Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 31 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:31

وَقَالُوا۟ لَوْلَا نُزِّلَ هَـٰذَا ٱلْقُرْءَانُ عَلَىٰ رَجُلٍ مِّنَ ٱلْقَرْيَتَيْنِ عَظِيمٍ

“And they said, "Why was this Qur’ān not sent down upon a great man from [one of] the two cities?"[1439]”

Saheeh International

Essence

They wanted a great man to carry the message, then measured greatness by money and rank, and missed the man before them.

A reflection

A true premise and a false one

There is a fair-minded observation in one of the great commentaries on this ayah. The people of Makkah, it says, were not wrong about everything. They said the office of carrying Allah's message is a noble office. So it should only go to a noble man. That much was true.

Their mistake was the second step. They quietly added a premise of their own: that a noble man is one with much wealth and wide standing. Muhammad ﷺ had neither in the measure they valued. So, they concluded, the message could not be his.

This is a useful way to read an objection. Most bad arguments are not wholly bad. They contain something right, joined to something smuggled in. The work is to find the join.

Another commentary names what they missed in a single line. It escaped their minds that the great one is whoever is great with Allah. A later one adds that messengership calls for a soul made great by shedding base habits and wearing virtues, not by worldly ornament. The word it uses for ornament is zukhruf, the very word that gives this surah its name.

A sceptic today might put the same question in modern dress. If God wanted to be heard, why not choose someone already powerful and admired? The answer begins where theirs went wrong. The Prophet ﷺ said that Allah does not look at your forms or your wealth, but at your hearts and your deeds (Sahih Muslim). The one choosing was not looking where they were looking.

A panel judging a regional baking contest passes over a plain loaf in a chipped tin. One judge tastes it anyway, and stops. The tin was never the bread.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.