Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 23 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:23

وَكَذَٰلِكَ مَآ أَرْسَلْنَا مِن قَبْلِكَ فِى قَرْيَةٍ مِّن نَّذِيرٍ إِلَّا قَالَ مُتْرَفُوهَآ إِنَّا وَجَدْنَآ ءَابَآءَنَا عَلَىٰٓ أُمَّةٍ وَإِنَّا عَلَىٰٓ ءَاثَـٰرِهِم مُّقْتَدُونَ

“And similarly, We did not send before you any warner into a city except that its affluent said, "Indeed, we found our fathers upon a religion, and we are, in their footsteps, following."”

Saheeh International

Essence

In every town that received a warner, the first to defend the old ways were the pampered: comfort had made inquiry feel like hardship.

A reflection

The child given every treat

Mutrafūhā: its pampered ones. The root is small and vivid. One lexicon says it holds a single word: turfa, a special indulgence, a treat. A boy's family tarrafa him by giving him fine food and whatever is kept for favourites. The child is mutraf: soft-bodied, pampered, handed whatever he craves. Another lexicon adds that the mutraf is the man whom ease and wide living have made insolent. The comfort tipped him over. The lexicons give this plainly, and it is established.

Notice the form. Mutraf is passive. The comfort was done to him. He did not choose to become soft. Ease made him so.

The commentaries explain who is meant. Their chiefs and great men, says one. Their kings and tyrants, says another. A third says: those whom blessing had made reckless. They love only pleasures and amusements, and shrink from the hardships and duties of religion.

That last phrase is the key. It is not wealth itself that the ayah describes. It is what prolonged ease does to the will. The pampered child grows into an adult who experiences any demand as an imposition.

Picture a boy who has never once been told no. At sixteen, a teacher hands back his essay covered in corrections. He is not angry about the marks. He is astonished that anyone would ask him to do it again. The request feels like an injustice.

The warners came to towns and asked their people to think again, to change, to give up familiar comforts. To the mutrafūn, that request sounded like an attack. Their answer was the oldest and easiest one available: our fathers did it this way.

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.