Saba · Makki · ayah 53 of 54

Saba 34:53

وَقَدْ كَفَرُوا۟ بِهِۦ مِن قَبْلُ ۖ وَيَقْذِفُونَ بِٱلْغَيْبِ مِن مَّكَانٍۭ بَعِيدٍ

“And they had already disbelieved in it before and would assault[1241] the unseen from a place far away.[1242]”

Saheeh International

Essence

They denied it while it was near, and kept hurling guesses at the unseen from a distance where no throw could land.

A reflection

Labels thrown from the far end of his life

What were they hurling? The early commentators answer with a list. A sorcerer, said some. No, a soothsayer. A poet. A madman. One commentator notes how the charge changed from one day to the next.

Another commentator adds a sharp observation. These were guesses about the hidden, because none of it had ever been seen. They had seen no sorcery from him, heard no poetry, caught him in no lie. So every label came from the point furthest from his known life. The furthest thing from what he brought was poetry and sorcery. The furthest thing from his tested habits was lying.

That is why the ayah says from a place far away. A throw from a great distance, at a target the thrower cannot see, lands anywhere but the target.

An opponent once gave unwilling testimony to the same point. Al-Bukhari records that the Byzantine emperor questioned Abu Sufyan, then still opposed to Islam. Had they ever accused him of lying before he made his claim? No, came the answer. The emperor drew his conclusion. A man who would not lie about people would not then lie about God.

The labels, in other words, were not conclusions. They were missiles, thrown to stop people listening rather than to describe him.

Notice the verb. Yaqdhifūna, they hurl, is in the present tense, though the hurling lay in the past. The commentators explain it as a past habit made vivid: the throwing went on and on. When one label failed, another was launched.

That is a pattern worth recognising. When the charges against someone keep changing while his conduct stays the same, the fault is rarely in him. It lies in the distance from which the stones are thrown.

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.