Fatir · Makki · ayah 22 of 45

Fatir 35:22

وَمَا يَسْتَوِى ٱلْأَحْيَآءُ وَلَا ٱلْأَمْوَٰتُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُسْمِعُ مَن يَشَآءُ ۖ وَمَآ أَنتَ بِمُسْمِعٍ مَّن فِى ٱلْقُبُورِ

“And not equal are the living and the dead. Indeed, Allāh causes to hear whom He wills, but you cannot make hear those in the graves.[1249]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Only Allah carries a word across the gap between life and death into a heart; your part is to stay alive enough to hear.

A reflection

The ear that only He can open

Inna Allāha yusmiʿu man yashāʾ: Allah makes hear whom He wills. The verb is causative. It does not say Allah speaks to whom He wills. It says He makes them hear.

That is a different claim, and a humbling one. Sound reaching an ear is physics. A word reaching a heart, turning it, settling in it, is something nobody manufactures. One classical theologian puts it at full strength. Allah makes hear whom He wills, even if it were a solid rock.

The surah has already told the caller that guiding is not his (35:8). This ayah turns to the other side of the conversation: the listener. And here the listener's ego shrinks.

Picture a man in his fifties who knows a great deal of Quran. He has heard 'Is not Allah sufficient for His servant?' (39:36) perhaps a hundred times. He could recite it in his sleep. Then one evening he sits in a hospital car park, waiting for news about his wife. The car radio is on low. The same ayah comes on, in a reciter's voice he barely notices. And for the first time in his life he hears it. He sits there for twenty minutes, unable to start the engine.

Nothing about the words had changed. He had not become cleverer or more attentive. The hearing was given, at a moment he did not choose.

That is the quiet pride this ayah dissolves. We like to think we are good listeners, open and serious. We assume that because we have read an ayah, we have heard it. The ayah says real hearing is a gift, granted to whom He wills.

So the question turns round. Not whether I am attentive enough. Whether I have asked to be made a hearer.

Allah does not need our hearing; He is not enlarged when we listen. The causative verb is a mercy, not a boast. It tells us where to knock.

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.