Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 25 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:25

فَجَآءَتْهُ إِحْدَىٰهُمَا تَمْشِى عَلَى ٱسْتِحْيَآءٍ قَالَتْ إِنَّ أَبِى يَدْعُوكَ لِيَجْزِيَكَ أَجْرَ مَا سَقَيْتَ لَنَا ۚ فَلَمَّا جَآءَهُۥ وَقَصَّ عَلَيْهِ ٱلْقَصَصَ قَالَ لَا تَخَفْ ۖ نَجَوْتَ مِنَ ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ

“Then one of the two women came to him walking with shyness. She said, "Indeed, my father invites you that he may reward you for having watered for us." So when he came to him[1099] and related to him the story, he said, "Fear not. You have escaped from the wrongdoing people."”

Saheeh International

Essence

One of the women returns, walking in deep shyness, with her father's invitation; Musa tells the old man everything, and hears that he is safe.

A reflection

Shyness that walked, and then spoke clearly

Tamshī ʿalā istiḥyāʾ: she came walking upon shyness. Many of us hear 'shy' and picture someone timid. Eyes down, voice faint, unable to say what she came to say. The ayah shows the opposite.

Start with the preposition. Not 'with' shyness, but 'upon' it, ʿalā. One linguistic commentary says this describes her state through the whole approach, while walking and on arriving. The word is indefinite, which the same commentary reads as marking its greatness: a deep shyness. Reports in the commentaries describe her covering her face with the sleeve of her garment. One commentator, citing an early report with a chain he calls sound, adds that she was not bold or brazen with men.

So her modesty is real, and great. Then she opens her mouth, and speaks with complete clarity. She delivers her father's invitation in one sentence, without stammering or apology.

That is what ḥayāʾ is. Not an inability to act. It is the soul drawing back from what is unseemly, which leaves it free to do what is right without fuss.

The lexicons differ on the word's source. One major lexicon treats ḥayāʾ, modesty, and ḥayāh, life, as two separate roots. One classical commentator links them. The shy person, he says, is so called because something in him shrinks, as if his life were lessened. People speak of dying of shame. That is one view. Either way, the shyness in this ayah is not a shrinking from duty. It is restraint in the service of duty.

Picture a quiet doctoral student who blushes when anyone compliments her. On the day of her viva, she sits facing three examiners. Her cheeks are red the whole time. But every answer is precise, and she does not give up a point she knows is right.

Her shyness did not weaken her answers. It kept them free of showing off.

In the very next ayah, one of these daughters advises her father on whom to hire (28:26). Shy and decisive, modest and clear: the Qur'an does not set these against each other.

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.