Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 9 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:9

ثَانِىَ عِطْفِهِۦ لِيُضِلَّ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ۖ لَهُۥ فِى ٱلدُّنْيَا خِزْىٌ ۖ وَنُذِيقُهُۥ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ عَذَابَ ٱلْحَرِيقِ

“Twisting his neck [in arrogance] to mislead [people] from the way of Allāh. For him in the world is disgrace, and We will make him taste on the Day of Resurrection the punishment of the Burning Fire [while it is said],”

Saheeh International

Essence

He turns his neck from the truth to lead others astray; disgraced in this world, he will taste the burning on the Last Day.

A reflection

Pride has a posture

The ayah does not describe this man's thoughts. It describes his body. Thāniya ʿiṭfihi: bending his side away, twisting his neck. The Arabs used the phrase of a man who arrived strutting with pride. The early commentators gave three explanations: arrogant in himself, twisting his neck, turning away from what he is called to. One classical commentator notes that the three are really one. Pride turns away, and the neck is where it shows.

A retired man has played at the same chess club for thirty years. One evening a fourteen-year-old points out, politely, that he has left his queen undefended. The old man does not look at the board. He turns his shoulder a few degrees towards the window and says nothing. Everyone at the table understands. The boy was right, and the truth has been refused with a movement of the neck.

The Prophet ﷺ defined pride in a way that fits this ayah exactly. 'No one with an atom's weight of pride in his heart will enter Paradise.' A man asked about liking good clothes and good sandals. The Prophet replied that Allah is beautiful and loves beauty. Pride, he said, is rejecting the truth and looking down on people (Sahih Muslim).

Rejecting the truth is precisely what the turned neck does. The man in this ayah is not short of evidence: the preceding ayat set it out. He is short of the humility to look at it. Pride does not need to argue well. It only needs to look away.

That makes pride easy to spot in others and hard to spot in yourself. A useful test is physical. When someone corrects you, where do your eyes go? Do you face the person and the point, or the window? The body often confesses before the mind admits anything.

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.