Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 122 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:122

إِذْ هَمَّت طَّآئِفَتَانِ مِنكُمْ أَن تَفْشَلَا وَٱللَّهُ وَلِيُّهُمَا ۗ وَعَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَلْيَتَوَكَّلِ ٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ

“When two parties among you were about to lose courage, but Allāh was their ally; and upon Allāh the believers should rely.”

Saheeh International

Essence

When two groups among you were close to losing heart, Allah was their protector; so let the believers rely on Him.

A reflection

He names Himself their protector in the sentence about their weakness

A man says, without any boasting, that he has never once been in debt. He has genuinely forgotten the two months when he was twenty-three and his father paid his rent. His father never mentioned it again, which is exactly why he forgot.

The ayah recalls a moment when two groups nearly broke, and then inserts five words in the middle of the sentence. And Allah was their protector.

One commentator gives three readings of that clause. First, that their wavering did not put them outside Allah's protection. Second, as if to say: Allah is their helper and the One in charge of their affair, so how could this collapse possibly suit them. Third, and this one should stop a reader. The collapse never happened at all because He was their protector, since He supported them with enabling and safeguarding.

Then he draws the conclusion. The purpose of the clause, he says, is this. But for His enabling and His setting straight, no one would ever get clear of the darknesses of disobedience.

Sit with that against your own account of yourself.

Most of us carry a short list of things we did not do. The affair we did not have. The money we did not take. The night we went home instead. And we file all of it under character, because that is the only word we have. Nobody ever sent us an invoice for the help.

The word for protector makes the point from another direction. The lexicons root it in nearness: two things are in walāʾ when nothing stands between them that is not of them. The desert Arabs called the second rain of the season al-walī, because it came right after the first. So a walī is not merely well-disposed from a distance. He is the next thing to arrive.

And notice the timing, because pride cannot absorb it. The protection is announced at the point of weakness, not after the recovery. He does not say: they wavered, then they rallied, and We approved. He says they wavered, and He was their protector, in the same breath.

So take your own list of things you did not do, and go through it once more. Ask, for each, what arrived right after the first rain. Then thank Him for the invoice you never received.

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.