Al-Anbya · Makki · ayah 24 of 112

Al-Anbya 21:24

أَمِ ٱتَّخَذُوا۟ مِن دُونِهِۦٓ ءَالِهَةً ۖ قُلْ هَاتُوا۟ بُرْهَـٰنَكُمْ ۖ هَـٰذَا ذِكْرُ مَن مَّعِىَ وَذِكْرُ مَن قَبْلِى ۗ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ ٱلْحَقَّ ۖ فَهُم مُّعْرِضُونَ

“Or have they taken gods besides Him? Say, [O Muḥammad], "Produce your proof. This [Qur’ān] is the message for those with me and the message of those before me."[881] But most of them do not know the truth, so they are turning away.”

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Essence

Faced with gods taken beside Him, the Quran does not shout; it holds out its hand and asks for the evidence.

A reflection

The religion that asks for evidence

A sixteen-year-old is preparing for her school debating club. She has been handed the side she least wanted. The motion: "Religion asks you to believe without evidence." She is meant to argue for it, so she opens the Quran looking for ammunition. Instead she keeps meeting the same two words. Hātū burhānakum: bring your proof. They appear four times in the Quran, and each time it is the Quran demanding evidence from someone else.

That is the objection a sceptic raises, and it deserves a fair hearing. Surely faith is the thing you hold when the evidence runs out? Here the ayah turns the expectation round. It is the idol-worshippers who are asked to show their working, and they have none. The concise commentaries say plainly what they had instead: ignorance and imitation, doing what their fathers did.

The classical commentators notice the order of the argument. A few ayat earlier the surah offered a proof from reason. Had there been gods in the heavens and earth besides Allah, both would have been ruined (21:22). Now it asks for the other kind. Bring me a proof from reason or from revelation, one commentator paraphrases. You will find no book of the earlier peoples that does not call to the oneness of Allah. The argument has two doors, and both are open for inspection.

So the Quran does not ask you to switch your mind off at the door. It asks the opposite: that a belief about what deserves worship be held for reasons. What remains open is fair to say too. Not every question about Allah resolves into a syllogism, and the ayah itself says many people "do not know the truth". Evidence can be offered and still not received.

The sixteen-year-old does not change sides that evening. But she writes a note in the margin of her speech, and it is a question rather than a slogan. Which side of this debate is actually asking for proof?

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.