Al-'Ankabut · Makki · ayah 63 of 69

Al-'Ankabut 29:63

وَلَئِن سَأَلْتَهُم مَّن نَّزَّلَ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءً فَأَحْيَا بِهِ ٱلْأَرْضَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ مَوْتِهَا لَيَقُولُنَّ ٱللَّهُ ۚ قُلِ ٱلْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ ۚ بَلْ أَكْثَرُهُمْ لَا يَعْقِلُونَ

“And if you asked them, "Who sends down rain from the sky and gives life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness?" they would surely say, "Allāh." Say, "Praise to Allāh"; but most of them do not reason.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They admit Allah sends the rain that brings dead land to life; the believer turns that admission into praise, and lets it hold him back.

A reflection

Every wage queues behind a cloud

A reservoir manager knows the feel of a long dry summer. The gauges drop a little each week. The engineers can pump water from one reservoir to another, and they can mend leaks. They cannot make a single drop fall.

The ayah asks the deniers who sends water down from the sky. They answer at once: Allah.

One classical commentator explains why this question comes straight after two ayat on provision. Rain is the cause of provision. The One who brings the cause into being brings what it produces. So provision is from Allah, all of it, down to the loaf.

Another commentator, citing an earlier scholar, hears a quiet hint aimed at the frightened believers. The very people you leaned on for your living admit Our power. The Makkan merchants whose markets the emigrants feared to leave would say it themselves: the rain is from Allah.

The ego likes to think its income begins at its own desk. Trace any wage back far enough and you reach a field, and the field waits on the sky. The farmer, the miller, the lorry driver, the shelf-stacker and the accountant all stand in one queue. At its head is a cloud that no one in the queue can command.

That is not a reason for despair. It is the end of a pretence, and a relief. Allah does not need us to admit it. He was praised before any of us said a word. The question is asked so that we hear our own answer, and stand a little humbler in the queue.

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.