Al-Ahzab · Madani · ayah 70 of 73

Al-Ahzab 33:70

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ ٱتَّقُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَقُولُوا۟ قَوْلًا سَدِيدًا

“O you who have believed, fear Allāh and speak words of appropriate justice.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Be mindful of Allah, and let every word leave you like a well-aimed arrow: true, just, and with no gap in it.

A reflection

You know this as the words before the sermon

Most Muslims have heard this ayah hundreds of times without ever being taught it. It arrives in the opening minute of a Friday sermon, or at a marriage contract. It sits inside a set formula: praise of Allah, the testimony of faith, then three ayat. Then the speaker clears his throat and the real talk begins.

That is the assumption worth naming. The formula feels like a preamble, the knock before entering. Listeners settle their coats and wait for the content.

The formula has a history, and it says the opposite. Al-Tirmidhi records Ibn Masʿud saying that the Prophet ﷺ taught them two testimonies. One was for the prayer. The other was for a need, al-ḥāja: praise, refuge, testimony, and three ayat. Al-Tirmidhi graded it ḥasan. Sunan Abi Dawud gives the full words, for marriage and other occasions, and they end on this ayah and the next.

So it was taught as the way to open any matter of importance. Before a marriage, before a sermon, before a request, the speaker first stood in front of Allah. The three ayat are not decoration. Each begins with the same call: O you who believe, be mindful of Allah.

Look at the three side by side. The first asks for taqwa as He deserves, and to die in submission (3:102). The second asks for taqwa of the One by whom you ask things of each other, and care for kin (4:1). This one asks for taqwa and then names a single act: wa-qūlū, and speak.

Of the three, this is the one about the tongue. It is spoken at the start of a speech, to people about to hear many words, by a man about to say many more. It is not the knock before the content. It is the measure every word that follows will be held against.

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.