Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 76 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:76

أَنتُمْ وَءَابَآؤُكُمُ ٱلْأَقْدَمُونَ

“You and your ancient forefathers?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Ibrahim follows his people's appeal back to their most ancient fathers, and shows that age, however great, gives a belief no authority of its own.

A reflection

Old is not proof, and new is not either

Ibrahim's people leaned on their fathers. So he follows the chain to its far end: you and your fathers, al-aqdamūn, the most ancient. One classical commentator explains the move. Being earlier, being first, is no proof of truth, he says. Falsehood does not turn into truth by growing old. Another adds the other half. Falsehood is not changed by being old or new, nor by its followers being many or few.

That second half deserves attention today, because the modern instinct often runs the other way.

At a wedding table, a cousin's friend hears that you pray five times a day. She smiles kindly. 'People don't really believe that any more.' The sentence carries a hidden argument: it is old, so it is finished. It is the mirror image of 'our fathers did it'. One says old, therefore true. The other says old, therefore false. Both measure a claim by its date instead of its evidence.

A sharp sceptic might then turn the point on Islam. Is the Quran not an old book, followed because it is old?

The ayah's own logic answers. Ibrahim never asks anyone to believe because a thing is ancient. He asks: do your gods hear, benefit, harm? He argues from evidence. The Quran does the same with its own hearers. It challenges them to produce a chapter like it (2:23). It points to signs in creation and in the self. It asks for reflection, not loyalty to a date.

The phone on the table was new last year. So was the app the friend swore by in spring and deleted by autumn. Newness proved nothing about either, one way or the other. Truth stands on its reasons. Antiquity cannot rescue a false belief, and novelty cannot sink a true one.

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.