Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 123 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:123

وَلَقَدْ نَصَرَكُمُ ٱللَّهُ بِبَدْرٍ وَأَنتُمْ أَذِلَّةٌ ۖ فَٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ

“And already had Allāh given you victory at [the battle of] Badr while you were weak [i.e., few in number]. Then fear Allāh; perhaps you will be grateful.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah gave you victory at Badr while you were low and few, so guard yourselves before Him and be grateful.

A reflection

Rain falls on low ground

On a hillside lane the top four houses lose their water pressure every August. Showers trickle. Taps cough. The cottages at the bottom of the same lane have never once noticed, and have no idea the problem exists.

The two key words of this ayah are, in the lexicons, a single picture. Most readers never see it.

Take the word for the help He gave. The lexicons say the root means good that comes to someone and is given to them. And they say the Arabs used it of rain. The rain naṣara the earth, watering it until it grew. A rained-on land is manṣūra. The streams that run in from far off and swell a valley's flood were called nawāṣir: helpers. A gift itself is a naṣr.

Now take the word for what the believers were. The lexicons give that root as yielding and softness. They call its pairing with ʿizz, might, a mark of the Arabs' wisdom. ʿIzz comes from hard, firm ground, and dhull is its yielding opposite. A beast was dhalūl when broken in. A well-trodden path was dhull. Fruit clusters were dhullilat when they hung low.

So read the clause again with both pictures in place. He sent rain on you, and you were low ground.

That is not a consolation prize. It is a description of how water works.

And here is where the ego has to be honest about what it has been asking for. We want to be hard ground. Firm, unyielding, self-sufficient, the sort of surface things do not sink into. We call that strength, and we put years into acquiring it. The lexicons quietly note what hard ground does with rain. It sheds it.

The four houses at the top of the lane have the view and the pressure problem. Nobody in them chose that trade.

And notice that the ayah does not say they were made low in order to receive. It says they were low, and the help came. The lowness was a fact, not a performance. Which means the arrangement is not a technique you can adopt in order to qualify, since the attempt would already be hard ground pretending.

So stop working on your firmness for one week. Name the place where you are plainly low, with no plan for fixing it, and tell Him that is where you are standing.

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.