Ash-Shu'ara · Makki · ayah 99 of 227

Ash-Shu'ara 26:99

وَمَآ أَضَلَّنَآ إِلَّا ٱلْمُجْرِمُونَ

“And no one misguided us except the criminals.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Straight after confessing, the people of the Fire point elsewhere: only the criminals misled us, as if being led removed their own part in following.

A reflection

Speaking of yourself as the object of the sentence

Read the three ayat in order. "By Allah, we were in clear error" (26:97). "When we equated you with the Lord of the worlds" (26:98). Then: "And none misled us except the criminals." Watch what happens to the speakers in the grammar.

In the first two ayat they are the subject: we were, we equated. In this one they slide into the object position. Aḍallanā: "they misled us." The sentence now has someone else doing the acting, and the speakers are simply the thing acted upon. The restriction mā … illā, "none … except", tightens it further. The misleading came from them and from no one else. One commentary notes how these people keep shifting the cause in their bewilderment, now to one party and now to another.

Picture a student called before an academic panel. The essay she submitted was bought online. She holds up a printout of the website's promise: "100% original, plagiarism-free guaranteed." In her account, she is the object of the story. The website deceived, the deadline pressed, the course overloaded. The panel's question is quieter. Whose name was on the cover page?

Speaking of ourselves as objects is a deep human habit. "It got to me." "I was dragged into it." "Things happened." Each phrase makes something else the subject. Sometimes that is true. Often it is a way to stand outside our own choices.

The Quran, elsewhere, puts these people back in the subject position. They followed; they obeyed; they answered. One quiet practice for the reader is to notice the grammar of one's own excuses. Rewrite them with "I" as the subject. It is uncomfortable, and it is the first sentence of every real change.

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.