Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 40 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:40

وَلَقَدْ أَتَوْا۟ عَلَى ٱلْقَرْيَةِ ٱلَّتِىٓ أُمْطِرَتْ مَطَرَ ٱلسَّوْءِ ۚ أَفَلَمْ يَكُونُوا۟ يَرَوْنَهَا ۚ بَلْ كَانُوا۟ لَا يَرْجُونَ نُشُورًا

“And they have already come upon the town which was showered with a rain of evil [i.e., stones]. So have they not seen it? But they are not expecting resurrection.[1026]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Makkans passed Lut's ruined town on every trading trip and never saw it, because they expected no rising after death.

A reflection

They looked, and did not see

"Did they not see it?" Of course they saw it. The commentaries say Quraysh passed the ruined towns of Lut's people on their trading journeys to Syria. Another ayah says so directly: "You pass by them in the morning, and at night. Will you not use your reason?" (37:137–138).

One commentary notices how carefully the question is built. It does not say "did they not see it" in the simplest form. It says, in effect, "were they not seeing it", a seeing that went on and on, trip after trip. Yet the opening verb, "they came upon", is a plain past. One passing, the commentary says, would have been enough to learn from.

So the problem was never eyesight. They looked, repeatedly, and did not see.

Picture a commuter's walk to the station. Chained to the railings at a busy junction is a bicycle painted entirely white, with dead flowers wound through its spokes. It marks where a cyclist was killed. For a year the commuter walks past it every morning. One day a friend asks what the white bike is for, and he realises he has never once wondered.

That is how the mind works. We stop noticing what we see every day, especially if it does not fit our picture of the world. A memorial to sudden death does not fit the picture of someone hurrying to a meeting.

The Quran names the real blindness elsewhere: "It is not the eyes that go blind, but the hearts within the breasts" (22:46). The ayah here goes further. It gives the reason their hearts did not see, which the next line names.

Ask yourself what you pass every day without seeing. A grave, a hospital, an old man alone on a bench. Each is a sign you have trained yourself not to read.

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.