Al-Anbya · Makki · ayah 12 of 112

Al-Anbya 21:12

فَلَمَّآ أَحَسُّوا۟ بَأْسَنَآ إِذَا هُم مِّنْهَا يَرْكُضُونَ

“And when they [i.e., its inhabitants] perceived Our punishment, at once they fled from it.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They would not believe what they were told, only what they could feel; and the moment they felt it, all they could do was run.

A reflection

The hard edge, felt at last

When they felt Our might. The word is baʾsanā, and the first hearers knew its hardness. One lexicon traces the root to severity and whatever comes near it. In battle, baʾs is the force on the field. One lexicon applies it to iron itself: the Quran says of iron that in it is great baʾs (57:25). In ordinary life, buʾs is the squeeze of poverty. The senses are recorded plainly.

The same root also gives one of the gentlest phrases in Arabic. Lā baʾsa ʿalayk, no harm on you, was how an Arab calmed a frightened man. The word for overwhelming force is the word used to say: you are safe from it.

This ayah describes the moment that safety ran out. These were towns that had heard every warning and mocked it. They were confident in their walls, their wealth and their gods. Then the might arrived, and a commentator says they became certain that it was falling on them, as their prophet had promised.

Picture a man who has lived beside a river for thirty years. He tells everyone his house is flood-proof; he raised the floor himself. When the authorities knock with an evacuation notice, he laughs and offers them tea. At two in the morning the bank gives way. He runs out barefoot into the street in his pyjamas, carrying nothing.

That is the ego at the end of its rope. All the confident talk was built for a world in which the force never actually arrives.

A sceptic may ask why the Quran dwells on such terror. Is it a God who enjoys being feared? The ayah answers with its context. This is the last scene of a long story of warnings, reminders and mercy refused. Its purpose is to reach the listener while the might is still only described, while lā baʾsa ʿalayk is still on offer. He tells us how it ended for them so that it need not end that way for us.

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.