Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 3 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:3

وَٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ عَنِ ٱللَّغْوِ مُعْرِضُونَ

“And they who turn away from ill speech”

Saheeh International

Essence

The successful turn their side to whatever does not count, not out of coldness but because something weightier already fills their days.

A reflection

Turning your side, not just keeping your mouth shut

The ayah could have said that the believers do not engage in idle talk. It says something stronger: ʿani al-laghwi muʿriḍūn, they turn away from it. The root of muʿriḍūn has to do with breadth, the side of a thing as opposed to its length. The lexicons state this plainly. To lay a stick across the mouth of a vessel was ʿaraḍa. To turn away, aʿraḍa, was to show someone only your side, to stand across rather than face to face.

One classical commentator draws the meaning out carefully. Turning away, he says, is more than simply leaving something. Its origin is to be in a side other than its side. It suggests distance from idle talk at every level: not doing it, not causing it, not leaning towards it, and not sitting in its presence.

Picture a man on a long train journey. At his table, two passengers begin a loud phone call, mocking a relative who is clearly not there to answer. He does not lecture them. He does not glare. He picks up his coat and his book, walks two carriages down and finds a quiet seat. He has not said a word, and yet he has made a clear choice about where he will be.

That is the posture of iʿrāḍ. It is not a fight with the idle talk. It is a change of direction, a body angled elsewhere.

The same commentator notes that the ayah uses a noun, muʿriḍūn, those who turn away, rather than a verb. Nouns in Arabic tend to describe settled states. This is not an occasional act of willpower but a habit of where a person faces. The believer is someone who, over time, has simply become pointed in another direction.

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.