Al-Anbya · Makki · ayah 44 of 112

Al-Anbya 21:44

بَلْ مَتَّعْنَا هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ وَءَابَآءَهُمْ حَتَّىٰ طَالَ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلْعُمُرُ ۗ أَفَلَا يَرَوْنَ أَنَّا نَأْتِى ٱلْأَرْضَ نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَآ ۚ أَفَهُمُ ٱلْغَـٰلِبُونَ

“But, [on the contrary], We have provided good things for these [disbelievers] and their fathers until life was prolonged for them. Then do they not see that We set upon the land, reducing it from its borders?[886] Is it they who will overcome?”

Saheeh International

Essence

A long, comfortable life convinced them it would last; yet the land is trimmed from its edges, and they are not winning.

A reflection

He comes to the land

Afalā yarawna annā naʾtī al-arḍa nanquṣuhā min aṭrāfihā: do they not see that We come to the land, reducing it from its edges? One classical commentator asks why the ayah says "We come to the land" at all, rather than simply "We reduce it". His answer: it paints a picture of the process happening, of something arriving and taking hold. Another commentator adds that the coming is attributed to Allah Himself, to show that it happens by His power.

Then the ayah ends with a question that cuts through every boast: a-fa-humu al-ghālibūn, is it they who will overcome? The root of ghālib carried a picture of sheer strength. The Arabs praised their chiefs for thick, strong necks; the lion was aghlab, the thick-necked one. A garden was ghalbāʾ when its trees were so great and pressed together they stood like a crowd of strong men. These are established senses.

Picture a family firm that has dominated printing in a market town for forty years. Every wedding invitation, every school prospectus, every menu went through its presses. The owner's portrait hangs in the reception. When small cheap printers start appearing in people's homes, he laughs at them. Within a decade the orders thin from the edges inwards: first the leaflets, then the invitations, then the prospectuses. One day the building is sold.

That is the pattern the ayah asks people to notice. Strength that looks permanent is being trimmed at its margins all the time, by the One who comes to the land.

A sceptic might hear a God boasting of His power to diminish. But the commentaries read it as a warning in time. Do they not see? Look at what is happening at the edges, they say, and draw the lesson before it reaches the middle. Our pride assumes we are the thick-necked ones. The ayah asks us to look again.

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.