An-Naml · Makki · ayah 46 of 93

An-Naml 27:46

قَالَ يَـٰقَوْمِ لِمَ تَسْتَعْجِلُونَ بِٱلسَّيِّئَةِ قَبْلَ ٱلْحَسَنَةِ ۖ لَوْلَا تَسْتَغْفِرُونَ ٱللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ

“He said, "O my people, why are you impatient for evil before [i.e., instead of] good?[1078] Why do you not seek forgiveness of Allāh that you may receive mercy?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

Salih asks his people why they rush towards ruin while mercy waits first in line, and offers the simplest door: ask Allah's forgiveness now.

A reflection

I will repent if it actually comes

A man keeps a letter in his desk drawer. It is an apology to his younger brother, written four years ago after a quarrel over their father's house. He reads it now and then. He tells himself he will post it if his brother ever falls ill. One spring morning the phone rings. His brother died in his sleep. The letter is still in the drawer.

Several commentaries say Thamud thought in exactly this way. Their reasoning ran something like this. If the punishment Salih promises really comes, we will repent then. If it does not, we lose nothing by carrying on. Repentance was their insurance policy, to be claimed at the moment of disaster.

Salih's question takes their own plan and turns it over. Lima tastaʿjilūna bi-l-sayyiʾa qabla al-ḥasana: why are you hurrying the bad thing ahead of the good one? You have put them in the wrong order. You want to see the punishment first, and only then reach for repentance.

One commentary explains why that order fails. Allah's way, it says, is that repentance is not accepted once the punishment has come down. The Quran states it plainly about other nations. When they saw Our might, they said: we believe in Allah alone. But their belief did not help them once they had seen Our might (40:84-85).

The Prophet ﷺ said that Allah accepts a servant's repentance until the death rattle reaches the throat. Al-Tirmidhi recorded it and graded it ḥasan gharīb. The door is astonishingly wide. But it has an edge, and nobody is told where that edge is.

So the plan to repent at the last moment rests on one hidden assumption: that the last moment will announce itself. It rarely does. The man with the letter assumed he would get a warning, an illness, a hospital corridor. He got a phone call.

The good was offered first. It is still offered first. The only question Salih asks is why anyone would wait.

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.