Fussilat · Makki · ayah 26 of 54

Fussilat 41:26

وَقَالَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَا تَسْمَعُوا۟ لِهَـٰذَا ٱلْقُرْءَانِ وَٱلْغَوْا۟ فِيهِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَغْلِبُونَ

“And those who disbelieve say, "Do not listen to this Qur’ān and speak noisily[1391] during [the recitation of] it that perhaps you will overcome."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Unable to answer the Quran, they agreed not to hear it, and to drown it in noise: a plan that was itself a confession.

A reflection

The strategy that confessed defeat

The instruction is blunt: do not listen to this Qur'an, make noise during it, and perhaps you will win. One commentator says the leaders of Quraysh used to urge this on one another. Another lists the methods: whistling, clapping and jumbling their speech whenever the Prophet ﷺ recited.

One classical commentator sees straight through the plan. They knew, he says, that the Qur'an was complete in meaning and in wording. They knew that anyone who heard it would grasp its force and judge it true and binding. So they devised a scheme to stop people hearing it at all. And in doing so, he adds, they confessed that they were busy with nonsense and falsehood.

That is the deep irony of the ayah. The strategy of noise is only needed by someone who expects to lose on the merits. Nobody tries to drown out an argument they can easily answer.

Picture a school debating competition. One team is clearly losing; their opponents' case is calm, well-evidenced and hard to rebut. So the losing team starts raising points of order, objecting to the wording, demanding clarifications, until the clock runs out. They have not answered the case. They have simply stopped it being heard.

Anyone who has watched arguments in public life has seen the same move. When a position cannot be defeated, it is shouted over, mocked, or buried under a flood of irrelevant talk.

There is a lesson here for believers, too. Do not be rattled when the message you carry is met with noise rather than answers. Noise is often a sign that the message has been understood, and feared. And there is a lesson for anyone tempted to use noise themselves. If you find yourself drowning out a view instead of answering it, ask what you are afraid would happen if it were heard.

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.