Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 40 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:40

أَفَأَنتَ تُسْمِعُ ٱلصُّمَّ أَوْ تَهْدِى ٱلْعُمْىَ وَمَن كَانَ فِى ضَلَـٰلٍ مُّبِينٍ

“Then will you make the deaf hear, [O Muḥammad], or guide the blind or he who is in clear error?”

Saheeh International

Essence

A gentle question to a Messenger wearing himself out, asking if he can make the deaf hear, lifts from him what only Allah can carry.

A reflection

Spending his soul

The commentaries open this ayah with a picture of the Prophet ﷺ himself. He would strive and exert himself, one says, wearing out his very soul in calling his people. And they only grew more set in their unbelief and more stubborn in their error. So the ayah came: will you, then, make the deaf hear?

Read coldly, the question sounds like a rebuke. Read in its setting, it is tender. Another commentary calls it a consolation for him: it is not in your hands, so do not let your chest grow tight if they disbelieve. A third adds: yours is only to deliver the message, not to guide them.

The word anta, you, is placed first for emphasis. Is it you who will make them hear? The weight he had been carrying was never his to carry.

This tells us something about the heart of the Prophet ﷺ. He did not call people coldly, ticking off a duty. He grieved for them. He took their refusal personally, as a loss. Allah had to tell him, more than once in the Quran, not to destroy himself with sorrow over them.

A volunteer at a night shelter spends a winter trying to persuade one young man to accept a place in a recovery programme. Every week he says no. One evening the shelter's oldest volunteer takes her aside. You have done your part, she says. Keep the door open. The rest is not yours.

That is the shape of this ayah. Keep calling. Keep the door open. But put down the weight of other people's hearts. Only their Owner can carry 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.