As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 138 of 182

As-Saffat 37:138

وَبِٱلَّيْلِ ۗ أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ

“And at night. Then will you not use reason?”

Saheeh International

Essence

By morning and by night you pass the ruins; the question that follows is whether anything in you is tied back by what you see.

A reflection

Reason is a hobble

Will you not use your reason? The verb taʿqilūn comes from a root with an established and very concrete picture. To ʿaqala a camel was to fold its foreleg and bind it with a rope, the ʿiqāl. Then it could not wander off or bolt. One lexicon says the whole root means holding back. Reason, ʿaql, takes its name from that rope: it is what holds a person back from blameworthy speech and action. Another lexicon adds that it ties its owner back from plunging into ruin.

So the question at the end of Lut's story is not are you clever? The Makkans were clever traders. It is does anything hold you back? They passed the evidence of ruin morning and night, and nothing in them was tied.

A narration-based commentary explains the question in exactly that spirit. Have you no minds to reflect with, it asks? Then you would realise that whoever takes the path of Lut's people meets the same end, and be restrained from idolatry.

Picture a brilliant structural engineer. He can calculate the load on any beam in his head. Yet most Friday nights he drives home after six pints, sure of his own judgement. His intelligence is real. But in the Quran's sense, he is not using his reason, because nothing in him holds him back from the edge he can see.

That is the misunderstanding this ayah corrects. ʿAql is not measured by how much you know. It is measured by whether what you know stops you.

Ask yourself where your knowledge is loose, like a camel without its hobble. Which truth do you understand perfectly, and still let wander?

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.