Al-'Ankabut · Makki · ayah 49 of 69

Al-'Ankabut 29:49

بَلْ هُوَ ءَايَـٰتٌۢ بَيِّنَـٰتٌ فِى صُدُورِ ٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْعِلْمَ ۚ وَمَا يَجْحَدُ بِـَٔايَـٰتِنَآ إِلَّا ٱلظَّـٰلِمُونَ

“Rather, it [i.e., the Qur’ān] is distinct verses [preserved] within the breasts of those who have been given knowledge. And none reject Our verses except the wrongdoers.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Far from being borrowed, the Quran is clear signs living in the hearts of those given knowledge; only people who misplace the truth deny it.

A reflection

A Book that water cannot wash away

A flood fills the basement of a small town's library. Volunteers lay the sodden ledgers out on trestle tables, turn the pages with gloved fingers and set fans running. Some volumes will dry, warped and stained. Some are gone for good. A text that lives in one place can die in one night.

This ayah gives the Quran a different address. Not only on parchment, not only on a shelf, but in the chests of those given knowledge.

Sahih Muslim records a long address the Prophet ﷺ gave one day. In it he relays what his Lord said to him. I have sent down to you a Book that no water can wash away, which you recite sleeping and waking. One classical commentator sets this hadith beside our ayah and draws out the point. Even if water washed the page, the page would not be needed. The Book is kept in hearts and made easy on tongues.

Another commentator draws a contrast with earlier scriptures. Those, he says, were read from written copies, while this one is recited from memory by much of its community. An early teacher put it in one line. This community was given memorisation, while those before could read their book only by looking at it.

So the ayah describes a kind of preservation that no flood, fire or censor can reach. Destroy every printed copy and the text would be written out again by morning. To erase this Book, you would have to erase every person who carries it, in every generation.

That is a strange kind of security for a text. It does not rest on vaults or archives. It rests on ordinary people: children in a mosque class, a taxi driver revising in traffic, an old woman reciting in the dark. Each is a copy that water cannot touch.

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.