Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 51 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:51

إِنَّا نَطْمَعُ أَن يَغْفِرَ لَنَا رَبُّنَا خَطَـٰيَـٰنَآ أَن كُنَّآ أَوَّلَ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ

“Indeed, we aspire that our Lord will forgive us our sins because we were the first of the believers."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Threatened with the cross, the magicians spoke only of their Lord and their sins, and leaned towards forgiveness as near, because they had believed first.

A reflection

What they now counted as their credentials

Read this ayah beside one spoken by the same men a few hours earlier. 'Will there really be a wage for us, if we are the victors?' (26:41). Now they hope their Lord will forgive their sins, 'because we were the first of the believers'.

The grammar is nearly the same. In the morning it was in kunnā, if we are. Now it is an kunnā, because we were. One reading of this ayah even keeps the morning's form. A commentator calls it the 'if' of someone sure of his case. He compares it to a labourer telling a slow payer: if I did the work for you, then pay me my due.

So in both sentences the magicians present a qualification to a master. What changed is the qualification. Before Pharaoh, their credential was winning. Before their Lord, their credential was believing, and believing early. Each master was offered the thing he was known to value.

That tells you something about Pharaoh, and something about Allah. Pharaoh paid for results. A defeated magician was worth nothing to him. Allah, as these men understood Him within an hour of faith, values the turning of the heart. He values it more when it costs more.

Picture a man who has spent twenty years in sales and turns up to volunteer at a night shelter. He has brought his CV, with its targets met and its awards. The coordinator glances at it and puts it down. 'Can you come on Thursdays? And can you sit with people who don't want to talk?' Everything he had counted as his worth is beside the point here. Something he never listed is all that matters.

The magicians made that discovery in an afternoon. They did not offer Allah their skill, their fame or their years at court. They offered the one thing they had that He valued: they had believed, and been first.

What would I put on the table if I stood before Him today? Not achievements. The real question is whether I have turned, and how quickly I turn back each time I drift.

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.