An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 133 of 176

An-Nisa 4:133

إِن يَشَأْ يُذْهِبْكُمْ أَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ وَيَأْتِ بِـَٔاخَرِينَ ۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ عَلَىٰ ذَٰلِكَ قَدِيرًا

“If He wills, He can do away with you, O people, and bring others [in your place]. And ever is Allāh competent to do that.”

Saheeh International

Essence

If He willed, He could replace every one of us with others; that He has not is wisdom and respite.

A reflection

Others of exactly your kind

In yashaʾ yudhhibkum ayyuhā n-nās: if He wills, He can take you away, O people, and bring others.

One commentator pauses on the word ākharīn, others. Arabic, he notes, uses ākhar for another of the same kind. So the replacement is pictured as more people. Not angels, not a different creation. People just like you, who simply do better with the trust.

That is a quietly devastating detail for human pride. We like to think our place is secured by who we are: our species, our generation, our community, our record. The ayah says the place can be filled by someone exactly like us. What made us valuable was never our kind. It was what we did with the time.

One early authority reflected on such ayat: how insignificant servants become to Allah when they neglect His command.

Picture a village cricket club. For thirty-one years the same man has run its fixtures. Every spring, at the annual meeting, he threatens to resign unless he gets his way. One year, quietly, they accept. A twenty-nine-year-old takes over. Fixtures go online, two new teams form, and the club has its best season in a decade.

He was not useless. He was replaceable, and he had forgotten it.

This is where the ego shrinks. Every role we hold, at home, at work, in the mosque, in the world, is held on a lease. The One who can bring others is not short of people.

Does Allah need to remind us of His power? He needs nothing; He is free of need, as the ayat just before say (4:131). The reminder is for us, so we hold our place with humility while we still hold 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.