An-Naml · Makki · ayah 20 of 93

An-Naml 27:20

وَتَفَقَّدَ ٱلطَّيْرَ فَقَالَ مَا لِىَ لَآ أَرَى ٱلْهُدْهُدَ أَمْ كَانَ مِنَ ٱلْغَآئِبِينَ

“And he took attendance of the birds and said, "Why do I not see the hoopoe - or is he among the absent?”

Saheeh International

Essence

In an army of jinn, men and birds, one small bird's empty place is noticed, and the king's first question is about his own eyes.

A reflection

One small bird missing from a whole army

Every morning a tea van pulls up at the gate of a large building site. The woman who runs it knows everyone's order. One week she does not come. On the fourth day the site manager, responsible for three hundred workers, rings her. Her husband has had a stroke. Nobody else had noticed.

Wa tafaqqada al-ṭayr: and he reviewed the birds. Sulayman commanded hosts of jinn, men and birds, held in their ranks (27:17). The hoopoe was one small bird among them, named in Arabic with the sound of its own soft call. Its absence did not escape him.

One commentator draws the lesson directly. This ayah, he says, shows a leader checking on the condition of those in his care and keeping watch over them. Look at the hoopoe, small as it is: its state was not hidden from Sulayman. How then should the great matters of a realm be treated?

He sets beside it a saying of the second caliph. If a lamb on the bank of the Euphrates were taken by a wolf, he would be asked about it. Another commentator adds that the review was care for the realm, and for its weakest members above all.

The Prophet ﷺ put the same duty into words anyone could carry. 'Each of you is a shepherd, and each of you is responsible for his flock' (al-Bukhari, Muslim). He named the ruler, the man in his home, the woman in her house, the worker with his employer's goods.

This is not surveillance. A camera records who is present in order to catch them out. Tafaqqud goes looking for who is missing, to find out what has happened to them.

Notice, too, what the ayah does not say. He did not review the strong birds, or the useful ones. He reviewed the birds. Noticing only the people who matter to the output is managing assets. Noticing the small one who is missing is care.

Who in your care is small enough to go missing without anyone saying so?

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.