Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 157 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:157

فَعَقَرُوهَا فَأَصْبَحُوا۟ نَـٰدِمِينَ

“But they hamstrung her and so became regretful.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Three words hold the whole fall: they cut her down, and woke to a regret that grieved the consequence rather than the wrong.

A reflection

Sorry for the fine, not for the speed

The ayah says they became nādimīn: regretful, remorseful. So why were they still destroyed? The very next ayah says the punishment seized them anyway (26:158).

Two classical commentators give the same two answers. First, it was not the regret of people turning back to Allah. It was the regret of people afraid of what was about to happen to them. Second, even if it was real remorse, it came at the wrong time, when the punishment was already in view.

The root of nadam pictures thinking back on a thing already done, with grief sitting down beside you to stay. But grief over what, exactly? That is the question this ayah forces.

A man is caught by a camera doing forty-one past a primary school at quarter to nine. The letter arrives a week later. He is furious for a whole evening. He tells his wife about the fine, the points, the insurance. Not once does he mention the children on the pavement. He genuinely regrets something. But it is the letter he regrets, not the speed.

That is the regret described here. Thamud did not grieve the she-camel, or the sign, or the warning they had ignored. They grieved what was coming for them.

Most of us know both kinds from the inside. One says: I wish I had not been caught. The other says: I wish I had not done it. The first looks back at the consequence. The second looks back at the wrong, and towards the One who was disobeyed. Only the second turns a person around.

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.