Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 29 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:29

قُلْ إِن تُخْفُوا۟ مَا فِى صُدُورِكُمْ أَوْ تُبْدُوهُ يَعْلَمْهُ ٱللَّهُ ۗ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

“Say, "Whether you conceal what is in your breasts or reveal it, Allāh knows it. And He knows that which is in the heavens and that which is on the earth. And Allāh is over all things competent.”

Saheeh International

Essence

What you keep in your chest and what you show are equally open to the One who knows everything and can do anything.

A reflection

Knowing, and able

A mother sits by her phone at midnight. Her son has texted from a motorway two hundred miles away: car broken down, phone battery at three per cent. Then nothing. She knows exactly where he is and what he needs. She can do nothing at all.

Human beings often have one without the other. We know and cannot act, like the mother. Or we can act and do not know: the manager who could fix the problem if anyone had told him. Even the most powerful people live with that gap.

This ayah closes it. In tukhfū mā fī ṣudūrikum aw tubdūhu yaʿlamhu llāh: whether you hide what is in your chests or show it, Allah knows it. He knows what is in the heavens and on earth. And then: wa-llāhu ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr, Allah has power over all things. One commentary draws the link at once. His power includes acting against whoever secretly sides with the enemies of the believers; He needs no one to report it.

This is where the ego's last hiding place disappears. We keep secrets on the quiet assumption that whoever knows cannot act, or whoever can act does not know. Pride survives in that gap. Before Allah there is no gap.

Why would Allah tell us this? Not because He needs to be acknowledged as all-knowing; He is free of need of the worlds (29:6). It is for our sake, both ways. It warns the one hiding a betrayal. And it comforts the one hiding a pain: the One who knows it is also the One who can do something about it.

Tonight, take one thing you have kept in your chest. Tell it to the One who knows it already and can act on 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.