Fussilat · Makki · ayah 21 of 54

Fussilat 41:21

وَقَالُوا۟ لِجُلُودِهِمْ لِمَ شَهِدتُّمْ عَلَيْنَا ۖ قَالُوٓا۟ أَنطَقَنَا ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَنطَقَ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ وَهُوَ خَلَقَكُمْ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍ وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ

“And they will say to their skins, "Why have you testified against us?" They will say, "We were made to speak by Allāh, who has made everything speak; and He created you the first time, and to Him you are returned.”

Saheeh International

Essence

When they ask their own skin why it testified, it answers that the One who gave everything speech gave it to them too.

A reflection

The One who gave every tongue its speech

The skins' answer is short and devastating. "Allah made us speak, who made everything speak." One commentary adds what follows from it: He is not opposed, and He is not resisted.

Pause on the phrase "who made everything speak". Every voice that has ever spoken was given its speech. The tongue that argued against Allah in this life was speaking with a gift from Him. One commentator says "everything" here means every living thing that speaks. The power that gave speech to each of them gives it now to skin.

The ego treats speech as its own possession. My voice, my opinion, my right to say what I like. Picture a father at the breakfast table. His two-year-old daughter, for the first time, says a full sentence: "Daddy, the milk is too cold." He laughs, then stops. He never taught her grammar. Nobody sat her down with verbs and nouns. The speech simply arrived, from somewhere beyond him.

That is the humility this ayah asks for. Every word you have ever spoken was put in your mouth by the One who made everything speak. If He can give a child grammar without a lesson, He can give skin a voice without a tongue.

A sceptic might hear this as a tyrant boasting of total surveillance. But the skins do not say: we were spying for Him. They say: He made us speak, as He made you speak. The witness is not a hidden camera installed against you. It is the same gift of speech you were given, now used truthfully. What you did with your tongue, your skin will now say plainly.

So guard your speech, not out of fear of a watcher, but out of gratitude to a Giver. And let the ego shrink a little each time you open your mouth. The words were lent.

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.