Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 47 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:47

فَقَالُوٓا۟ أَنُؤْمِنُ لِبَشَرَيْنِ مِثْلِنَا وَقَوْمُهُمَا لَنَا عَـٰبِدُونَ

“They said, "Should we believe two men like ourselves while their people are for us in servitude?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

Pharaoh's court refused two messengers for being human and, worse, for coming from a people who served them.

A reflection

From the wrong postcode

Two applications land on a hiring manager's desk. The qualifications are almost identical. One applicant lives on a well-known council estate. Nobody says anything about it. But somehow that application never makes it to interview.

Pharaoh's court gave two reasons for refusing Musa and Harun. The first was old: they are humans like us. The second was new, and more revealing. Wa-qawmuhumā lanā ʿābidūn: and their people serve us. The commentators gloss it as obedient, humbled, subject to us like slaves. The messengers came from the wrong class.

One commentator names the error precisely. The court measured religious leadership by worldly leadership, he says: by being ahead in wealth and rank. He compares it to the objection of Quraysh to the Prophet ﷺ himself. Why was this Quran not sent down to some great man of the two towns (43:31)?

The same commentator adds what they did not understand. Allah chooses His messengers for their noble qualities and character, which He grants to whom He wills. Not for their bank balance or their family's place in society.

This prejudice did not die with Pharaoh. People still weigh a message by the messenger's accent, address, job or origins. A truth from a cleaner is heard as less true than the same truth from a professor. A wise word from a refugee is filtered through his situation.

The Quran asks for a different measure. The noblest of you in Allah's sight is the most mindful of Him (49:13).

Notice this week whose words you discount because of where they come from. Listen to one such person as carefully as you would to someone important.

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.