Al-'Ankabut · Makki · ayah 25 of 69

Al-'Ankabut 29:25

وَقَالَ إِنَّمَا ٱتَّخَذْتُم مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ أَوْثَـٰنًا مَّوَدَّةَ بَيْنِكُمْ فِى ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا ۖ ثُمَّ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ يَكْفُرُ بَعْضُكُم بِبَعْضٍ وَيَلْعَنُ بَعْضُكُم بَعْضًا وَمَأْوَىٰكُمُ ٱلنَّارُ وَمَا لَكُم مِّن نَّـٰصِرِينَ

“And [Abraham] said, "You have only taken, other than Allāh, idols as [a bond of] affection among you in worldly life. Then on the Day of Resurrection you will deny one another and curse one another, and your refuge will be the Fire, and you will not have any helpers."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Fresh from the fire, Ibrahim names what kept the idols standing: not proof but friendship, a friendship that will end in cursing.

A reflection

What was really holding the idols up

Ibrahim has just walked out of the fire. His people have no argument left. They tried to answer him with flames instead. So he names what is really keeping their idols on their pedestals. It is not proof. It is mawaddata baynikum, the affection between you.

The commentators read the phrase in several ways, and the readings meet. On one, you gather round the idols so that you can be together, the way people bond over a shared cause. Another reading goes further, and it is uncomfortably accurate. You saw someone you loved take up an idol, so you took it up too, out of love for them. The idol was never the point. The person beside you was.

One classical commentator drew the conclusion plainly. When a way of life has been shown to be false and people still cannot leave it, what remains is imitation. Nobody wants to part from a friend over how to live.

Picture a woman whose cousins meet once a month in a fortune-teller's front room. She believes none of it, and says so in the car on the way home. But it is the only evening all five of them are in one place, laughing over the same cheap biscuits. If she stops going, she stops seeing them. So she keeps going, and holds out her palm.

This is the quiet power of the ayah. It does not accuse Ibrahim's people of stupidity. It accuses them of fearing loneliness more than they feared falsehood. The stone was the price of the circle.

Most of us keep something like this. A habit kept because our friends keep it. A way of talking we would never choose alone. A loyalty that has outlived its reason. The ayah leaves a simple test in your hand. Take away the people, and would you still do it? If not, you have found what is really holding it up.

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.