Ar-Rum · Makki · ayah 56 of 60

Ar-Rum 30:56

وَقَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ أُوتُوا۟ ٱلْعِلْمَ وَٱلْإِيمَـٰنَ لَقَدْ لَبِثْتُمْ فِى كِتَـٰبِ ٱللَّهِ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ ٱلْبَعْثِ ۖ فَهَـٰذَا يَوْمُ ٱلْبَعْثِ وَلَـٰكِنَّكُمْ كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

“But those who were given knowledge and faith will say, "You remained the extent of Allāh's decree until the Day of Resurrection, and this is the Day of Resurrection, but you did not used to know."[1155]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those given knowledge and faith answer the guesses with what Allah wrote: you stayed exactly as decreed, and this is the Day you denied.

A reflection

Knowledge and faith, handed over together

Alladhīna ūtū al-ʿilma wa-l-īmān: those who were given knowledge and faith. Notice the verb. They were given. Neither the knowledge nor the faith is presented as their own achievement.

Who are they? The commentators list several views. The angels. The prophets. The learned of every nation. The believers of this community. Or every believer of every age. One commentator adds that the ayah shows the honour of people of knowledge.

A classical scholar of the heart drew out the pairing. The finest thing a heart can gain, he wrote, is knowledge and faith together. That is why Allah joins them here, and again where He raises 'those who believe and those given knowledge' by degrees (58:11). But he warned that most people mistake what these two words mean. Many treat talk, opinion and clever argument as knowledge.

He quoted an early scholar who was asked whether there was more knowledge in his day or before. 'There is more talk today,' came the answer. 'There was more knowledge before.'

Picture a pharmacology lecturer who can recite every drug interaction from memory. Between lectures he smokes on the fire escape. He knows exactly what each cigarette does. The knowledge is real. It simply never reaches the hand that holds the lighter.

That is knowledge without faith: information that changes nothing. The ayah's pair is different. Here knowledge is joined to trust in Allah and to acting on what is known. It is the kind of knowing that reorders a life.

So when you seek knowledge, ask what it is joined to. A degree, a library and a quick memory are gifts. They become the knowledge of this ayah only when faith turns them into a way of living.

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.