether he was the one who did it, and could not bring themselves to say their gods were broken.
• Ayah 63With the city watching, Ibrahim pointed at the biggest idol and said: ask them, if they can speak, letting their silence answer for him.
• Ayah 64For one hopeful moment the crowd came back to itself and said the truth aloud: we ourselves are the wrongdoers.
• Ayah 65Their moment of clarity flipped over like a relapse, and their defence became their confession: you know perfectly well these cannot speak.
• Ayah 66Ibrahim took their own admission and asked a question for every heart: why serve, instead of Allah, what can neither help nor harm you?
• Ayah 67Every argument spent, Ibrahim breathed one small sound of disgust at the idols and left a last door open: will you not use your minds?
• Ayah 68When the argument was lost, they reached for fire: the oldest confession that a cause has nothing left to say.
• Ayah 69A month of firewood, a city watching, a catapult: and three words from Allah turned the blaze into coolness and peace.
• Ayah 70They struck and struck for a spark to destroy him, and the whole enterprise came back to them as pure loss.
• Ayah 71The king who lit the fire is a disputed name; the man he burned walked out to a land blessed for the world.
• Ayah 72He asked for one righteous child; he was given a son, a grandson besides, and righteousness in all of them: gift upon gift.
• Ayah 73Allah made them leaders, and the last thing said of them is not their power but this: they were servants, devoted to Us.
• Ayah 74In a town that had burst out of every restraint, Allah gave one man the bridle of wisdom, and then brought him out whole.
• Ayah 75Out of the town of foul things, and into mercy: not merely shielded from the punishment, but brought inside.
• Ayah 76After centuries of being refused, one man called out, and the answer crossed the distance and untied the knot in his chest.
• Ayah 77A whole people who called every waymark a lie, drowned together; one man shielded from them, after centuries of being their target.
• Ayah 78A vineyard stripped in one night by stray sheep, two prophets deliberating over it, and Allah present in the room as they judge.
• Ayah 79The son saw the case more clearly, the father was not blamed, and the mountains themselves joined in when Dawud praised his Lord.
• Ayah 80The first ring-mail was a lesson from Allah to a prophet, for you; and the question at the end is whether you have noticed.
• Ayah 81The wind no hand can hold ran at a king's command, given by One who knew it would bow his head, not raise it.
• Ayah 82Even rebellious jinn dived for pearls and built for a prophet, and Allah kept every one of them in check without tiring.
• Ayah 83After years of loss and sickness, Ayyub asked for nothing by name: he told his Lord where it hurt, and who his Lord is.
• Ayah 84One short prayer after years of pain, and the answer came in three verbs: heard, lifted, given back with more besides.
• Ayah 85A son laid down for sacrifice, a preacher his people refused, a man who promised never to lose his temper: three lives, one word, patient.
• Ayah 86The same words once said of Lut, now said of three patient men together: brought into Our mercy, for they were among the righteous.
• Ayah 87Three darknesses, one whisper: there is no god but You, You are above all blame, and I was the one in the wrong.
• Ayah 88He never actually asked to be rescued, and he was rescued; then Allah widened the door: this is how We rescue the believers.
• Ayah 89An old man asked not to be left alone, then let go of the answer: and if not, You are the best of heirs.
• Ayah 90A son for an old man, a mended wife, and the reason: a household that ran to good and was humble before Allah.
• Ayah 91In a surah of named prophets, one woman is known by what she guarded, and mother and son are made one sign.
• Ayah 92After a long roll of prophets, Allah gathers them into one way and speaks in His own voice: I am your Lord, so worship Me.
• Ayah 93One way was handed down whole, and people cut it into pieces among themselves; yet every piece, and every person holding one, returns to Him.
• Ayah 94Whoever does some of the good, believing, will find no part of the effort buried or denied, because Allah Himself is writing it down.
• Ayah 95For a town Allah has destroyed, there is no way back, neither to this world nor, while their hearts stay as they were, to Him.
• Ayah 96A barrier will be opened, and Gog and Magog will pour over every rise; it opens only when He opens it.
• Ayah 97The true promise draws near, eyes freeze wide open, and the excuse 'we were heedless' collapses mid-sentence into 'no, we were wrongdoers'.
• Ayah 98Whatever is worshipped in Allah's place ends as fuel thrown on the Fire, and those who worshipped it go down with it.
• Ayah 99A god that cannot keep itself out of the Fire was never a god; the worshipped and the worshipper stay there together.
• Ayah 100In the Fire there is groaning breath, and no hearing: those who would not truly listen are left where nothing comforting can be heard.
• Ayah 101Before any deed of theirs, the best had already gone ahead for them from Allah; such people are kept far from the Fire.
• Ayah 102Not even the faintest sound of the Fire reaches them, and they stay for ever in whatever their own souls desire.
• Ayah 103The greatest terror will not grieve them; angels come out to meet them and say: this is your Day, the one you were promised.
• Ayah 104The sky we cannot measure will be rolled up like a written page; the One who began creation will bring it back, as He promised.
• Ayah 105Allah wrote it first in the Mother Book, then in the revealed scriptures: the earth will be inherited by His righteous servants.
• Ayah 106Everything this surah has said is enough to carry someone all the way, if they are a people whose concern is worship, not habit.
• Ayah 107After a surah of warnings, one sentence names the whole purpose of the Messenger: he was sent for nothing but mercy, to every world.
• Ayah 108Everything revealed comes down to one sentence, your God is One God, followed by a question left open for you: will you submit?
• Ayah 109If they turn away, he has told them all alike, hiding nothing; and even he does not know if the promise is near or far.
• Ayah 110He knows what is said aloud and what you keep silent; the shouted word and the hidden grudge are equally plain to Him.
• Ayah 111The Messenger does not know why the reckoning waits; perhaps the delay is itself a test, and a brief enjoyment, for those it spares.
• Ayah 112The surah of the prophets ends with its final prophet handing everything to the Most Merciful, the One whose help is sought.