Fussilat · Makki · ayah 5 of 54

Fussilat 41:5

وَقَالُوا۟ قُلُوبُنَا فِىٓ أَكِنَّةٍ مِّمَّا تَدْعُونَآ إِلَيْهِ وَفِىٓ ءَاذَانِنَا وَقْرٌ وَمِنۢ بَيْنِنَا وَبَيْنِكَ حِجَابٌ فَٱعْمَلْ إِنَّنَا عَـٰمِلُونَ

“And they say, "Our hearts are within coverings [i.e., screened] from that to which you invite us, and in our ears is deafness, and between us and you is a partition, so work;[1383] indeed, we are working."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Hearts sheathed like arrows, ears weighed down, a screen built from both sides: they described their own deafness, then offered it as an excuse.

A reflection

Hearts kept in a quiver

"Our hearts are in coverings." The word is akinna, plural of kinān. The lexicons give the root as covering that guards: a kinn was a shelter against heat and cold. An early commentator gives it a sharper picture. The heart's covering, he said, is like the quiver for arrows. Another classical commentator agrees: the kinān is the thing in which arrows are kept.

Think about what a quiver does. It protects the arrows from damp and damage. It keeps them straight and sharp. And it keeps them from flying. An arrow in its quiver is safe, and useless. It will never reach anything, and nothing will ever reach it.

That is the self-portrait the deniers drew. They did not say their hearts were empty or wicked. They said their hearts were kept, sheathed, well protected from what the Prophet ﷺ was calling them to. There may even have been a kind of pride in it. Our hearts are guarded. Your words cannot get in.

Picture a member of an archery club. He owns a beautiful set of carbon arrows, bought years ago, fletched in the colours of his first club. He keeps them in a hard case, oils the case, checks them every season. He never shoots them, because they might be damaged. Ten years on they are perfect. They have hit nothing.

Many people keep their hearts like that. Faith, grief, a question about God that frightens them: all sheathed and stored. It feels like safety. But a heart is made to fly towards something. A guarded heart that never risks being touched by truth is not protected. It is simply unused.

So listen to your own sentences. "That's private." "I don't go there." "I've made my peace with it." Sometimes those are wise. Sometimes they are a quiver. The surah's answer, in the next ayah, is gentle: turn straight towards Him (41:6). Take the arrow out. Let it go where it was made to go.

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.