An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 108 of 176

An-Nisa 4:108

يَسْتَخْفُونَ مِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ وَلَا يَسْتَخْفُونَ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ وَهُوَ مَعَهُمْ إِذْ يُبَيِّتُونَ مَا لَا يَرْضَىٰ مِنَ ٱلْقَوْلِ ۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ بِمَا يَعْمَلُونَ مُحِيطًا

“They conceal [their evil intentions and deeds] from the people, but they cannot conceal [them] from Allāh, and He is with them [in His knowledge] when they spend the night in such as He does not accept of speech. And ever is Allāh, of what they do, encompassing.”

Saheeh International

Essence

People hide their schemes from one another, yet Allah is with them as they plot, and His knowledge surrounds all they do.

A reflection

Hiding from the wrong audience

Yastakhfūna mina al-nāsi wa-lā yastakhfūna mina Allāh: they hide from people, but they do not hide from Allah.

One classical commentator draws out the absurdity. They hid from people, who could do nothing to them except speak ill of what they had done. They did not hide from Allah, who saw everything and held every consequence in His hand. He is the One most deserving of that shyness.

Another commentator adds a fine point. Hiding from Allah is impossible, so the ayah cannot mean they failed to try. It means they felt no shame before Him. The only real way to hide from Him is to leave what He would hold you to account for.

This is where the ego shrinks. Most of us spend enormous effort managing our image before people. We edit the photo, rehearse the excuse and delete the message. Our reputation feels like the thing that matters most. The ayah turns that upside down. The audience we curate for is the one that matters least.

The ayah ends: wa-kāna Allāhu bi-mā yaʿmalūna muḥīṭā, and Allah encompasses what they do. The root of muḥīṭ pictures a wall built all the way round a date grove. Nothing inside escapes it, and everything inside is kept.

A sceptic may object that a God who sees everything sounds like surveillance. But the root's picture holds both feelings at once: hemmed in, and kept safe. Which you feel depends on what you are doing inside the wall.

Picture a nurse on a neonatal unit at three in the morning. She watches six monitors at once, every heartbeat and every breath. The parents asleep down the corridor do not call that surveillance. They call it the reason they can sleep.

So stop asking who might find out. Ask instead what you would do if you remembered who already knows.

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.