As-Sajdah · Makki · ayah 13 of 30

As-Sajdah 32:13

وَلَوْ شِئْنَا لَـَٔاتَيْنَا كُلَّ نَفْسٍ هُدَىٰهَا وَلَـٰكِنْ حَقَّ ٱلْقَوْلُ مِنِّى لَأَمْلَأَنَّ جَهَنَّمَ مِنَ ٱلْجِنَّةِ وَٱلنَّاسِ أَجْمَعِينَ

“And if We had willed, We could have given every soul its guidance, but the word[1173] from Me will come into effect [that] "I will surely fill Hell with jinn and people all together.”

Saheeh International

Essence

He could have guided every soul by force; He chose a world of offered guidance, and Hell takes those who follow its caller.

A reflection

Guidance is given, not achieved

A student comes home after his first year away. He has started praying on time, fasting extra days, reading. At dinner he corrects his father's prayer in front of the family. He means well. He is also quietly proud, as if he had found the way by his own cleverness.

The ayah opens with a sentence that empties that pride. Wa-law shiʾnā la-ātaynā kulla nafsin hudāhā: if We had willed, We would have given every soul its guidance. The verb is giving. Guidance is not a trophy a soul wins. It is a gift a soul is handed. The root of guidance carries that picture. It is leading someone along a road, and it is the hadiyya, the gift carried from one king to another.

Look, too, at the scale. Every soul. One early commentator spelled out what that would have looked like. Had Allah willed, he said, He would have sent down a sign from the sky, and their necks would have stayed bowed before it. Not one person on earth would have held out.

He did not need our faith then, and He does not need it now. Allah is the Free of all need (35:15). Every believer since Ādam adds nothing to His kingdom. That is the first thing the ayah says to the ego. Your faith is not a favour to God. It is a favour from Him.

Someone may ask why God speaks this way at all. Is it not a kind of boast, to say 'I could have done it all'? In a creature, such talk is vanity, because the creature cannot. In Him it is simply true, and it is said for a reason. It answers people pleading to be sent back for another try. It tells them the truth about the only test there is.

So the student's new prayer is real, and precious. But it was handed to him. The humility that fits a gift is gratitude, not a lecture. And the father he corrected may have been given more than his son knows.

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.