Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 15 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:15

وَدَخَلَ ٱلْمَدِينَةَ عَلَىٰ حِينِ غَفْلَةٍ مِّنْ أَهْلِهَا فَوَجَدَ فِيهَا رَجُلَيْنِ يَقْتَتِلَانِ هَـٰذَا مِن شِيعَتِهِۦ وَهَـٰذَا مِنْ عَدُوِّهِۦ ۖ فَٱسْتَغَـٰثَهُ ٱلَّذِى مِن شِيعَتِهِۦ عَلَى ٱلَّذِى مِنْ عَدُوِّهِۦ فَوَكَزَهُۥ مُوسَىٰ فَقَضَىٰ عَلَيْهِ ۖ قَالَ هَـٰذَا مِنْ عَمَلِ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنِ ۖ إِنَّهُۥ عَدُوٌّ مُّضِلٌّ مُّبِينٌ

“And he entered the city at a time of inattention by its people[1097] and found therein two men fighting: one from his faction and one from among his enemy. And the one from his faction called for help to him against the one from his enemy, so Moses struck him and [unintentionally] killed him. [Moses] said, "This is from the work of Satan. Indeed, he is a manifest, misleading enemy."”

Saheeh International

Essence

One call for help, one blow of the fist, and a man lies dead; Musa's very first words name the enemy who lit his anger.

A reflection

The first sentence after the blow

The man is on the ground. He is not moving. The street is empty at the hour of the midday rest. What would most of us say in that moment? Probably nothing at all, or something to ourselves: he started it, I barely touched him, nobody saw.

Musa's first recorded words are different: hādhā min ʿamali al-shayṭān, 'this is from the work of Shaytan'. The concise commentaries explain what he meant. It was Shaytan who stirred his anger until he struck. He saw, in the space of a breath, where the blow had really come from. It came from a flame that had been fanned in him by an enemy.

Picture a father on the touchline at his son's under-twelves match. A late tackle, a whistle that goes the wrong way, a referee of nineteen. Something rises in his chest. Before he has decided anything he is on the pitch, and his hands are on the young man's shoulders. The referee falls awkwardly and breaks his wrist. Afterwards the father keeps saying, 'I don't know what came over me.' Musa knew exactly what had come over him, and named it.

The Prophet ﷺ described this very moment. Two men were trading insults in his presence, one of them red in the face. He said he knew a phrase that would take the anger away. It was this: 'I seek refuge with Allah from Shaytan, the outcast' (Sahih Muslim). Anger, in that teaching, is a door the enemy uses. Naming him is how you shut it.

And the Prophet ﷺ redefined strength itself. 'The strong one is not the one who throws people in wrestling. The strong one is the one who controls himself when angry' (al-Bukhari and Muslim). Musa had the first kind of strength in abundance. This ayah is the morning he learned he needed the second.

The lesson is not that anger never comes. It is that the fastest honest sentence after it arrives makes the next sentence possible. Musa named the enemy at once. The next ayah shows him turning to his Lord just as fast.

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.