As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 136 of 182

As-Saffat 37:136

ثُمَّ دَمَّرْنَا ٱلْـَٔاخَرِينَ

“Then We destroyed the others.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Only after the last believer was clear did ruin break in on the town, leaving the mockers without even a name: 'the others'.

A reflection

Ruin that does not knock

Then We destroyed them. The verb is dammara, and its root has an established and unsettling first picture. Damara was to go in: a man entering his house, a hedgehog slipping into its burrow, a hunter creeping into his hide. Going in without permission was dumūr. From that uninvited entry came damār: ruin that roots a thing out and leaves no trace. A flood was said to dammara a place, erasing it.

So the word does not describe a siege from outside. It describes ruin coming in, through doors that were thought to be shut. A concise classical commentary glosses it simply as We destroyed. A linguistic commentary, on the same words elsewhere, says it was the most severe and dreadful destruction.

The ego builds walls and trusts them. Lut's people trusted their numbers, their town and their customs. They could threaten to expel a prophet and crowd at his door. The idea that something could come in on them did not occur.

Picture a man who has fitted his house with a steel door, cameras and an alarm. He tells his friends that nobody could get in. One night of heavy rain, the river rises silently, and the water comes in under the steel door and through the floorboards. The alarm never sounds. There was nothing for it to detect.

The ayah's We is the reason. Nothing that Allah sends needs permission to enter. That is not a threat to the humble; it is the reason they feel safe. It is a warning to the arrogant, who think their walls are their protection.

Allah does not say this to frighten for its own sake. He needs nothing from anyone's fear. He says it so that pride never mistakes a locked door for safety.

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.