Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 60 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:60

فَأَتْبَعُوهُم مُّشْرِقِينَ

“So they pursued them at sunrise.”

Saheeh International

Essence

At sunrise Pharaoh's whole state set out behind a band of runaways: the mighty became followers, and the light showed them everything but the sea.

A reflection

A shadow at their heels

The verb is atbaʿūhum: they followed them and caught up with them. The root's first pictures are homely ones. A calf trailing its mother through its first year is a tabīʿ. A person's shadow is tabaʿ, always at the heels. The lexicons agree the root has one meaning: coming after, on another's track.

Now look at who is doing the following. The greatest state of its age, with its chariots and its gods, spends this morning in the footprints of escaped slaves. Pharaoh had spent his reign demanding that others follow him. Today he follows them.

One commentator explains the form exactly. 'I followed the people' means I went behind them. The form used here means I went behind them until I reached them. He adds a striking gloss: it is as if the pursuer made them his followers, after he had been theirs. The army wanted to turn the order back.

That is the picture to hold: the army as a shadow. A shadow is real, and dark, and it never leaves you. And yet a shadow cannot take hold of anything. It touches nothing it is not allowed to touch.

The Israelites heard hooves behind them that morning, and soon they would see dust. The ayah's single verb tells you something they could not yet see. The pursuers were allowed to catch up. Whether they would catch anything was another matter, decided elsewhere.

Many of us live with a shadow at our heels. A debt, a diagnosis, an old enemy, a past that keeps following. This ayah does not pretend it is not there. It only shows its true size. Whatever follows you is still a follower. It walks where you have already walked, and it cannot overtake the One who is ahead of you both.

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.