Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 22 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:22

بَلْ قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّا وَجَدْنَآ ءَابَآءَنَا عَلَىٰٓ أُمَّةٍ وَإِنَّا عَلَىٰٓ ءَاثَـٰرِهِم مُّهْتَدُونَ

“Rather, they say, "Indeed, we found our fathers upon a religion, and we are in their footsteps [rightly] guided."”

Saheeh International

Essence

With no knowledge and no book behind them, their real reason was this: we found our fathers on a way, and we follow their footprints.

A reflection

Footprints in the snow on a misty fell

Wa innā ʿalā āthārihim muhtadūn: and we are guided along their footprints. An athar is what remains after something has passed: a footprint, a scar, the sheen left on a polished blade. The Arabs cut a mark into the sole of a camel's foot so that its tracks could be read in the sand. To walk ʿalā athari-hi was to follow someone's footprints. The lexicons give this plainly, and the image is established.

So the Makkans' claim has a picture. We walk in our fathers' tracks, and that is our guidance. Several commentaries gloss it simply: we follow them on their path.

Picture a small group of walkers on a high fell when the mist comes down. Visibility drops to a few metres. There is fresh snow, and in it a line of footprints going on ahead. Relieved, they follow. Someone walked here before them; surely he knew the way. After twenty minutes the prints stop at the edge of a steep drop, and turn back. The walker ahead had been lost too.

Footprints tell you only that someone went this way. They do not tell you whether he arrived.

That is the flaw the surah exposes. The Makkans called following their fathers' tracks ihtidāʾ, guidance. But guidance, as the root of muhtadūn pictures it, is being directed to the road and set right on it. Following prints is not the same as being on the road. It depends entirely on where the first walker was going.

The question for any inherited practice is not whether someone walked here before you. It is where they were walking to. Some tracks lead home. Some lead to the edge.

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.