Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 51 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:51

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ رَبِّى وَرَبُّكُمْ فَٱعْبُدُوهُ ۗ هَـٰذَا صِرَٰطٌ مُّسْتَقِيمٌ

“Indeed, Allāh is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him. That is the straight path.'"”

Saheeh International

Essence

ʿĪsā's own creed: Allah is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him; this is the straight path.

A reflection

In the same queue

On a training exercise in the rain, a general joins the queue at the field kitchen behind a line of eighteen-year-old recruits. He holds out his mess tin like everyone else. Nobody forgets it.

'Allah is my Lord and your Lord.' Hear who is speaking. ʿĪsā, born of a word from Allah, who spoke in the cradle, gave sight to the born-blind and raised the dead by Allah's permission. And this is the sentence he chooses to sum up his message. He does not set himself above his hearers. He stands beside them, under the same Lord.

A modern commentary says it outright, in ʿĪsā's voice: I and you are equal in servanthood and submission to Him. The lexicons picture rabb as one who raises and tends what is his until it is complete. A leather skin is treated so that nothing in it spoils. ʿĪsā names Allah as the One who raised him too.

Here every ego meets its ceiling. Human beings love rank: titles, offices, lineage, the distance between 'my' and 'your'. The Quran calls ʿĪsā 'honoured in this world and the next'. If he says 'my Lord and your Lord', no title lifts anyone out of servanthood.

Does Allah need this declaration? He needs nothing (35:15). The declaration is for us. It frees us from worshipping the people we admire, however great they are, and it frees the great from the burden of being worshipped.

The recruits remembered the general in the queue because rank had been set aside. ʿĪsā's words set it aside for ever. One Lord, and everyone else in line.

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.