An-Naml · Makki · ayah 76 of 93

An-Naml 27:76

إِنَّ هَـٰذَا ٱلْقُرْءَانَ يَقُصُّ عَلَىٰ بَنِىٓ إِسْرَٰٓءِيلَ أَكْثَرَ ٱلَّذِى هُمْ فِيهِ يَخْتَلِفُونَ

“Indeed, this Qur’ān relates to the Children of Israel most of that over which they disagree.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Quran retraces an older community's quarrels to the place where the path first split, and offers the same patient tracking for ours.

A reflection

Following the footprints back to the fork

Hear the word story and you may picture something told at bedtime. True or not, it mainly passes an evening. The verb in this ayah carries a different picture.

Yaquṣṣu comes from a root the lexicons tie to following a track. To iqtaṣṣa a trail was to walk where the footprints went, one step after another. Mūsā's mother told his sister to follow him (28:11). Mūsā and his companion went back, retracing their own footsteps (18:64).

So when the ayah says the Quran yaquṣṣu to the Children of Israel, the first hearers heard more than 'tells them stories'. It follows the trail of their disputes back, step by step, to the place where the path divided.

The commentaries name the plainest case. About ʿĪsā, peace be upon him, one party slandered him and his mother. Another raised him beyond what he was. One trail had become two roads, each moving further from the other. The Quran walked them back to the fork and stood there. He is a servant of Allah, given the Book and made a prophet, and his mother is innocent of what was said (19:27–34).

Think of a genealogist hired by two branches of one family. Each claims the old farm came down through its own line. Each has a version polished by eighty years of retelling at weddings. She takes no side in the polishing. She goes back through the parish register, page by page, to one baptism entry in a cramped hand. There the two versions meet, and one of them stops.

That is what qaṣaṣ means in the Quran. It is not invention offered for comfort. It is a careful following of tracks, so that a reader can see where people left the road. Read its narratives that way. At each story, ask quietly which footprint is mine.

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.