Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 198 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:198

وَلَوْ نَزَّلْنَـٰهُ عَلَىٰ بَعْضِ ٱلْأَعْجَمِينَ

“And even if We had revealed it to one among the foreigners[1060]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah imagines the Quran sent down on someone who could not speak Arabic at all, to show that the refusal never lay in the messenger.

A reflection

Remove every excuse and see what remains

The ayah opens with law, 'if'. It is a thought experiment, and Allah runs it on the people of Makkah.

Their objections to the Prophet were many. He is only a man like us. He has made it up himself. Someone teaches him. It is poetry, it is magic. Each objection pointed at the messenger. So the ayah changes the messenger.

Suppose, it says, We had sent this Quran down on someone with no Arabic at all. Suppose such a man stood before you and recited it in perfect, matchless Arabic. Now nobody could say he composed it. A man who cannot form a sentence in your language does not invent its finest speech.

The next ayah gives the result: they still would not have believed (26:199). Two commentaries spell out what would happen. They would have found a fresh excuse. They would have called it magic.

Picture a man offered a better job in another city. He says the commute is the problem. The firm offers him remote work. He says the salary is the problem. They match it and add a little. He says the timing is wrong. They offer to wait six months. Finally his wife asks the question he has avoided. Do you actually want to leave your father's firm?

He did not. Every objection was real enough to say aloud. None of them was the reason. When one was answered, another stood up in its place.

The ayah does this to Quraysh with a single 'if'. It removes the strongest excuse they had, and shows that the refusal would survive its removal.

That is a mirror worth holding up to our own objections. When I resist something true, I can ask: if this objection were answered tomorrow, would I accept? If the honest answer is no, the objection was never the reason. The reason lies further in, and that is where the work is.

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.