Al-'Ankabut · Makki · ayah 53 of 69

Al-'Ankabut 29:53

وَيَسْتَعْجِلُونَكَ بِٱلْعَذَابِ ۚ وَلَوْلَآ أَجَلٌ مُّسَمًّى لَّجَآءَهُمُ ٱلْعَذَابُ وَلَيَأْتِيَنَّهُم بَغْتَةً وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ

“And they urge you to hasten the punishment. And if not for [the decree of] a specified term, punishment would have reached them. But it will surely come to them suddenly while they perceive not.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They dared the Prophet ﷺ to hurry the punishment; only a named, appointed term holds it back, and it will come suddenly, unnoticed.

A reflection

Demanding the birth before the term

Two words sit close together in this ayah, and they sound almost alike. Yastaʿjilūnaka: they ask you to hurry. Ajalun: a term. In Arabic, ʿajal and ajal differ by a single letter. One lexicon sets their offspring against each other directly: the hasty, al-ʿājil, is the opposite of the deferred, al-ājil.

The root of haste carries a vivid picture. The lexicons speak of a she-camel that gives birth before her term is complete. Another lexicon defines haste as seeking a thing before its proper time, and adds that it springs from desire. The image is established.

Put the two words side by side and the ayah becomes a picture of a pregnancy. A term has been set. Those who mock want the birth now, before its time. They demand it precisely to show that nothing is there at all.

Notice the verb form. Istaʿjala is not simply hurrying. It is asking for haste, pressing it on someone else. They were not hurrying themselves. They were pressing the Prophet ﷺ to produce on command what Allah alone had timed. One commentator recalls their words elsewhere: if this is the truth from You, rain stones on us from the sky (8:32).

The ayah's answer is calm. Were it not for a named term, it would already have come. The delay is not absence. It is gestation.

There is a lesson here for anyone waiting on Allah's promises, not only His warnings. What He has decreed has its term. Asking for it is worship; demanding it before its time is the root's restlessness. A believer may ask, and ask often. But a believer also knows the difference between asking and insisting on a birth before the term is full.

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.