Ghafir · Makki · ayah 69 of 85

Ghafir 40:69

أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَى ٱلَّذِينَ يُجَـٰدِلُونَ فِىٓ ءَايَـٰتِ ٱللَّهِ أَنَّىٰ يُصْرَفُونَ

“Do you not consider those who dispute concerning the signs of Allāh - how are they averted?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Look at those who argue against Allah's plain signs, and wonder: how are they being turned away, when everything points the other way?

A reflection

An invitation to wonder

A-lam tara. Have you not seen?

The ayah begins not with a statement but with an invitation to look. The commentaries hear astonishment in it. A modern commentary paraphrases: do you not wonder, O Messenger, at these people? They deny Allah's signs and argue about them, though their meaning is so clear. A narration-based commentary says the same: do you not marvel at them?

The root r-ʾ-y covers seeing with the eye and seeing with the heart: knowing, judging, holding a view. This is established. So a-lam tara asks for both. Look at them. Then understand what you are looking at.

That is a different response from anger. The Quran has spent many ayat setting out signs: night and day, earth and sky, the stages of a human life. Now it turns to those who argue against all of it, and the first reaction it models is wonder. How can this be?

Two friends sit on a bench outside a car park. A man stands at the payment machine, arguing loudly with it for ten minutes. It only takes cards. A large sign above the slot says so. The friends do not get angry with him. They look at each other with something like amazement. How can he not see it?

That is roughly the feeling the ayah expresses, on a far graver scale. The signs are not hidden. The man is not blind. And yet he does not see.

There is a lesson here for believers who meet people arguing against faith. The first response need not be outrage. It can be honest wonder: how has this happened to you? Wonder keeps the heart soft. It leaves room for a question rather than a verdict.

It also turns back on us. Is there anything plain in front of me that I keep arguing with?

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.