Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 78 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:78

ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَنِى فَهُوَ يَهْدِينِ

“Who created me, and He [it is who] guides me.”

Saheeh International

Essence

He created me once, and it is done; He guides me now, and again, and in every moment after.

A reflection

Finished in the past, still at work in the present

Alladhī khalaqanī fa-huwa yahdīn: the One who created me, and He guides me. Listen to the tenses. Khalaqanī is past: He created me, and that is done. Yahdīn is present and ongoing: He guides me, now, and now again.

One commentator explains why. The making of a self is not renewed in this world; once it happens, it lasts to its appointed term. But His guidance repeats in every moment. It works in the senses, which sort what helps from what harms. It works in the mind, which sorts true from false. Another commentator reads the little fa, 'and so', as joining the two without a gap. Guidance begins the moment the soul is breathed in, and is renewed without a break.

Picture yourself lifting a tray out of a hot oven with a cloth that is too thin. Before the word 'hot' has formed, your hand has already let go. You did not decide that. Nobody consulted you. Something in you was guided, faster than thought, away from harm.

That small, daily moment humbles the ego. We take credit for our judgement, our instincts, our nose for the right decision. But the hand that dropped the tray was guided before you knew. So was the eye that blinked at the grit, and the throat that refused what would choke it.

Does Allah tell us this so that we will praise Him? He needs no praise. In a hadith Muslim records, He says that the devotion of every heart together would add nothing to His kingdom. He tells us so that we stop believing we walk alone. The One who made you did not make you and leave. He is still leading, in the hand and in the heart.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.