Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 132 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:132

وَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَمَدَّكُم بِمَا تَعْلَمُونَ

“And fear He who provided you with that which you know,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Hud stops naming Allah and describes Him instead: the One who kept supplying you, with gifts you already know by heart.

A reflection

Painting with ink from Another's pot

The ayah does something quiet with its words. In the line before, Hud said 'fear Allah', using the name. Here he says 'fear the One who supplied you'. He swaps the name for a description of what Allah has been doing for them.

The verb is amadda. Its root pictures stretching out and feeding more of the same into a thing. A river swells when another river pours into it. An army is reinforced with fresh troops. And ink was called midād, one lexicon explains, because it is topped up with water. The inkwell is kept supplied, and the pen goes on writing.

Watch a sign-writer painting a shopfront by hand. The letters are his skill, the work of years. Yet every few strokes he reaches back. His apprentice holds up the pot, and he reloads the brush. If the boy walked away, the finest hand in town would stop mid-letter.

That is the picture behind everything 'Ad were proud of. Their landmarks, their herds, their strength. All of it was written in supplied ink. The supply came from outside them, steady and unnoticed.

This is where the ego shrinks. Not because your work means nothing. The sign-writer's skill is real. But the pride that says 'I did this alone' is simply false. Eyesight, breath, years, a mind that learned: each was topped up again this morning by Another.

Does Allah describe Himself this way because He wants the credit? One rhetorical commentary gives a different reason. By listing what they knew of His gifts, Hud made the Giver known to them. The One able to give all this is able to reward and to punish. The description serves them. It shows them whose hand holds the pot.

So taqwa here has a face. It is reverence for the One whose supply you are living on, at this very moment.

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.