Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 225 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:225

أَلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّهُمْ فِى كُلِّ وَادٍ يَهِيمُونَ

“Do you not see that in every valley they roam[1068]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The poets' wandering is not dreamy imagination but praise and blame cut loose from truth, a voice crossing every field and fed by none.

A reflection

Not a dreamer: a voice that will say anything

Most readers hear 'they wander in every valley' as a gentle charge. Poets are dreamers. Their heads are in the clouds and their imaginations roam. It sounds almost like a compliment to creative minds.

The early commentaries heard something much harder. One says the poets praise people falsely and abuse people falsely. Another says they wade into every kind of idle talk. A brief commentary says they run past every limit, in praise and in satire alike.

One classical commentary gives the sharpest picture. Their valleys, it says, are where they rank the most cowardly man above ʿAntara, the byword for courage. Where they rank the stingiest above Ḥātim, the byword for generosity. Where they slander the innocent and call the devout corrupt.

So the wandering is not imagination. It is praise and blame cut loose from truth. The words go wherever they are rewarded, and the facts stay behind.

A travel reviewer with a large following gets a free week at a seaside hotel. Her review glows: five stars, the best breakfast on the coast. The next season she pays full price at a better hotel, and the room is slightly small. One star, and a long thread about rude staff. Both reviews are fluent. Neither is really about the hotels.

That is the valley-hopping the ayah describes. The words go wherever the mood, the fee or the grudge takes them.

The gentle reading makes the ayah quaint. The commentaries make it urgent. Much of the praise and contempt we read in a day was written by someone in a valley. The question is how much of it we have believed.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.