Al-Ahzab · Madani · ayah 67 of 73

Al-Ahzab 33:67

وَقَالُوا۟ رَبَّنَآ إِنَّآ أَطَعْنَا سَادَتَنَا وَكُبَرَآءَنَا فَأَضَلُّونَا ٱلسَّبِيلَا۠

“And they will say, "Our Lord, indeed we obeyed our masters and our dignitaries,[1213] and they led us astray from the [right] way.”

Saheeh International

Essence

In the Fire the followers finally say 'our Lord', and use it to hand Him an excuse: we obeyed the people we looked up to.

A reflection

Not dupes of tyrants: ordinary people who obeyed the respected

Most readers who know this ayah carry a picture with it. Somewhere long ago, a cruel king or an idol priest barked orders. A crowd of simple, frightened people did as they were told. The ayah, in this picture, is about them. Gullible people, wicked leaders, a lesson about the past.

Read the words again. They do not fit that picture.

The verb is aṭaʿnā: we obeyed. Not 'we were forced', not 'we worshipped'. Obeyed, the everyday word for doing what someone asks. It is the same verb as the wish in the previous ayah: if only we had obeyed Allah.

Then the two nouns. Sādatanā: our chiefs, the ones people gather round. Kubarāʾanā: our great ones, our elders, the big names. The commentaries widen them further. One early commentator said the chiefs are the nobles and the great ones are the scholars. Another commentary reads them as rulers and governors who run the affairs of the masses. It adds the senior figures from whom 'we learned the arts of evil'. Another says the plainest reading is general: leaders and heads of every kind.

None of that is exotic. It is the head of the family. The senior partner. The famous preacher. The popular friend who decides what is cool. The commentator on the screen whose opinions become ours. Anyone whose approval we want more than Allah's.

And notice what kind of sentence it is. It is not a confession. It is an excuse, addressed to Allah. One concise commentary calls it a flimsy, false argument. Another commentary observes something sly. The followers describe their leaders by titles of lordship and greatness, to strengthen the excuse. In the very place where those leaders are humiliated, the followers still call them 'great'.

So the ayah is not about other people. It is about a habit of the heart: handing my conscience to someone impressive, then planning to blame them later. The question it asks is uncomfortable. Whose name would I give, if I had to finish this sentence?

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.