Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 46 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:46

وَمَا كُنتَ بِجَانِبِ ٱلطُّورِ إِذْ نَادَيْنَا وَلَـٰكِن رَّحْمَةً مِّن رَّبِّكَ لِتُنذِرَ قَوْمًا مَّآ أَتَىٰهُم مِّن نَّذِيرٍ مِّن قَبْلِكَ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَتَذَكَّرُونَ

“And you were not at the side of the mount when We called [Moses] but [were sent] as a mercy from your Lord to warn a people to whom no warner had come before you that they might be reminded.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Prophet missed Musa's calling on the mountain, yet told it, because the telling was a mercy sent to wake a forgetting people.

A reflection

Present at every scene you only read about

Three times in a row the Quran tells the Prophet: you were not there. Not on the western side when the command was given to Musa. Not living among the people of Madyan. And now, not beside the mountain when Allah called. The most honoured of His creation is reminded, three times, of the edges of his own sight.

Then comes the turn: nādaynā, We called. The One speaking in this ayah was present at the burning tree and at the wells of Madyan. He was present on the night of the calling, and at every moment before and since. Nothing in the story was reported to Him. He needed no witness, because He was the one doing the calling.

Set that beside the way we talk. An old man in a river town insists that his account of the great flood is the true one. He was there, he says. And he was, for one street, one long night, from one upstairs window. His neighbours across the bridge saw a different flood. Each of us is that man. We stood on a few streets of history, and we speak as if we saw the whole river.

This is where the ego shrinks, gently. Our pride loves the words 'I was there'. It turns being present into being right. The ayah lets the greatest of messengers stand in the position of one who was not there, and he loses nothing by it. His knowledge was better than an eyewitness's, because it came from the One who misses nothing.

Some hear in such ayat a Lord who must be the only one who knows. The ayah says the opposite. He did not keep the scene to Himself. He handed it to His messenger, and through him to you, and called the handing over a mercy. A rival guards what he knows. Allah gave it away.

So humility here is not ignorance. It is knowing which source to trust. When you next hear yourself say 'I saw it with my own eyes', remember how little one pair of eyes takes in. Then remember the One who called Musa by name, and who sees your street, and every street, at once.

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.