Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 17 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:17

وَإِذَا بُشِّرَ أَحَدُهُم بِمَا ضَرَبَ لِلرَّحْمَـٰنِ مَثَلًا ظَلَّ وَجْهُهُۥ مُسْوَدًّا وَهُوَ كَظِيمٌ

“And when one of them is given good tidings of that which he attributes to the Most Merciful in comparison [i.e., a daughter], his face becomes dark, and he suppresses grief.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They ascribed daughters to the Most Merciful, yet darkened at news of their own: the claim is judged by their own faces.

A reflection

Good news that darkens the face

Bushshira: he is given good news. The root of the word has a lovely picture. Basharā is the outer skin, the surface people see. Good news is called bishāra because it changes that skin. When the heart is glad, blood spreads through the face like water through a tree, and the face shines. The lexicons give this plainly, and the image is established.

Now read the ayah again. He is given news that ought to make his face shine, and instead his face darkens. The very word for the announcement expects a glow. What appears is shadow.

That is the bitter irony the ayah draws. The birth of a child is the classic bishāra. The commentaries say plainly what news is meant here: the birth of a daughter. The same daughters they were happy to ascribe to the Most Merciful.

Picture a midwife who has worked on a maternity ward for many years. She has learned to glance at the father's face in the second after she says: it's a girl. Most faces open. A few close. She has seen a man's jaw tighten and his eyes go to his phone, already composing what to tell his mother. She says nothing. She wraps the baby and puts her in her mother's arms.

The ayah captures that second exactly. It does not lecture. It simply describes the face.

The Quran elsewhere passes judgement on that reaction: evil is what they judge (16:59). But here the face itself is the evidence. A man who darkens at the news of a daughter has testified, without speaking, that he despises what he ascribed to Allah. Good news was given, and he turned it into grief.

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.