Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 28 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:28

وَجَعَلَهَا كَلِمَةًۢ بَاقِيَةً فِى عَقِبِهِۦ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ

“And he made it[1436] a word remaining among his descendants that they might return [to it].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Ibrahim's sentence, no god but the One who made me, was left lasting in his descendants so that those who strayed might return.

A reflection

What lasted, and what did not

One classical commentator draws a striking conclusion from this ayah. Ibrahim left his fathers' way because of evidence. And Allah made his word last in his descendants until the Day of Resurrection. His fathers' religions, meanwhile, faded and disappeared. Following evidence, the commentator says, leaves a praised trace to the end of time. Imitation and stubbornness are cut off and leave no lasting mark.

That is a remarkable claim about legacy. Nobody now remembers the gods Ibrahim's father served, or the rituals of his town. Ibrahim's sentence is repeated every day by a great part of humanity. Lā ilāha illā Allāh: several early commentators say this is the lasting word.

There is strategy here for anyone who wants to leave something behind. What lasts is not what is loudest or most popular in your time. It is what is true and passed on deliberately.

Picture a village mosque founded long ago by a few families. The founding deed is a single page, kept in a frame in the office. Its key line says the building is for the worship of Allah alone, open to every Muslim who comes. The mosque has been rebuilt twice, its committees have argued, its imams have come and gone. That one line is still read aloud at every annual meeting, and it still settles disputes.

Buildings fall. Committees change. A true word, deliberately handed on, outlives them all.

The ayah asks every reader what they are leaving. Not only property or reputation, but which word. Is it something true enough to last? And are you handing it on clearly enough that those who come after can find it?

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.