Sad · Makki · ayah 7 of 88

Sad 38:7

مَا سَمِعْنَا بِهَـٰذَا فِى ٱلْمِلَّةِ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ إِنْ هَـٰذَآ إِلَّا ٱخْتِلَـٰقٌ

“We have not heard of this in the latest religion.[1319] This is not but a fabrication.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They called the oldest message in their valley new, and judged it by whether they had heard it before.

A reflection

Two grandfathers, one sentence

Millah is the word this ayah uses for a religion. One classical derivation pictures a track trodden across open ground until it becomes a road. Another ties it to dictation: a way laid down for others to copy. Either way, a millah is something inherited and walked.

Both Sahihs preserve a scene that shows how heavy that inheritance can be. Abū Ṭālib, the Prophet's uncle and protector, was dying. The Prophet ﷺ pleaded with him to say lā ilāha illā Allāh, a word he could plead for him before Allah. Two men of Quraysh sat at the bedside. They said: would you turn away from the millah of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib? The Prophet ﷺ kept urging, and they kept repeating it. His uncle's last words were that he was on the millah of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib.

Now set their sentence beside one in the Quran. 'And who would turn away from the millah of Ibrāhīm, except one who fools himself?' (2:130). The verb is the same: to turn away from. The word is the same: millah. Only the grandfather has changed.

That substitution is the quiet tragedy of this ayah. The Quraysh were the guardians of a House raised by Ibrāhīm (as) for the worship of One God (2:127). His millah was the oldest track in their valley. When the Prophet ﷺ called them back to it, they said they had never heard of such a thing. They had walked a nearer grandfather's road so long that the older one beneath it had vanished.

The Quran calls Ibrāhīm (as) ḥanīf, inclined to the truth. It says plainly that he was not one of those who set up partners with Allah (16:123). So what the leaders called unheard of was in fact the original. What they called the way of their fathers was the later layer.

Most families have something like this. A practice everyone defends as 'how we have always done it' turns out, when someone checks, to be two generations old. It was laid on top of something older and better. The question is not whether to honour your grandfathers. It is which ones, and how far back you are willing to walk.

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.