An-Nisa · Madani · ayah 60 of 176

An-Nisa 4:60

أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ يَزْعُمُونَ أَنَّهُمْ ءَامَنُوا۟ بِمَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ وَمَآ أُنزِلَ مِن قَبْلِكَ يُرِيدُونَ أَن يَتَحَاكَمُوٓا۟ إِلَى ٱلطَّـٰغُوتِ وَقَدْ أُمِرُوٓا۟ أَن يَكْفُرُوا۟ بِهِۦ وَيُرِيدُ ٱلشَّيْطَـٰنُ أَن يُضِلَّهُمْ ضَلَـٰلًۢا بَعِيدًا

“Have you not seen those who claim to have believed in what was revealed to you, [O Muḥammad], and what was revealed before you? They wish to refer legislation to ṭāghūt,[195] while they were commanded to reject it; and Satan wishes to lead them far astray.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Faith stays a claim until a quarrel presses on it; then the judge a person reaches for shows what they truly believe.

A reflection

The outsider who trusted the verdict

Two neighbours split the bill for a cracked boundary wall and cannot agree on the shares. The one who has not prayed in years says: let the imam decide, he will not take sides. The one who never misses Friday says: let my cousin on the residents' committee settle it.

The commentaries preserve a scene with exactly that shape. Several early reports place this ayah in a quarrel between a man who claimed to be a Muslim and a Jewish man of Madinah. The Jewish man wanted to take the case to the Prophet ﷺ. The reports give his reason plainly. He knew the Prophet took no bribe and would not lean in judgement. The man who claimed faith wanted another judge, one he knew would take a payment. In one report they settled on a soothsayer from the tribe of Juhaynah.

The reports differ in their details. Some make the other judge a soothsayer, some a hostile chief of Madinah, some an idol consulted with arrows. A classical commentary gathers them and says the ayah is wider than all of them. It blames anyone who turns from the Book and the Sunnah to some other judge.

But sit with the irony the narrations keep. The man outside the faith trusted the Prophet's justice. The man inside it avoided him, for one reason: he expected to lose.

That is the test this ayah sets. It does not ask whom you praise. It asks where you run when the verdict will cost you. A person can admire justice for years from a safe distance. The quarrel shows whether he wanted justice, or only wanted to win.

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.