Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 86 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:86

وَمَا كُنتَ تَرْجُوٓا۟ أَن يُلْقَىٰٓ إِلَيْكَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبُ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً مِّن رَّبِّكَ ۖ فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ ظَهِيرًا لِّلْكَـٰفِرِينَ

“And you were not expecting that the Book would be conveyed to you, but [it is] a mercy from your Lord. So do not be an assistant to the disbelievers.[1121]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Book came by mercy alone to a man who never hoped for it, and such a gift is answered by never backing its deniers.

A reflection

He was not waiting for anything already on its way

The verb for hope here, tarjū, began in the herdsman's camp. When a she-camel neared her time, the Arabs said arjat: she made her owner hope. The birth was close. The foal was already on its way.

So the lexicons define this hope carefully. It is the expectation of a good whose cause has already come about. Not a wish thrown into the air. A wait for something that has begun.

Now read the ayah with that picture. You were not hoping that the Book would be cast to you. Nothing was on its way that he could see. There was no school of prophets he had joined, no ladder he was climbing, no sign he was reading.

One commentary spells out what he could not have hoped for. That revelation would come to him, and teach him the news of those before him and of what would come after. Things he never witnessed and never would.

A classical writer on the inner life uses this ayah to describe the one who is wanted. Allah gave His Messenger the Book, he says, and singled him out for His honour. It came without hope on his part, without anything earned, without any means he had used. It was a matter willed for him.

Most of us use 'hope' to mean a wish. I hope it does not rain. I hope I get the job. The root asks for more than that. Real hope looks for what Allah has already set in motion.

And this ayah adds one more truth. Sometimes the greatest gift comes where no hope was, because no hope could have reached that far.

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.