Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 76 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:76

۞ إِنَّ قَـٰرُونَ كَانَ مِن قَوْمِ مُوسَىٰ فَبَغَىٰ عَلَيْهِمْ ۖ وَءَاتَيْنَـٰهُ مِنَ ٱلْكُنُوزِ مَآ إِنَّ مَفَاتِحَهُۥ لَتَنُوٓأُ بِٱلْعُصْبَةِ أُو۟لِى ٱلْقُوَّةِ إِذْ قَالَ لَهُۥ قَوْمُهُۥ لَا تَفْرَحْ ۖ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُحِبُّ ٱلْفَرِحِينَ

“Indeed, Qārūn was from the people of Moses, but he tyrannized them. And We gave him of treasures whose keys would burden a band of strong men; thereupon his people said to him, "Do not exult. Indeed, Allāh does not like the exultant.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Qarun, one of Musa's own people, was given treasure whose keys bent strong men, and his people warned him: do not exult.

A reflection

A fortune measured by its keys

Every year a Sunday paper prints its rich list. Somewhere around number forty sits a property tycoon. Decades of deals, towers and holdings are reduced to a single line of print: a name, a sector, a figure.

This ayah does something similar to the richest man of Musa's time, and then goes further. It does not even count his treasure. It measures it by the keys. The keys alone, it says, would weigh down a band of strong men. One classical linguist points out how the wording piles up the scale. Treasures, keys, weighing down, a band, men of strength: five words, each heavier than the last.

And all of it hangs from one short verb at the front: ātaynāhu, We gave him. The whole fortune, keys and all, sits inside a clause of Allah's speech, as the object of His giving.

That is where the ego should shrink. The man who owned those keys thought they made him large. In the ayah he is a recipient, like anyone handed a parcel. Another ayah describes the same pattern on a wider scale. We opened for them the gates of everything, until, when they exulted in what they were given, We seized them suddenly (6:44). The opening and the exulting appear together there too.

Why does Allah stress that He gave it? Not to claim credit He needs. He is not enlarged by a rich man's thanks or reduced by his denial. He stresses it for the receiver's sake, because the receiver is about to forget. Whatever keys you carry, to a house, an account or a company, carry them as things handed to you. The hand that gave them is greater than anything they open.

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.