Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 173 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:173

وَأَمْطَرْنَا عَلَيْهِم مَّطَرًا ۖ فَسَآءَ مَطَرُ ٱلْمُنذَرِينَ

“And We rained upon them a rain [of stones], and evil was the rain of those who were warned.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The sky that waters fields poured stones on a town that had been warned, and the verdict on that rain is a single word: evil.

A reflection

Three forecasts and a marquee

And We rained upon them a rain. The subject of the verb is Allah. The sky does not act on its own here, and neither does chance. Whatever falls, falls because He sends it.

A wedding planner is preparing a summer reception in a country garden. She has checked three different forecasts. She has booked a marquee with sides that roll down, and patio heaters in case the evening turns cold. She tells the anxious bride that nothing has been left to chance. She means it kindly. But there is a small pride in it too, the pride of someone who has managed the sky.

Most of us live a little like that. We check the weather on our phones, and we start to feel that the sky is a service we subscribe to. It rains when the app says it will. It stops when the radar clears. We forget that every drop is sent.

This ayah breaks that spell. The same sky that waters crops and fills wells poured something else on Lut's town. A narration-based commentary names it: stones of baked clay, as another ayah says (11:82). The heavens obey their Lord, not our forecasts. That is hard on the ego, which likes to believe it has things in hand.

Does Allah need us to admire His control of the sky? He does not. His power was whole before the first cloud formed, and our praise adds nothing to it. The ayah is told so that the reader stops trusting the forecast and starts trusting the One behind it. The planner can still book the marquee. She just books it with a du'a.

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.