An-Naml · Makki · ayah 34 of 93

An-Naml 27:34

قَالَتْ إِنَّ ٱلْمُلُوكَ إِذَا دَخَلُوا۟ قَرْيَةً أَفْسَدُوهَا وَجَعَلُوٓا۟ أَعِزَّةَ أَهْلِهَآ أَذِلَّةً ۖ وَكَذَٰلِكَ يَفْعَلُونَ

“She said, "Indeed kings - when they enter a city, they ruin it and render the honored of its people humbled. And thus do they do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The queen counted what her chiefs' boasts would cost her people: conquering kings ruin a town and bring its honoured low, and so they do.

A reflection

She counted the cost her chiefs left out

The chiefs had just made their speech. We are people of strength and fierce in war, they said, and the decision is yours. It sounded loyal. It also leaned towards a fight.

She answered with one sentence about what war does. Kings who enter a town by force ruin it. They make its honoured people low. One commentator notes the order of her reply. First she quietly took apart their boast. Then she showed them the end of the road they were so eager to walk.

Notice whose loss she names. Not her throne, though it was at stake. Not the chiefs' pride. She names the town, and the honoured among its people. The strong men in the room would have ridden out to fight. The bill would have been paid in streets they never thought about.

Picture the owner of a family haulage firm at a board meeting. Her two sons want to undercut a national rival and take its contracts. They have the lorries, the drivers and the nerve. She lived through the last price war, twenty years ago. She remembers letting drivers go, one by one, in her father's old office. She says no, and she tells them why.

That is not timidity. Courage that never counts the cost is not courage. It is appetite wearing armour.

The Prophet ﷺ once waited, on a day he faced an enemy, until the sun had passed its height. Then he stood and said: do not wish to meet the enemy, and ask Allah for well-being. If you do meet them, be steadfast (Bukhari, Muslim). The bravest man who ever led did not long for the fight.

A leader's first question is not whether we can win. It is who pays if we do this. The second is whether there is another way. The next ayah shows that she went looking for one.

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.