An-Naml · Makki · ayah 88 of 93

An-Naml 27:88

وَتَرَى ٱلْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِىَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ ٱلسَّحَابِ ۚ صُنْعَ ٱللَّهِ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ خَبِيرٌۢ بِمَا تَفْعَلُونَ

“And you see the mountains, thinking them motionless,[1089] while they will pass as the passing of clouds. [It is] the work of Allāh, who perfected all things. Indeed, He is Aware of that which you do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

On the Day of the Horn, mountains that look frozen in place race past like clouds: the crafted work of the One who perfected everything.

A reflection

A set struck as carefully as it was built

On the last night of a long run, the audience leaves and the crew comes on. By dawn the set must be gone. Nothing is smashed. Every flat is numbered, every bolt boxed, every cable coiled in order. The dismantling is planned as carefully as the building was. A stranger walking in at midnight would see chaos. The stage manager sees a plan running exactly to time.

The ayah describes the greatest dismantling there will ever be. Mountains, the fixed points of every landscape, drift like cloud. Then it does something unexpected. It signs the scene: ṣunʿa Allāh, 'the making of Allah, who perfected all things'.

A later commentary dwells on this. These works, it says, are not a breaking of the world's order without wisdom. They belong among the marvels of His making, built on wisdom and leading to good ends. A classical rhetorician adds that a verbal noun like this, placed after a statement, acts as a witness to it. It declares that the thing could only have been as it was. He sets it beside 'the colouring of Allah' (2:138) and 'the promise of Allah' (30:6).

Now think of what we sign. Our names go on towers, bridges, companies and books, and we feel a little taller each time. Yet every one of those works stands on mountains we did not raise, and will pass with them. The ayah asks the ego to see its proudest work at the right scale. It is a few bolts on a stage that Another built and will strike.

Is it arrogant to sign even the end of the world? Only if the signature were for show. Allah gains nothing from the credit. We gain from knowing it. If the end were mere chaos, the believer would face it in dread. Because it is His crafted work, even the drifting mountains are in safe hands.

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.