As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 75 of 182

As-Saffat 37:75

وَلَقَدْ نَادَىٰنَا نُوحٌ فَلَنِعْمَ ٱلْمُجِيبُونَ

“And Noah had certainly called Us, and [We are] the best of responders.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Nuh called out across the distance, and Allah, under oath, praises Himself as the One who answers: a King known for listening.

A reflection

The King who praises Himself for answering

Listen to how Allah speaks of Himself here. Fa-la-niʿma al-mujībūn: and how excellent are We as answerers. The sentence is sworn; the grammarians explain the la as answering an unspoken oath. By Allah, excellent answerers We were. And the plural of majesty comes twice: Nuh called Us; excellent are We.

One classical commentary draws the point out. The Mighty, the All-Able, befits only great generosity. Of all the things He could praise in Himself here, power, knowledge, kingship, He praises His answering. The Greatest describes Himself by how He responded to one servant's cry.

Set that beside the way we praise ourselves. Picture an awards dinner. Speaker after speaker lists achievements: the deals, the titles, the buildings with their names on. Then the oldest guest, a retired village doctor, stands up. He says only that for forty years he answered the phone at night. The room goes quiet. The others had praised what they had built. He praised what he had been for others.

Human self-praise is usually the ego asking to be admired. It inflates, it competes, it needs an audience. Allah's self-praise is the opposite. He needs nothing from us; He is free of need, the Praised (35:15). When He praises Himself as the best of answerers, He is not asking for applause. He is telling us whom to call.

Let that rearrange your pride. The things you most want admiration for are rarely the things that matter. The One who owns everything chose to be known, in this ayah, as the One who answers. If greatness looks like that at its height, the best greatness open to us is to answer too. Be the friend who picks up, the parent who listens, the servant who calls on his Lord.

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.