Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 9 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:9

ٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ ضَرَبُوا۟ لَكَ ٱلْأَمْثَـٰلَ فَضَلُّوا۟ فَلَا يَسْتَطِيعُونَ سَبِيلًا

“Look how they strike for you comparisons;[1009] but they have strayed, so they cannot [find] a way.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The words that closed the labels of 17:48 return to close a list about money and rank, and the minted comparisons trap their makers.

A reflection

The same verdict over a different set of labels

These words appear first at 17:48, where the fuller treatment sits. There they closed a list about his mind: poet, sorcerer, madman, bewitched. Here they close a different list, about his purse and his rank.

The comparisons in this passage are specific. One concise commentary lists them. There is the bewitched man, the man in need of money to spend, and the man who needs an angel to carry his task. Another adds the strange idea of a prophethood shared between a human and an angel. In Al-Isra' the labels attacked his sanity. In Al-Furqan they attack his worth.

The verb is worth hearing. Ḍaraba is to strike. The lexicons trace it to a hammer coming down: the blow that mints a coin and stamps a shape that stays. A mathal, a likeness, is minted the same way. Said in one place, its mark shows in another.

So 'look how they strike likenesses for you' pictures a mint. They were stamping him with a type: the needy man, the unsponsored man, the man without an orchard. The coin looked official. It was counterfeit.

The same verdict follows both times: they went astray. Whether the attack is on someone's mind or on their bank balance, the outcome is the same. The ones who mint the label lose their way.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.