Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 31 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:31

وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلْنَا لِكُلِّ نَبِىٍّ عَدُوًّا مِّنَ ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ ۗ وَكَفَىٰ بِرَبِّكَ هَادِيًا وَنَصِيرًا

“And thus have We made for every prophet an enemy from among the criminals. But sufficient is your Lord as a guide and a helper.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every prophet was given an enemy by the One who sent him, and that same Lord is enough as a guide and a helper.

A reflection

The enemy was never outside the plan

Read the verb slowly: jaʿalnā, We made. The enemy of every prophet did not slip past Allah's notice. He did not rise in a corner of the world that Allah had stopped watching. The One who sent the messenger is the One who 'made' the opposition he would meet.

One commentator pauses on the grammar. Jaʿalnā is the plural of majesty, the form a king uses when he speaks of great gifts. 'We have given you al-Kawthar' is built the same way. So how can that form announce an enemy? His answer is that hardship of this kind enlarges reward. Even the enemy arrives inside the giving.

That is hard on the ego, from two directions.

The first ego says: my opposition is unique. Nobody has been treated as unfairly as I have. The ayah shrinks that pride quietly. Li-kulli nabiyyin: for every prophet. Your trial stands in a long and honoured line, and it was measured before you arrived.

The second ego says: I will defeat them myself. The ayah removes that too. Wa-kafā bi-rabbika hādiyan wa-naṣīrā. Your Lord is enough. Not your eloquence, not your network, not your stamina.

Notice whose name closes the sentence. It is not the prophet's, and it is not the enemy's. It is rabbika, your Lord, the One who raises and tends you. The enemy is introduced as something Allah made. The help is introduced as Allah Himself.

There is relief in being small inside a sentence like this. You are not the author of the story, so you do not have to win every chapter of it. You only have to stay on the side of the One who wrote it.

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.