Luqman · Makki · ayah 27 of 34

Luqman 31:27

وَلَوْ أَنَّمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ مِن شَجَرَةٍ أَقْلَـٰمٌ وَٱلْبَحْرُ يَمُدُّهُۥ مِنۢ بَعْدِهِۦ سَبْعَةُ أَبْحُرٍ مَّا نَفِدَتْ كَلِمَـٰتُ ٱللَّهِ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ

“And if whatever trees upon the earth were pens and the sea [was ink], replenished thereafter by seven [more] seas, the words[1165] of Allāh would not be exhausted. Indeed, Allāh is Exalted in Might and Wise.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Make every tree a pen and the sea, fed by seven more, its ink: pens and seas would end, and His words would not.

A reflection

The argument nobody wins by outlasting Him

A husband keeps a note on his phone. It lists, with dates, every unfair thing his wife has said in the past year. He calls it 'for reference'. Its real purpose is simple. In any argument, he will never be the first to run out of material.

The Arabs had a word for that man. The root of nafidat, ran out, gives munāfid: a disputant. One lexicon explains why. In an argument each side works to use up the other's case, until one of them has nothing left to say. Winning means outlasting.

Now hear the occasion the commentaries record. Some of the Makkan idolaters said of the revelation: this is speech that will soon run out. Another report has them complaining about how much Muhammad talks. They were treating the Quran as a debater. Wait long enough, they thought, and he will exhaust his material.

The ayah's reply is not a counter-argument. It is a picture of scale. Make every tree on earth into pens. Make the sea ink, and keep feeding it with seven seas more. Set them all to writing. The pens would break and the seas would run dry, and mā nafidat kalimātu Allāh: the words of Allah would not have run out.

This is where the ego meets its limit. The part of us that keeps a list, rehearses replies in the shower and needs the last word is playing a game of supply. Against people it sometimes wins. Against Him it has nothing to play with.

Someone might ask whether it is boastful for God to announce that His words never end. Boasting claims more than one has, to win admiration one needs. Here there is no gap between the claim and the reality. And there is no need: the ayah before has just called Him al-Ghanī, free of all need. The sentence is not for His sake. It frees us from a contest we were never really in.

The husband deletes the note. Not because he has lost, but because he has finally seen how small the game was.

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.