An-Naml · Makki · ayah 29 of 93

An-Naml 27:29

قَالَتْ يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْمَلَؤُا۟ إِنِّىٓ أُلْقِىَ إِلَىَّ كِتَـٰبٌ كَرِيمٌ

“She said, "O eminent ones, indeed, to me has been delivered a noble letter.”

Saheeh International

Essence

A queen holds up a letter dropped into her palace and, before saying what it demands, tells her court the plain truth: it is noble.

A reflection

A noble letter, read aloud to the household

The queen of Saba has a letter in her hands that unsettles her. She does not slide it into a drawer. She calls her chiefs together, and the first thing she tells them is what kind of letter it is. Kitābun karīm: a noble letter.

The Quran uses the same pair of words about itself. 'It is a noble Quran' (56:77). A commentator on law and language remarks that 'noble' is the highest thing a letter can be called. Scribes of his day praised letters as weighty or esteemed. For a king's letter they wrote 'mighty' and forgot 'noble', though it is the finest of them all.

So every believer holds what the queen held, and more. A letter has been cast into our lives from a King far greater than Sulayman. It opens with the same words of mercy. It asks the same two things the next ayat will spell out: stop rising above, and come yielding.

Picture a seventeen-year-old standing in the hallway with an apprenticeship offer. She does not read it alone in her room. She reads it aloud to her mother, her uncle and two cousins. Then she reads it again, more slowly, because they ask her to.

The queen did this with a letter that frightened her. Many of us do far less with a letter that loves us. It waits on a high shelf. We open it in Ramadan, alone and quickly, and put it back.

The ayah leaves a quiet question in the hallway. When did your household last hear the noble letter read aloud, and ask to hear it twice?

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.