An-Naml · Makki · ayah 61 of 93

An-Naml 27:61

أَمَّن جَعَلَ ٱلْأَرْضَ قَرَارًا وَجَعَلَ خِلَـٰلَهَآ أَنْهَـٰرًا وَجَعَلَ لَهَا رَوَٰسِىَ وَجَعَلَ بَيْنَ ٱلْبَحْرَيْنِ حَاجِزًا ۗ أَءِلَـٰهٌ مَّعَ ٱللَّهِ ۚ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ

“Is He [not best] who made the earth a stable ground and placed within it rivers and made for it firmly set mountains and placed between the two seas a barrier? Is there a deity with Allāh? [No], but most of them do not know.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Four quiet works hold your life up tonight: still ground, running rivers, anchoring mountains, a wall between waters; most never notice who set them.

A reflection

Not stone, not water

A flooring fitter spends a whole morning on one small bathroom. He grinds down the high spots and pours self-levelling compound. He chases it with a spiked roller and checks it with a long spirit level. By lunchtime the floor is true to a millimetre. He photographs it before the tiles go down. He is right to be proud.

Now widen the frame. The house he is working in stands on ground nobody levelled. So does the town, and the country. Jaʿala al-arḍa qarāran: He made the earth a settled place.

A theological commentary lists some of what that takes. The ground is set between hardness and softness. It is not hard like rock, which would bruise anyone who lay on it. It is not soft like water, which would swallow anyone who stepped on it. A rhetorical commentary adds that He spread it out and levelled it for settling.

Then the ayah does something unusual. It uses one verb four times. Jaʿala the earth a settled place. Jaʿala rivers through it. Jaʿala anchors for it. Jaʿala a barrier between the two seas. Each act is given its own verb, as though each deserved to be counted separately.

Here the ego is gently corrected. Our proudest works sit on top of His. The fitter's floor is level because the slab beneath it does not move. A bridge stands because the bank does not slide. We are skilled finishers working on a foundation we did not pour.

A sceptic might say this is God listing His achievements, like someone fishing for praise. But look at how the ayah ends: most of them do not know. One who needed praise would make the work loud. This work is silent. The ground holds whether anyone thanks its Maker or not.

That is not the conduct of one who needs to be noticed. It is the generosity of a host who keeps giving whether or not the guests look up. The humble response is simply to look up.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.