Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 120 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:120

إِن تَمْسَسْكُمْ حَسَنَةٌ تَسُؤْهُمْ وَإِن تُصِبْكُمْ سَيِّئَةٌ يَفْرَحُوا۟ بِهَا ۖ وَإِن تَصْبِرُوا۟ وَتَتَّقُوا۟ لَا يَضُرُّكُمْ كَيْدُهُمْ شَيْـًٔا ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطٌ

“If good touches you, it distresses them; but if harm strikes you, they rejoice at it. And if you are patient and fear Allāh, their plot will not harm you at all. Indeed, Allāh is encompassing of what they do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Good touching you grieves them and harm striking you delights them; be patient and guard yourselves, and their scheming cannot touch you.

A reflection

The same wall hems one side in and keeps the other safe

Two shop assistants stand in a stockroom working through what they think of the manager. They are thorough. Neither notices that the intercom handset is off its cradle. The office at the front of the shop can hear every word.

The ayah closes with one word for Allah, and the lexicons on it are remarkable.

The root of muḥīṭ has a single meaning: a thing that goes round another. The first hearers knew the ḥāʾiṭ, the wall round a date grove. They pictured horsemen closing in on a man from every side. And they pictured the wild ass rounding up his herd in order to guard it. One lexicon notes that the root therefore holds two feelings at once: hemmed in, and kept safe.

That is exactly the double edge of this sentence, and the reciters preserve both halves of it.

Read one way, Allah encompasses what they do. Their scheming is being conducted inside the wall. Read the other way, which some reciters read, He encompasses what you do, of patience and guarding yourself. Two commentators give both readings plainly: on the first He requites them for it, on the second He gives you what you deserve.

So the same word is the horsemen and the wall, depending which side of it you are standing on.

Now notice where that leaves the ego, because this is uncomfortable for anyone who plans. Every scheme a human being has ever devised was devised inside this. Not observed from outside, which still leaves the schemer a space of his own. Enclosed. There is no room in which any of us has ever been genuinely unaccompanied.

One commentator notices a small thing about the word order too. It does not say that Allah encompasses what they do; it puts their deeds first, because what is most at issue goes first. The point being made is not that He has information. It is about the deeds.

And the mercy is the same fact from the other side. If no scheme is outside the wall, then nothing that reaches you got in without passing Him.

So stop assessing your position by who is against you. Ask instead which side of that wall your own week has been built on.

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.