Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 138 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:138

هَـٰذَا بَيَانٌ لِّلنَّاسِ وَهُدًى وَمَوْعِظَةٌ لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ

“This [Qur’ān] is a clear statement to [all] the people and a guidance and instruction for those conscious of Allāh.”

Saheeh International

Essence

This is a making-plain for everyone, and a road and a heart-softening word for those who guard themselves.

A reflection

Three different jobs in one short sentence

Beside a canal lock there are three things fixed to the brickwork. A diagram of how the lock works, with the paddles numbered. An arrow telling you which way the flow runs. And a small cast-iron sign with a date and two sets of initials. Most boaters read the first two in about four seconds. It is the third one that makes them send the children back from the edge.

This ayah names three things and does not treat them as synonyms. One commentary separates them carefully. Bayān is making a meaning appear, whatever that meaning happens to be. Hudā is setting out the road of right direction so that it is walked rather than the other one. And a mawʿiẓa is what softens the heart and calls a person to hold fast to what has obedience in it.

So: here is what is true. Here is the way. And here is the thing that gets past your defences.

The third word keeps a particularly sharp picture. The lexicons define waʿẓ as warning, and one quotes an early lexicographer: reminding of good in a way that softens the heart. Another calls it a rebuke joined with a warning. And the Arabs had a saying that belongs exactly here, right after a command to go and look at how it ended for others. The fortunate one takes a lesson from other people. The wretched one becomes a lesson for other people.

That is the choice this verse puts quietly in front of the reader. Nobody escapes the category. You are either reading the sign or you are the date on it.

And notice that most of our own explaining stops at the first job. We hand people the diagram and assume we have done the work. The verse does not. It gives the information to everyone and then names two further things that have to happen inside a person before the information is any use.

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.