Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 5 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:5

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ إِن كُنتُمْ فِى رَيْبٍ مِّنَ ٱلْبَعْثِ فَإِنَّا خَلَقْنَـٰكُم مِّن تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ مِن نُّطْفَةٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ عَلَقَةٍ ثُمَّ مِن مُّضْغَةٍ مُّخَلَّقَةٍ وَغَيْرِ مُخَلَّقَةٍ لِّنُبَيِّنَ لَكُمْ ۚ وَنُقِرُّ فِى ٱلْأَرْحَامِ مَا نَشَآءُ إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى ثُمَّ نُخْرِجُكُمْ طِفْلًا ثُمَّ لِتَبْلُغُوٓا۟ أَشُدَّكُمْ ۖ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُتَوَفَّىٰ وَمِنكُم مَّن يُرَدُّ إِلَىٰٓ أَرْذَلِ ٱلْعُمُرِ لِكَيْلَا يَعْلَمَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ عِلْمٍ شَيْـًٔا ۚ وَتَرَى ٱلْأَرْضَ هَامِدَةً فَإِذَآ أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْهَا ٱلْمَآءَ ٱهْتَزَّتْ وَرَبَتْ وَأَنۢبَتَتْ مِن كُلِّ زَوْجٍۭ بَهِيجٍ

“O people, if you should be in doubt about the Resurrection, then [consider that] indeed, We created you from dust, then from a sperm-drop, then from a clinging clot, and then from a lump of flesh, formed and unformed[915] - that We may show you.[916] And We settle in the wombs whom We will for a specified term, then We bring you out as a child, and then [We develop you] that you may reach your [time of] maturity. And among you is he who is taken in [early] death, and among you is he who is returned to the most decrepit [old] age so that he knows, after [once having] knowledge, nothing. And you see the earth barren, but when We send down upon it rain, it quivers and swells and grows [something] of every beautiful kind.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Doubt the raising of the dead, and you are sent to your own beginning, your life's arc and bare ground after rain: all watched already.

A reflection

Knowledge on loan

The ayah before this one described a man who 'argues about Allah without knowledge' (22:3). Allah answers him by telling the whole story of a human life. It begins with dust and ends somewhere he had not expected. Some of you are returned to the most abject age, so that, after knowing, he knows nothing at all.

The arguer leaned on his mind. The ayah shows him where minds can end. The knowledge he argues with was handed to him, piece by piece, and it can be taken back the same way.

The word for that age is ardhal. Its root named the leftovers once the good pieces had been picked out. A money-changer set the bad coins to one side; a herdsman set aside the poor sheep. One commentator describes the state plainly. The person learns something and loses it at once. He asks who someone is, is told, and asks again a moment later.

Picture a retired estuary pilot who once knew every sandbank in forty miles of river. Ships the size of streets trusted his memory. Now he sits by the window and asks his grandson whose boots are by the door. A minute later he asks again, kindly, as if for the first time.

Nothing in that scene is shameful. It is simply true. The ego builds its house on what it knows, its expertise, its quickness in an argument. This ayah gently removes the foundations. Every scrap of knowledge is on loan from the One who knows everything and never forgets.

The Prophet ﷺ took this seriously. Sahih al-Bukhari reports that Saʿd taught his sons a set of refuges as a teacher teaches boys their letters. Among them: 'O Allah, I seek refuge in You from being returned to the most abject age.'

So hold your knowledge humbly. Argue, if you must, with what you truly know. And ask, as he did, to be spared the day it is all taken back.

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.