As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 149 of 182

As-Saffat 37:149

فَٱسْتَفْتِهِمْ أَلِرَبِّكَ ٱلْبَنَاتُ وَلَهُمُ ٱلْبَنُونَ

“So inquire of them, [O Muḥammad], "Does your Lord have daughters while they have sons?[1307]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Ask them for their own verdict: would they really give their Lord the very children they dreaded, and keep for themselves the ones they prized?

A reflection

Does the Quran treat daughters as second best?

Read quickly, this ayah can sound troubling to a modern ear. Daughters for your Lord, and sons for them? Is the Quran assuming sons are better?

The commentaries are clear about what is being exposed. Some Arab tribes, which the commentaries name, claimed the angels were daughters of Allah. Two modern concise commentaries put the question exactly. How could they assign to Allah the daughters whom they themselves dislike, and keep the sons they want? A rhetorical commentary adds the context: their intense dislike of daughters, their burying them alive, their shame at even hearing of them.

So the argument works from inside their own prejudice. It does not endorse it. It holds up a mirror: by your own standards, you have given God what you despise.

The Quran attacks that prejudice directly elsewhere. When one of them is given news of a daughter, his face darkens and he hides from people in shame (16:58–59). On the Last Day the buried girl will be asked for what sin she was killed (81:8–9). And the Prophet ﷺ turned the prejudice upside down. Muslim records him saying that whoever raises two girls to maturity will come on the Day of Resurrection beside him. He joined his fingers together.

Think of a satirist who writes, in a mock-serious voice, a piece praising a landlord's excuses for a damp flat. Some readers miss the irony and accuse her of defending landlords. She was quoting their own logic so its ugliness would show.

The Quran is doing something weightier than satire, but the move is similar. It quotes the Quraysh's own ranking to show that their theology insults God even by their own measure. What remains open, for each reader, is whether any trace of that ranking survives in us.

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.