Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 30 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:30

وَقَالَ ٱلرَّسُولُ يَـٰرَبِّ إِنَّ قَوْمِى ٱتَّخَذُوا۟ هَـٰذَا ٱلْقُرْءَانَ مَهْجُورًا

“And the Messenger has said, "O my Lord, indeed my people have taken this Qur’ān as [a thing] abandoned."[1022]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Messenger complains to his Lord that his people walked out of the Quran, leaving it like a house still standing with its door shut.

A reflection

Not only the dusty copy on the shelf

Most people who know this ayah attach it to one picture. A copy of the Quran sits on a high shelf, wrapped and untouched. Abandoning the Quran means not reciting it. The cure is to recite more.

That picture is both too narrow and too wide.

Too narrow, because the commentaries refuse to stop at recitation. One lists the forms of abandonment it covers. Not listening to the Quran is abandoning it. So is leaving off learning and memorising it, believing and affirming it. Not pondering it and seeking to understand it is abandoning it. Not acting on it, by following its commands and avoiding what it forbids, is abandoning it. Turning away from it to something else is abandoning it too. That might be poetry, song, entertainment, talk or a way of life taken from elsewhere. The same commentary ends by asking Allah to save us from all of this.

By that list, a person can recite every day and still have walked out of the Quran.

Too wide, because a popular narration is often quoted with this ayah. In it the Quran itself complains on the Day against the one who left it hanging on a wall. The commentaries that mention it also flag it. One notes that it came through a narrator described as a liar. It should not be repeated as the Prophet's ﷺ words. The ayah needs no help from it.

And its first target is plain in the commentaries. It was Quraysh, who refused to listen at all.

So the ayah sits between two mistakes. It is not only about the shelf. It is about every way of leaving the house: by the ear, the heart, the hands and the will. That is why the commentaries reached for it so widely. They saw in it a question for every reader, not only for the people of Makkah.

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.