Al-'Ankabut · Makki · ayah 47 of 69

Al-'Ankabut 29:47

وَكَذَٰلِكَ أَنزَلْنَآ إِلَيْكَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ ۚ فَٱلَّذِينَ ءَاتَيْنَـٰهُمُ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِهِۦ ۖ وَمِنْ هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ مَن يُؤْمِنُ بِهِۦ ۚ وَمَا يَجْحَدُ بِـَٔايَـٰتِنَآ إِلَّا ٱلْكَـٰفِرُونَ

“And thus We have sent down to you the Book [i.e., the Qur’ān]. And those to whom We [previously] gave the Scripture believe in it. And among these [people of Makkah] are those who believe in it. And none reject Our verses except the disbelievers.”

Saheeh International

Essence

This Book came down as the earlier ones did; some who held a scripture believed, some who held none believed, and denial needs knowing first.

A reflection

Ground the rain has already fallen on

Most of us picture denial as an honest gap. Someone has not seen enough, so he does not believe. The word this ayah uses will not allow that picture.

Jaḥd is not ignorance. One classical lexicon defines it as denying what the heart has fixed as true, and affirming what the heart knows is false. An early explanation of this very ayah is blunt: denial only comes after recognition. You cannot deny a letter you never received.

The lexicons also keep an older, physical image in the root, and it is established usage. A jaḥd year is a year without rain. Ground that is jaḥid is bare and dry, and nothing good comes up from it. A man called jaḥid has little good in him. Put the two meanings side by side and the ayah opens. The signs have fallen on these people like rain. The soil has received it. Nothing has been allowed to grow.

Picture a tenant who signs for a recorded-delivery letter at his door. His signature sits on the courier's screen, timed to the minute. Months later, at the tribunal, he says it never arrived. He is not confused. He is protecting something. That is the posture the word describes.

This matters for how a believer speaks about others. Not every person who does not believe is a jāḥid. Many have never truly heard. The ayah keeps this word for a narrower group: those for whom the signs became clear, and who still said no. One commentary calls them the ones sunk deep in refusal, so set on it that it bars them from even looking.

So the word is a warning before it is a label. It describes what can happen to anyone who keeps a known truth standing outside the door.

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.