Ghafir · Makki · ayah 47 of 85

Ghafir 40:47

وَإِذْ يَتَحَآجُّونَ فِى ٱلنَّارِ فَيَقُولُ ٱلضُّعَفَـٰٓؤُا۟ لِلَّذِينَ ٱسْتَكْبَرُوٓا۟ إِنَّا كُنَّا لَكُمْ تَبَعًا فَهَلْ أَنتُم مُّغْنُونَ عَنَّا نَصِيبًا مِّنَ ٱلنَّارِ

“And [mention] when they will argue within the Fire, and the weak will say to those who had been arrogant, "Indeed, we were [only] your followers, so will you relieve us of a share of the Fire?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

In the Fire, the followers turn on the leaders they obeyed and ask them to carry a share of it, and the leaders cannot.

A reflection

We walked behind you

Innā kunnā lakum tabaʿan. We were your followers.

The root t-b-ʿ carries a gentle picture in the lexicons. A calf at its mother's heels. A shadow that never leaves the one who casts it. To follow is to put someone ahead of you and walk their track. The dictionaries add a harder edge: to follow is also to answer for where that track leads.

The word in the ayah, tabaʿ, has a grammar the commentaries discuss at length. It can be a plural, like servants gathered round a master. Or it can be a verbal noun, following itself. One later commentary draws out what that second reading implies. They followed so completely that they became the following. Nothing of them was left over.

One narration-based commentary voices what the followers are really saying. We hurried to win your approval in the world. We came to this through you. Had it not been for you, we would have believed.

It is a confession and an accusation at once. They admit they followed. They want the following itself to count as their defence.

A toddler follows his older brother down the stairs, step for step. When the brother jumps the last three, the toddler jumps too. He was not choosing the jump. He was choosing the brother.

That is how most following works. We rarely choose each act. We choose a person, a crowd, a way of life, and then the acts come with them. The followers in the Fire did not decide each day to oppose the messengers. They decided once whom to walk behind.

So the most important question about following is asked early, not late. Not, is this act right? But, where does this person's track end? The calf at the heels does not ask. A human being is given the gift of asking, and will be asked whether they used 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.