Ghafir · Makki · ayah 58 of 85

Ghafir 40:58

وَمَا يَسْتَوِى ٱلْأَعْمَىٰ وَٱلْبَصِيرُ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ وَلَا ٱلْمُسِىٓءُ ۚ قَلِيلًا مَّا تَتَذَكَّرُونَ

“And not equal are the blind and the seeing, nor are those who believe and do righteous deeds and the evildoer. Little do you remember.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The blind and the seeing are not equal, nor the believer who does good and the one who harms, yet people rarely reflect on it.

A reflection

A cloud over the track

Wa-mā yastawī al-aʿmā wal-baṣīr. The blind and the seeing are not equal.

The root ʿ-m-y has a striking picture in the lexicons. A thick cloud settles over the land, and every track disappears. ʿAmā is sight covered. The lexicons give covering and veiling as the root's one meaning. It can cover the eyes, or, far worse, the heart. This is established.

The commentaries read the ayah as being about the heart. A classical rhetorical commentary says the blind and the seeing are a likeness for the one who does good and the one who does harm. A later commentary describes the blind as the one heedless of knowing the truth about his beginning and his return. The seeing is the one with insight into both.

That matters, because the word can wound if it is misread. This ayah says nothing against people who cannot see with their eyes. The Quran says elsewhere: it is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts within the chests (22:46).

An elderly man lost his sight ten years ago. His granddaughter comes home from school and says hello in a perfectly cheerful voice. He asks her, quietly, what happened today. She bursts into tears. Her parents, who saw her face, had noticed nothing.

He is baṣīr in the sense the ayah means. The baṣīra, the lexicons say, is inner sight, conviction of the heart, the ability to read what is really there. It is the hunter reading a trail, not just the eye taking in light.

So the question the ayah asks is not about our eyes. It is about the cloud over our hearts. Can I see where my life is going? Can I see the One who made me, in what He made? Or has a thick cloud settled, and every track disappeared?

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.