Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 118 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:118

فَٱفْتَحْ بَيْنِى وَبَيْنَهُمْ فَتْحًا وَنَجِّنِى وَمَن مَّعِىَ مِنَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ

“Then judge between me and them with decisive judgement and save me and those with me of the believers."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Nuh asks his Lord to open the deadlock between him and his people, and to bring him out safely with the believers beside him.

A reflection

When the lock will not turn

A toddler has locked herself in a bathroom. Her mother can hear her crying through the door. She has tried coaxing, instructions, the spare key, a butter knife. Nothing works, and the crying is getting worse. Then a locksmith arrives, kneels, and within a minute the door swings open. Nobody in that hallway thinks of what he did as violence. He opened what was stuck.

Nuh does not ask, 'Destroy them.' He says iftaḥ: open. The root's first picture, which the lexicons give as established, is a locked door made to open. From it come victory, the way opened through a closed gate, and judgement. One commentator explains why a judge was called al-fattāḥ. He opens what has been locked shut. In the same breath he notes that a judge was also called fayṣal, the one who separates.

That is exactly the situation the ayah describes. Nuh and his people were locked together in a stalemate that had lasted for centuries. He could not stop calling them. They would not stop refusing. The last move had been a death threat. Neither side could move, and everyone was inside the same room.

So the prayer is for the One who can open it. Early commentators gloss iftaḥ simply as 'decide between me and them'. A decision ends a deadlock, and an opening lets each side out to where it belongs.

Many situations in our lives have this shape. A family feud that no one can end, a dispute at work that every meeting re-enters. Sometimes we have used every key we own. The prayer of Nuh teaches the next words: my Lord, open between us.

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.