Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 63 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:63

فَأَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَىٰ مُوسَىٰٓ أَنِ ٱضْرِب بِّعَصَاكَ ٱلْبَحْرَ ۖ فَٱنفَلَقَ فَكَانَ كُلُّ فِرْقٍ كَٱلطَّوْدِ ٱلْعَظِيمِ

“Then We inspired to Moses, "Strike with your staff the sea," and it parted, and each portion was like a great towering mountain.”

Saheeh International

Essence

At one word from Allah a shepherd's stick touched the sea, and the most restless thing on earth stood in walls like mountains.

A reflection

A stick, a sea, and who moved what

In an empty supermarket car park on a Sunday morning, a father lets his four-year-old sit on his lap and steer. Her small hands grip the top of the wheel. His hands rest underneath, doing all the turning. That evening she tells her grandmother, with total conviction, that she drove the car.

Now look at what Musa held. A ʿaṣā is a shepherd's staff. Elsewhere he describes his own: he leans on it, and beats down leaves with it for his sheep (20:18). It is the most ordinary thing a herdsman owns. Against it stands the sea, the thing the ancient world feared most.

Allah tells him to strike, and the sea splits. One commentary is careful here. The blow itself split nothing, and the staff could not even help. Allah willed that the sign be joined to something Musa did, so everyone would know it came through him. Another commentary notes that the striking is not even mentioned. 'Strike', and the next word is 'it split'.

This is where the ego has to sit down. We all hold staffs: a surgeon's steady hand, a founder's clever plan, a student's long nights of revision. Allah often asks us to strike, and then honours the strike by letting the result appear through it. The danger is the four-year-old's mistake. We start believing the hands on top of the wheel did the turning.

Musa never made that mistake. A moment earlier, sea in front and army behind, he had said, 'my Lord is with me' (26:62). He did not say his staff was with him.

Allah needs nothing from us to part a sea. That He lets us strike at all is a courtesy, not a dependence. He shows His power to frightened people so that they know whom to lean on, not because He needs their applause. The humble answer is to keep striking, and never to tell the grandmother we drove.

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.