Sad · Makki · ayah 39 of 88

Sad 38:39

هَـٰذَا عَطَآؤُنَا فَٱمْنُنْ أَوْ أَمْسِكْ بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ

“[We said], "This is Our gift, so grant or withhold without account."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah handed Sulayman the whole kingdom with one word, 'This is Our gift', and left him free to give or hold back, unaudited.

A reflection

Every gift wears a label

Hādhā ʿaṭāʾunā: this is Our gift. At the height of the greatest kingdom ever given, Allah names its owner. Not 'your kingdom', not 'your achievement'. Ours, given.

The root of ʿaṭāʾ pictures a hand. ʿAṭw is reaching up to take, like a gazelle rising on its hind legs to pull leaves from a branch. From it grew iʿṭāʾ, handing a thing across from one hand into another. A camel that stopped resisting was said to give its head. These senses are established in the lexicons.

So ʿaṭāʾ is something passed from a hand that held it first. The wind, the builders, the divers, the chained rebels: all had been in another hand before they were in Sulayman's.

That shrinks every ego that says 'mine'. A man hires a dinner jacket for a charity dinner. All evening he feels like a different person, shoulders back, the jacket beautifully cut. At home, as he hangs it up, he finds the label sewn inside the collar. 'Property of Elm Street Hire. Please return by Monday.' The jacket was no less elegant for being lent. It was only ever lent.

Salary, talent, beauty, health, children, influence: each wears a label we rarely read. Hādhā ʿaṭāʾunā.

Does Allah say this to be thanked, as if He needed the credit? He does not need it. The reminder is for the one holding the gift. Forgetting the label is what turns a blessing into arrogance. And arrogance ruins the one who carries it, not the One who gave. The kindest thing a Giver can do is tell you whose it is.

Sulayman heard it and did not grow proud. The same surah calls him awwāb, one who kept returning to his Lord (38:30). He knew whose hand the gift had come from, and he kept walking back to it.

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.