Ar-Rum · Makki · ayah 36 of 60

Ar-Rum 30:36

وَإِذَآ أَذَقْنَا ٱلنَّاسَ رَحْمَةً فَرِحُوا۟ بِهَا ۖ وَإِن تُصِبْهُمْ سَيِّئَةٌۢ بِمَا قَدَّمَتْ أَيْدِيهِمْ إِذَا هُمْ يَقْنَطُونَ

“And when We let the people taste mercy, they rejoice therein, but if evil afflicts them for what their hands have put forth, immediately they despair.”

Saheeh International

Essence

A heart that soars with every gift and crashes at every loss has been watching the weather, not the One who sends it.

A reflection

Glad of the bread, or glad of the King?

Two people in the same firm receive the same end-of-year bonus. The first checks the figure, grins and books a holiday. The second barely glances at the figure. Clipped to her payslip is a card in the founder's own handwriting: 'I noticed what you did in March'. She keeps that card for years.

One classical commentator gives an older version of this scene. A king places a loaf from his own table in front of a nobleman. The nobleman is delighted. The same king hands a loaf to a beggar without looking at him. The beggar is delighted too. But the nobleman rejoices because it came from the king. The beggar rejoices because it is bread.

That, says the commentator, is the joy this ayah faults: 'they rejoice in it', in the mercy itself. Had the rain come from anyone else, their joy would be exactly the same. Their delight stops at the gift and never travels to the Giver.

The root of faraḥ fits that picture. One lexicon describes it as the chest opening with an immediate pleasure, mostly in bodily and worldly things. Another distinguishes it from a deeper gladness that only comes from real benefit. It gives two examples. A child delights in running until he hurts himself. A sleeper delights inside a dream.

So the question is not whether you smile at good news. You should. The question is where the smile goes next. Does it stop at the figure, or reach the hand that wrote the card?

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.