Luqman · Makki · ayah 6 of 34

Luqman 31:6

وَمِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ مَن يَشْتَرِى لَهْوَ ٱلْحَدِيثِ لِيُضِلَّ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ وَيَتَّخِذَهَا هُزُوًا ۚ أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ مُّهِينٌ

“And of the people is he who buys the amusement of speech[1160] to mislead [others] from the way of Allāh without knowledge and who takes it [i.e., His way] in ridicule. Those will have a humiliating punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Some pay for distraction, in money or in hours, so the true word never gets a hearing, then laugh at the road they left.

A reflection

A rival programme, not a rebuttal

Several commentaries record how this ayah was first heard. A Makkan merchant named al-Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith traded with Persia and with the Arab court at al-Ḥīra. He brought back the tales of Persian kings and heroes, Rustam and Isfandiyār among them. Then he sat where Quraysh gathered and told them. 'Muhammad tells you about ʿĀd and Thamūd,' he said. 'I will tell you about Rustam and the Persian kings'. People enjoyed his stories and stopped listening to the Quran.

Another report has him buying a singing girl. Whenever he heard of someone leaning towards Islam, he took the man to her. 'Feed him, give him a drink, sing to him,' he told her. 'This is better than the prayer and fasting Muhammad calls you to'. The reports differ in detail, and the commentators pass them on with caution. But they agree on the method.

Notice what he did not do. He did not refute the Quran. He did not answer its argument about one Creator. He scheduled something more entertaining at the same hour. That is a strategy, and an old one: when you cannot win the argument, win the evening.

Picture a gaming floor built with no clocks on the walls and no windows to the street. Nothing there argues that time does not matter. It simply removes every reminder that time is passing. The evening never announces itself, so it is never ended.

A believer who sees this stops treating distraction as neutral background noise. Some of what fills our hours was designed, by someone, to keep a question from being asked. The ayah names the aim plainly: li-yuḍilla ʿan sabīli Allāh, to lead away from Allah's way.

The counter-strategy is not to argue with every distraction. It is to protect an hour that cannot be bought. Choose a fixed time each day when the true speech is heard first, before anything else is allowed to compete for it.

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.