Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 101 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:101

وَلَا صَدِيقٍ حَمِيمٍ

“And not a devoted friend.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Last of all, the lost miss not a rescuer but one true friend who would ache for them.

A reflection

Many will speak for you; one will stand with you

Read this ayah beside the one before it and a small grammatical choice comes into view. The lost say they have no intercessors, shāfiʿīn, in the plural. Then they say they have no friend, ṣadīq, in the singular.

Several classical commentators stopped at that contrast. Their explanation is drawn from ordinary life. When a man is crushed by an oppressor, they wrote, a whole crowd from his town may rise to speak for him. They do it out of pity, or for reward, though most of them barely know him. A true friend, one whose affection is honest and who worries over what worries you, is another matter. They called him rarer than a vulture's eggs, laid on cliffs no hand can reach.

Picture a widowed baker whose delivery van is stolen one night. By breakfast the whole street has shared the appeal online. Hundreds of people send kind words. Some give a few pounds. All of it is real, and all of it is welcome.

One old friend does something different. At four the next morning he is outside the bakery with his own van. He drives her rounds every day for three months. He never posts about it.

The crowd spoke for her. One man stood with her. The ayah's grammar knows the difference, and so did anyone who has been through a hard season. Plenty of people will sign the petition. Very few will set an alarm for you.

A commentator adds a second possibility. The word ṣadīq can also carry a plural sense. Even so, the singular reading sits closest to life. It asks two questions of the reader. Who would drive the van for you? And whose van would you drive?

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.