Fussilat · Makki · ayah 4 of 54

Fussilat 41:4

بَشِيرًا وَنَذِيرًا فَأَعْرَضَ أَكْثَرُهُمْ فَهُمْ لَا يَسْمَعُونَ

“As a giver of good tidings and a warner; but most of them turn away, so they do not hear.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Book arrived carrying good news and a warning, and most simply turned their faces aside, so that hearing every word, they heard nothing.

A reflection

Showing only your side

Aʿraḍa is usually translated "turned away", which sounds like an exit. The root paints something smaller and more exact. Its core is breadth, the opposite of length. A stick laid across the mouth of a jar is ʿaraḍa. Something set across a road blocks it by its width. To turn away, aʿraḍa, is to show someone your side.

Picture it physically. Someone is speaking to you. You do not walk out. You simply shift your weight and turn a shoulder, and now they are talking to the breadth of you, not your face. You can still hear every word. But you have arranged your body so that none of it needs to land.

The commentaries supply the motive. One says they were too proud to incline their ears to it, or to reflect on the arguments of Allah inside it. Another says they would not listen, out of arrogance. Pride rarely announces itself. It usually turns a shoulder.

Think of a family gathering where an uncle begins, gently, to raise the subject of prayer. His nephew does not argue. He laughs politely, turns a little towards the television, and asks who is winning. The conversation moves on. Nobody would call it rejection. Yet the side of a face has done exactly what this ayah describes.

That is why the word unsettles. Most of us would never slam a door on the Qur'an. We are more likely to show it our shoulder. We keep a recitation playing in the background while scrolling. We nod through a sermon while drafting a message in our heads. We glance at a verse on a screen and move past it with an inward "yes, yes".

The cure is equally physical. Turn back. Face the words. The opposite of aʿraḍa is not a grand conversion; it is a small adjustment of the body and the will. Put down what you are holding, look at the page, and let the speaker see your face again.

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.