Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 119 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:119

هَـٰٓأَنتُمْ أُو۟لَآءِ تُحِبُّونَهُمْ وَلَا يُحِبُّونَكُمْ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْكِتَـٰبِ كُلِّهِۦ وَإِذَا لَقُوكُمْ قَالُوٓا۟ ءَامَنَّا وَإِذَا خَلَوْا۟ عَضُّوا۟ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلْأَنَامِلَ مِنَ ٱلْغَيْظِ ۚ قُلْ مُوتُوا۟ بِغَيْظِكُمْ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلِيمٌۢ بِذَاتِ ٱلصُّدُورِ

“Here you are loving them but they are not loving you, while you believe in the Scripture - all of it.[146] And when they meet you, they say, "We believe." But when they are alone, they bite their fingertips at you in rage. Say, "Die in your rage. Indeed, Allāh is Knowing of that within the breasts."”

Saheeh International

Essence

You love them and they do not love you; say, die in your rage, for Allah knows what chests contain.

A reflection

Behind the front there is nothing you built for Him

On a film set a street looks complete. Brick, sash windows, a pub sign, a letterbox. Walk round the end of the terrace and there is nothing behind the fronts but timber bracing, cable and sandbags. From one angle it is a street. From any other it is a row of faces.

The ayah ends with a claim about interiors. Allah is Knowing of what chests contain.

The word for chest is worth slowing over. The lexicons say ṣadr grows from the broad front of a body: the first thing a person turns towards the world. From that it came to mean the front and first part of anything. The head of a gathering is its ṣadr. So is the opening of a letter, and the early hours of the day. A lion is called muṣdir for the strength of its chest.

So the phrase is almost untranslatable in English. He knows the contents of the front.

And this is the point at which pride ought to go quiet, because it is not aimed only at the hypocrites described above. We all build frontages, and we build them out of true materials. Real work. Real kindness, in front of people. Real attendance at the right things. None of it is fake in the way a film set is fake.

The question the ayah puts is a different one. Was anything constructed behind it.

That is uncomfortable in a precise way. You can walk your own frontage for thirty years and never go round the end of the terrace. Nobody else will. Everyone you know is looking at the elevation, and the elevation is good, and their approval keeps the survey from ever being done.

One commentator closes this ayah simply: He knows what is in the hearts, and among it is what these people conceal. Among it, too, is what you conceal.

There is a mercy in it as well, and it is easy to miss. If He knows the inside, then the inside counts. The prayer nobody saw. The grudge you put down without telling anyone. The sentence you did not send.

So go round the end of your own terrace this week. Pick one thing you are known for, and ask what is actually standing behind it.

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.