An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 118 of 176

An-Nisa 4:118

لَّعَنَهُ ٱللَّهُ ۘ وَقَالَ لَأَتَّخِذَنَّ مِنْ عِبَادِكَ نَصِيبًا مَّفْرُوضًا

“Whom Allāh has cursed. For he had said, "I will surely take from among Your servants a specific portion.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah drove Satan away from His mercy, and Satan swore to carve out a fixed share of Allah's servants for himself.

A reflection

Even the rebel says 'Your servants'

Listen to Satan's sentence closely. 'I will surely take, from Your servants, a fixed share.'

He is cursed, defiant, sworn to ruin. Yet even he cannot describe human beings except as belonging to Allah. He does not say 'my people' or 'humanity'. He says ʿibādika: Your servants. The enemy's own grammar admits whose they are. He can only ask for a portion of what is not his.

The ayah opens with Allah's act: laʿanahu Allāh, Allah cursed him. The classical lexicons give laʿn a clear picture: driving away and banishing. The Arabs called the wolf laʿīn, the one chased off from the camp, and an outcast man the same.

Why was he driven away? One classical commentator notes a view that the curse answers what he did: his arrogance in refusing to prostrate. Elsewhere the Quran gives his reason in his own words: 'I am better than him' (7:12). The first arrogance in creation ended in the first exile.

That should shrink something in us. The ego that says 'I am better than him' is speaking Iblis's oldest line. Picture a gifted sous-chef who walks out mid-service rather than plate one dish the head chef's way. Ten years later he still tells it as a triumph. He has never run a kitchen since.

Does the curse show a wounded God? No. Allah is free of all need (35:15). Satan's refusal took nothing from Him. The curse names the distance Satan chose when he put his own pride above his Lord's command.

The humbling truth runs both ways. Satan is mighty enough to be feared. Yet he is so small before Allah that he must still say 'Your servants'.

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.