An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 164 of 176

An-Nisa 4:164

وَرُسُلًا قَدْ قَصَصْنَـٰهُمْ عَلَيْكَ مِن قَبْلُ وَرُسُلًا لَّمْ نَقْصُصْهُمْ عَلَيْكَ ۚ وَكَلَّمَ ٱللَّهُ مُوسَىٰ تَكْلِيمًا

“And [We sent] messengers about whom We have related [their stories] to you before and messengers about whom We have not related to you. And Allāh spoke to Moses with [direct] speech.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Some messengers are named and many are not; to Musa, Allah spoke directly, a unique honour from the One whose speech is real.

A reflection

Take off your sandals

Wa-kallama llāhu Mūsā taklīmā: and Allah spoke to Musa, truly spoke.

The concise commentaries say it without hedging. Allah spoke to Musa directly, with no go-between, in a way that befits His majesty. One classical scholar calls this the highest rank of guidance there is: Allah addressing His servant, awake, with nothing in between.

Think how we react when someone important speaks to us. Picture a junior analyst in a large firm who sends a suggestion upward. The chief executive replies in two lines, by name. She reads it four times. She forwards it to her parents. For a week she walks a little taller.

Now hear what Musa was told in that valley. Take off your sandals; you are in the sacred valley (20:12). The first response to being addressed by Allah was not pride. It was bare feet. Later Musa asked to see Him, and when his Lord appeared to the mountain, it crumbled to dust, and Musa fell down senseless (7:143). He woke saying, I turn to You in repentance.

That is what real nearness to greatness does to a sound heart. It does not inflate the ego. It empties it.

The ayah also shrinks us in another way. Allah speaks; nothing is like Him (42:11). His speech is not a louder version of ours, and we are not told how it was. We are told only that it was real.

Why would He tell us this? Not because He needs His speech admired. He is free of all need (35:15). He tells us because every page of the Quran in your hands is that same Speaker's word. The honour Musa received on the mountain has a quiet echo in every reader's lap.

Next time you open the Quran, pause before you begin. Take off your sandals, in your heart at least. You are being spoken to.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.