Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 55 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:55

وَيَعْبُدُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا يَنفَعُهُمْ وَلَا يَضُرُّهُمْ ۗ وَكَانَ ٱلْكَافِرُ عَلَىٰ رَبِّهِۦ ظَهِيرًا

“But they worship rather than Allāh that which does not benefit them or harm them, and the disbeliever is ever, against his Lord, an assistant [to Satan].”

Saheeh International

Essence

After every gift is counted, they still serve what can neither help nor hurt them, and lend their backs against their own Lord.

A reflection

Worship that never touched a statue

Most readers picture this ayah in a temple. Stone figures, incense, people bowing to things carved by their own hands. It feels safely ancient. We do not do that.

The commentaries widen the picture. One says the ayah means the idols, or anything worshipped besides Allah. Then he adds a line that reaches straight into the present: no created thing benefits or harms on its own.

A later scholar of the inner life explains what this worship actually is. It is allegiance, love and contentment directed at the thing served. It brings a special closeness to it, the closeness a believer is meant to have with Allah alone. In other words, worship is where the heart leans its weight.

Now picture a man waiting for one email. An investor has his business plan. Everything, he feels, depends on the reply. He refreshes his inbox at midnight, at two, at four. His mood at breakfast is set by whether it has come. He prays, but distractedly, eyes on the phone beside the mat.

The investor is not evil. Money is not an idol carved in stone. But for these weeks, the man's allegiance, hope and fear have gathered around something that cannot, by itself, help or harm him at all. The investor's decision, too, is in Allah's hand. The heart has leaned its weight on the wrong wall.

That is why the ayah's phrase is so precise. Mā lā yanfaʿuhum wa lā yaḍurruhum: what neither benefits them nor harms them. Not 'what is wicked'. Simply what is powerless on its own.

The question for us is not whether we bow to statues. It is where our heart leans when the news is late. The ayah asks us to move that weight back to the only One who actually holds it.

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.