Sad · Makki · ayah 47 of 88

Sad 38:47

وَإِنَّهُمْ عِندَنَا لَمِنَ ٱلْمُصْطَفَيْنَ ٱلْأَخْيَارِ

“And indeed they are, to Us, among the chosen and outstanding.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Called lost by their own people, they are declared, with double emphasis, chosen and among the best in the only estimate that lasts: His.

A reflection

'With Us': the verdict that outlasts the others

Wa innahum ʿindanā: and they, with Us. Before the ayah says what they are, it says where the verdict comes from. And it says it with double emphasis, inna at the start and la- before the description. One commentator explains the weight: Allah takes particular care to make the reader sure of their standing with Him.

They needed it. Think of how these men were rated by those around them. Ibrāhīm's father threatened to stone him (19:46). His people shouted 'burn him' (21:68). Yaʿqūb's own sons said their father was 'in plain error' (12:8). Years later, when he caught the scent of Yūsuf's shirt, they told him he was still in his 'old error' (12:95). The men closest to them called them lost.

The ayah answers all of it with one word: ʿindanā, with Us. One commentator weighs where that word belongs in the sentence. It may qualify the whole description: they are, in Our estimation, among the chosen. That is the point. Their fathers, their people and their own sons had given a verdict. Allah gives a different one, and says plainly whose verdict it is.

Picture a young architect whose first public building is mocked in the local paper. A columnist calls it a concrete box. People share the article with laughing faces. A week later a postcard arrives from the professor who taught her, now eighty-one. On the back is one line: 'This is honest work. Keep going.' She pins it above her desk. The newspaper went in the recycling within a month.

Most of us live by a scoreboard kept by other people: family, colleagues, followers, the person whose opinion we cannot shake. The ayah does not say those people do not matter. Ibrāhīm still pleaded gently with his father, and Yaʿqūb still loved his sons. But it says their verdict was not the last one. Some of those who called them lost lived to say so themselves. Yaʿqūb's sons came back to him: 'Father, ask forgiveness for our sins; we were in the wrong' (12:97). When the verdicts around you are loud, ask which one will still be standing at the end.

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.