Al-Anbya · Makki · ayah 13 of 112

Al-Anbya 21:13

لَا تَرْكُضُوا۟ وَٱرْجِعُوٓا۟ إِلَىٰ مَآ أُتْرِفْتُمْ فِيهِ وَمَسَـٰكِنِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُسْـَٔلُونَ

“[Some angels said], "Do not flee but return to where you were given luxury and to your homes - perhaps you will be questioned."[877]”

Saheeh International

Essence

As they fled, they were told to go back to their luxuries: the comforts they had trusted were offered back, and could not shelter them.

A reflection

The pampered child

Return to what you were pampered in. The verb is utriftum, and the first hearers knew its picture. One lexicon says the root holds one idea: a special indulgence, a turfa. A family would tarrafa a favoured boy, giving him the best food and the softest treatment, whatever he craved. Another lexicon carries it further. The mutraf is the man whom ease and wide living have made insolent. The comfort tipped him over.

Notice the grammar. The verb is passive: what you were pampered in. They did not create their comfort. It was done to them. One commentator says it plainly. Allah gave them that ease, as another ayah says, We gave them luxury in the life of this world (23:33). The gift came from the One they rejected.

That makes the command in this ayah sharp. Early commentators say it was mockery. You trusted your comforts; go back to them now. Let them protect you. Another commentator explains the luxury as the blessings that had made them reckless.

Picture a family in a newly built smart house. Lights, heating, locks and blinds all answer to a voice or a screen. One stormy evening the power fails across the whole district. The house goes dark and silent. The doors will not open from the panel; the heating is dead; the speakers that answered every question say nothing. They stand in the hall with a phone torch, inside the most comfortable house they have ever owned, entirely helpless.

Comfort is not the enemy in this ayah. It was a gift. The danger is what the root describes: comfort that has made you soft and certain, so that you no longer think you need anything else. The command go back to it exposes that certainty. When the real need arrives, the pampering cannot answer. Only the One who gave it can.

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.