An-Naml · Makki · ayah 25 of 93

An-Naml 27:25

أَلَّا يَسْجُدُوا۟ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِى يُخْرِجُ ٱلْخَبْءَ فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا تُخْفُونَ وَمَا تُعْلِنُونَ

“[And] so they do not prostrate to Allāh, who brings forth what is hidden within the heavens and the earth and knows what you conceal and what you declare -”

Saheeh International

Essence

A people bowed to the sun, which lights only surfaces, instead of the One who brings out every hidden store and reads every hidden heart.

A reflection

Every discovery is a withdrawal from His store

A research team holds a press conference. They have found a new antibiotic in a teaspoon of soil from a car park. The headlines say they discovered it. The scientists are quieter. One of them says, almost to herself, that it was there all along.

Yukhriju al-khabʾa: He brings out the hidden. The first hearers knew khabʾ well. It was a thing hidden and kept safe, often a store laid up for a day of need. The lexicons state this plainly. So the picture is not of something lost. It is of something deliberately stored, then released when its day comes.

What is stored? Several early explanations named rain held in the sky and plants held in the earth. One named water alone. Others kept it general: every hidden thing in the heavens and the earth. A later commentary prefers that wider reading. Rain, seed, ore, a cure in the soil, a thought not yet thought.

Now set this beside the people in the story. They bowed to the sun (27:24). It is the brightest thing in their sky, yet it only lights surfaces. It cannot open a single seed it shines on. A theological commentary builds its whole argument here. A god must be able to bring out what is hidden and know what is secret. The sun is a finite body. It can do neither.

This is where the ego shrinks. We call ourselves discoverers, inventors and pioneers. We file patents and collect prizes. But every discovery is a withdrawal from a store we did not stock. The antibiotic was laid up in that soil before anyone owned a microscope. Our pride in finding is a child's pride at finding the gifts his father hid.

None of this cancels effort. Digging is real work, and Allah honours it. But the humble scientist's whisper is the more accurate sentence. It was there all along, because Someone put it there and chose the day it would come out.

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.