Al-'Ankabut · Makki · ayah 42 of 69

Al-'Ankabut 29:42

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِهِۦ مِن شَىْءٍ ۚ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ

“Indeed, Allāh knows whatever thing they call upon[1133] other than Him. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah knows exactly what people call on besides Him, and the ayah's own grammar can be read to name it: nothing at all.

A reflection

Too slight to be called a thing

The ayah can be read in more than one way, and one reading is startling. One classical commentator takes the first word as a denial. Then the sentence says: Allah knows that what they call on besides Him is not anything at all. They are calling on no thing.

Another commentator explains the effect. What they call on is so slight that it does not deserve the name 'thing'. And the small indefinite shayʾ at the end belittles it further: some thing, any thing, a mere thing.

One classical account of the word shayʾ deepens this. It began as the verbal noun of shāʾa, to will. A thing, on that view, is what has been willed. Every object you can name exists because a will said 'be'. So the idols, the statues, the stars people bowed to, were things only because He willed them. They could not even be things without Him.

Picture a glass case in a museum gallery. Inside are small clay household figures, once kept in niches and fed with offerings. Each now has a catalogue number and a typed card. Several cards say only 'use unknown'. Families once begged these figures for rain and sons.

The ego does not like this ayah, because it has its own household figures. A title, a balance, a person's approval. We would never kneel to them. But we call on them, in the sense that matters: we turn to them first.

Is it arrogant for Allah to call every rival nothing? Arrogance is claiming more than your size. He is simply describing reality. He needs nothing from our worship (35:15). Telling a climber that his rope is rotten is not pride. It is the kindest thing anyone can say.

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.