Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 18 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:18

وَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءًۢ بِقَدَرٍ فَأَسْكَنَّـٰهُ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ وَإِنَّا عَلَىٰ ذَهَابٍۭ بِهِۦ لَقَـٰدِرُونَ

“And We have sent down rain from the sky in a measured amount and settled it in the earth. And indeed, We are Able to take it away.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Rain comes down in exact measure and is given a home in the earth, and the One who sent it could take it away by any route He chose.

A reflection

A church tower in the reservoir

The ayah ends with a quiet sentence that carries enormous weight: wa-innā ʿalā dhahābin bihi la-qādirūn, and We are surely able to take it away. One classical commentator draws attention to a single word. Dhahābin, a taking away, is indefinite. It means: by any one of the ways of taking it, by any route at all. He calls it one of the most effective indefinite nouns in the language. Nothing would be difficult for the One who chose to remove the water.

Another commentator spells out some of those routes. If He wished, no rain would fall. If He wished, He could turn it towards salt flats, deserts and seas. If He wished, He could make it bitter and useless. If He wished, it could sink so deep into the ground that no well could reach it. Instead, out of gentleness and mercy, He sends it sweet and lets it settle where people can draw it.

Picture a family watching the evening news in a dry summer. The local reservoir is at a fifth of its capacity. The camera pans across cracked mud and stops on something nobody has seen for fifty years: the stone tower of a village church, drowned when the valley was flooded, now standing in the open air again. The family goes quiet. The water in their kitchen tap suddenly looks like a loan.

That is the posture this ayah asks for. Most people treat water as theirs, a utility paid for monthly. The ayah reminds them that every glass was sent down, given a home and allowed to stay. The pride that thinks it owns the basics of life is answered with a single indefinite word: by any way We choose.

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.