Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 73 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:73

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ ضُرِبَ مَثَلٌ فَٱسْتَمِعُوا۟ لَهُۥٓ ۚ إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ لَن يَخْلُقُوا۟ ذُبَابًا وَلَوِ ٱجْتَمَعُوا۟ لَهُۥ ۖ وَإِن يَسْلُبْهُمُ ٱلذُّبَابُ شَيْـًٔا لَّا يَسْتَنقِذُوهُ مِنْهُ ۚ ضَعُفَ ٱلطَّالِبُ وَٱلْمَطْلُوبُ

“O people, an example is presented, so listen to it. Indeed, those you invoke besides Allāh will never create [as much as] a fly, even if they gathered together for it [i.e., that purpose]. And if the fly should steal from them a [tiny] thing, they could not recover it from him. Weak are the pursuer and pursued.[943]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every false god together could not make one fly, nor take back a speck it stole; so weigh what you call upon besides Allah.

A reflection

All of them together, and not one fly

Start with the size of the challenge. Not a mountain, not a star, not a human being. A fly. And not one false god working alone, but every one of them together: 'even if they gathered for it'.

The ayah uses lan, a negation that looks into the future and closes it. One commentator reads it as stronger than 'they cannot'. Making a fly is foreign to their very nature. Another lays out the logic. If they cannot do it gathered, what could any of them do alone?

Now the ayah asks us to weigh two sides. On one, everything called upon besides Allah, pooled together. On the other, the One who makes flies without effort and without number, every summer, everywhere.

Picture a craft fair. A crowd has gathered round a glass case holding a clockwork bee. It is lovely work: brass wings, tiny gears, a key in its back. People lean in, impressed by the hours of skill. While they admire it, a real fly lands on the glass. It cleans its wings, walks a little and lifts off. Nobody looks at it.

That is our usual scale of wonder, and it is upside down. We are impressed by what we can make, and bored by what we never could.

A divine saying recorded by al-Bukhari turns the same challenge on human pride. Allah says: who does greater wrong than one who sets out to create as I create? Let them create a single grain. Let them create a barley-corn.

The ego shrinks quickly here. Human skill is not nothing; it is a gift. But every skill works with what was already given: the brass, the hand, the mind. Bringing a living thing out of nothing belongs to One alone. Our pride in our making is the clockwork bee boasting to the fly.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.