Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 17 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:17

وَيَوْمَ يَحْشُرُهُمْ وَمَا يَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ فَيَقُولُ ءَأَنتُمْ أَضْلَلْتُمْ عِبَادِى هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ أَمْ هُمْ ضَلُّوا۟ ٱلسَّبِيلَ

“And [mention] the Day He will gather them and that which they worship besides Allāh and will say, "Did you mislead these, My servants, or did they [themselves] stray from the way?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

On the Day of gathering, Allah asks the worshipped, standing beside their worshippers: did you mislead My servants, or did they lose the road themselves?

A reflection

Even the most revered stand to be asked

Yaḥshuruhum: He gathers them. The root carries a desert picture. In a drought year, the Arabs said the year ḥasharat the tribes. It drove every herd and household out of the open country into the towns, and nothing escaped it.

Now picture that gathering on the Day. Not only the worshippers are driven in, but mā yaʿbudūn, what they worshipped. Many early authorities name them: the angels, ʿIsa and ʿUzayr. Others say the idols, which Allah will make speak. Either way, everything human beings ever raised up beside Him is brought onto the same plain, to answer a question.

One recitation reads the verb as naḥshuruhum, We gather them, with the plural of majesty. A commentator notes that this plural signals how vast the gathering is.

Let that picture work on the ego. The noblest beings ever wrongly worshipped, the angels and a great prophet, stand and are asked. What then of the small thrones we build for ourselves? The need to be consulted, admired, deferred to, obeyed. On that Day nobody is too revered to be questioned, except the One asking.

And He asks, though He already knows. The commentators explain why. The question is not to learn anything. It is so the worshipped answer in their own voice, and the worshippers hear their denial.

That is majesty without vanity. He does not need the exchange. He stages it for the sake of those listening, then and now, as the Quran records it for us to hear in advance.

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.