Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 74 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:74

مَا قَدَرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ حَقَّ قَدْرِهِۦٓ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَقَوِىٌّ عَزِيزٌ

“They have not appraised Allāh with true appraisal.[944] Indeed, Allāh is Powerful and Exalted in Might.”

Saheeh International

Essence

After the fly, the verdict: everything set beside Allah has an edge a fly can find, and He alone has none.

A reflection

The test a fly can set

The verdict in this ayah comes straight after a test, the smallest test imaginable. Can the things people call on besides Allah make one fly? Can they take back what a fly has carried off from them? They cannot. Then comes the sentence: mā qadarū Allāha ḥaqqa qadrih, they did not measure Allah with His true measure.

Notice what that test does to everyone who hears it, not only to the idol-worshippers of Makkah.

Picture a man who owns three hotels and a yacht. He hosts lunch on its deck in July. The dessert arrives, and a fly settles on it. He waves. It lifts, circles and lands again. Everything he has bought cannot stop it. A guest laughs, and he laughs too, a little stiffly.

That is the edge of human power, and a fly finds it in seconds. We cannot make a fly. We cannot recover the crumb it takes. Our pride rests on capacities that a fly can quietly embarrass. The ayah does not need to say this to us directly. The test says it.

Then the ayah lifts its eyes. Inna Allāha la-qawiyyun ʿazīz: Allah is truly Strong, Mighty. One early commentator spells out what each word answers. Strong: able to create whatever He wills, the smallest of His creatures and the greatest. Mighty: guarded in His dominion, so that nothing can take anything from it. The fly took from the idols. Nothing takes from Him.

So the ego shrinks twice. First, when it sees its own limit at the end of a fly's leg. Second, when it realises that this same limited self was once ready to divide its trust between Allah and things smaller still.

Someone may object: why should Allah care how He is measured? Does He need our estimate? He does not. A rock face does not need a climber to rate it correctly. The climber does. Imagine one who clips her rope to a decorative ring, bolted into a wall for show, believing it a rated anchor. The ring does not mind her mistake. She will mind it when she leans back.

The measure is for the one who measures. Whoever measures Allah rightly leans on the only support that holds. Whoever measures Him wrongly leans, sooner or later, on something with an edge a fly could find.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.