Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 59 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:59

كَذَٰلِكَ وَأَوْرَثْنَـٰهَا بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ

“Thus. And We caused to inherit it the Children of Israel.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Before the chase is even told, four words hand Pharaoh's gardens to the very people he is chasing.

A reflection

The ending, told in the middle of the chase

Read the passage in order. We drove them out of gardens and springs, out of treasures and a noble place (26:57-58). Then this ayah: so it was, and We made the Children of Israel inherit them. Then, straight after: so they pursued them at sunrise (26:60).

The inheritance came after the drowning. One concise commentary says so plainly. Yet the Qur'an tells it before the pursuit has even begun. A linguistic commentary explains the order. This ayah sits as an aside between 'We drove them out' and 'they pursued them'. The pursuit follows the expulsion, not the inheritance.

So at the story's most frightening point, it stops and tells you how it ends.

Picture a father watching a recording of a cup final his team won years ago. His young son sits beside him on the sofa. At every attack on their goal, the boy covers his eyes. The father stays calm. He is not braver than his son. He simply knows the score.

This is where our pride shrinks. We tell our lives as cliffhangers, and cast ourselves as the authors of the next chapter. Pharaoh believed his chariots would decide the morning. Four words had already settled what would become of his gardens, before he mounted his horse.

Some hear the repeated 'We' of such ayat as self-praise, as if Allah wanted credit. But the One who announces the ending gains nothing from being believed. The reader is the one who gains. The Children of Israel still had to live through the hoofbeats and the shoreline. The reader of the Qur'an is given what they were not: the last page, placed in the middle.

That is a mercy, not a boast. When your own chase begins, you may not know the ending. You do know the One who has already written it.

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.