Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 62 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:62

وَلَا نُكَلِّفُ نَفْسًا إِلَّا وُسْعَهَا ۖ وَلَدَيْنَا كِتَـٰبٌ يَنطِقُ بِٱلْحَقِّ ۚ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ

“And We charge no soul except [with that within] its capacity, and with Us is a record which speaks with truth; and they will not be wronged.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Nothing asked of a soul is beyond its room, nothing done is unrecorded, and no one is wronged by a single deed.

A reflection

The record that is not ours to edit

A man tells his friends about the project he rescued at work. In his memory he wrote most of it. Then a colleague opens the shared document's version history. His contribution turns out to be two paragraphs and a title.

Wa ladaynā kitābun yanṭiqu bil-ḥaqq: with Us is a record that speaks the truth. Ladaynā means "with Us", in Allah's own keeping. Not on our hard drive, not in our memory, not in the story we tell at dinner.

That is a gentle humiliation for the ego. Pride keeps its own records. It remembers the generous moments and edits out the selfish ones. It recalls being wronged in detail and being wrong only vaguely. The ego's archive is always flattering.

This ayah announces a second archive that no one can edit. One commentator links it to two others. This is Our record, which speaks against you with truth (45:29). It leaves nothing small or great without counting it (18:49).

Another commentator notes the striking verb. A record does not literally speak. But it shows what is in it as clearly as a truthful speaker would. Another explains al-ḥaqq here as what matches reality, the deeds as they actually were, great and small.

Does Allah need this record to know? No. He knows without writing. One commentator, raising exactly that question, answers that Allah does what He wills, and it may serve a purpose for the angels. Another commentator says the record is so that nothing is lost.

So the book is not there because Allah needs evidence. It is there so that, on the day it opens, no one can argue. The version history settles every dispute.

The humbling has a gift inside it. A man who knows the real record exists can stop polishing his own. He can admit the two paragraphs, thank the colleagues who wrote the rest, and let the true account stand.

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.