Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 46 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:46

إِلَىٰ فِرْعَوْنَ وَمَلَإِي۟هِۦ فَٱسْتَكْبَرُوا۟ وَكَانُوا۟ قَوْمًا عَالِينَ

“To Pharaoh and his establishment, but they were arrogant and were a haughty people.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Musa and Harun met two walls at Pharaoh's court: a pride that made itself big, and a habit of standing on others.

A reflection

Making yourself big

A man starts on the shop floor of a supermarket chain, stacking shelves and joking with the cleaners on the early shift. Twenty years later he is regional director. Within a year of the promotion, he lets it be known that the cleaners should call him "Mr" now. Nobody says anything. They just stop joking.

The ayah's verdict on Pharaoh's court is one word: fa-stakbarū, they were arrogant. The lexicons say the root is plain size, the opposite of small. A thing kabura when it grew large in body. Then size became weight: a matter kabura on someone when it was too heavy to carry. That image is established. One lexicon draws the line that matters. For Allah, greatness is His true state. In us, it is raising the self above what it deserves, because our state is small.

One commentator glosses it: they made themselves great, too great to believe. Another says they were too proud to follow the two messengers because they were human beings like themselves.

That is how arrogance usually works. It is not a single decision. It is an effort, kept up day after day, to stay larger than you are. And the effort has a cost: it closes the door to anything that would require you to bend.

The opposite is not self-hatred. It is accuracy. We are small, and that is fine, because the One who is great is near.

Notice one place this week where you are working to look bigger than you are. Let it go, and see how much lighter you feel.

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.