Al-Ahzab · Madani · ayah 57 of 73

Al-Ahzab 33:57

إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ يُؤْذُونَ ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ لَعَنَهُمُ ٱللَّهُ فِى ٱلدُّنْيَا وَٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ وَأَعَدَّ لَهُمْ عَذَابًا مُّهِينًا

“Indeed, those who abuse Allāh and His Messenger - Allāh has cursed them in this world and the Hereafter and prepared for them a humiliating punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

No one can wound Allah, yet whoever sets out to harm Him and His Messenger drives himself away from mercy, here and hereafter.

A reflection

The One no harm can reach

The ayah opens with a phrase that should stop us: those who harm Allah. How could a creature harm the Creator?

The commentaries answer at once. Allah is far above any harm reaching Him, one of them says. The word is used the way people speak among themselves. A hadith in Sahih Muslim puts it in Allah's own voice. My servants, you will never reach the point of harming Me.

So what is this 'harm'? The root pictures a camel that will not settle in its place, though nothing wounds it. Adhā is something you dislike and cannot rest with. Nothing unsettles Allah. What the ayah names is the attempt, and the ugliness of it.

Sahih al-Bukhari records one ordinary form that attempt takes. Allah says: the son of Adam harms Me. He curses time, and I am time. In My hand is the command; I turn the night and the day.

Picture a delivery driver stuck behind the same roadworks for the third day running. He thumps the wheel and says: this whole year has it in for me. He means no blasphemy. But the hadith asks him to notice where his anger is really aimed. The year did nothing. The One who turns night and day did.

Here is where the ego shrinks. We imagine ourselves large enough to wound Him, or important enough for the universe to plot against us. Neither is true. Our rage does not reach Him. It only reaches us, and carries us further from His mercy.

The proud heart wants to matter so much that it can injure God. The humble heart is relieved that it cannot.

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.