Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 42 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:42

أَوْ نُرِيَنَّكَ ٱلَّذِى وَعَدْنَـٰهُمْ فَإِنَّا عَلَيْهِم مُّقْتَدِرُونَ

“Or whether [or not] We show you that which We have promised them, indeed, We are Perfect in Ability.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Or Allah will let him see the promise kept in his own lifetime, for the chiefs who seemed untouchable stood wholly within His measure.

A reflection

The powerful, inside the measure

Fa-innā ʿalayhim muqtadirūn: We have full power over them. One commentary explains the sense: they have no escape from beneath Our dominion and Our command.

The word comes from a root of measure. The lexicons describe a horse whose hind hooves landed exactly where its forefeet had stepped, as if every stride were measured. A poet told a boastful man: measure with your own forearm. Know your size. From that everyday measuring comes qadar, Allah's decree, and qudra, the power to bring about the measure one intends.

So the chiefs of Makkah, with their wealth, their sons and their confidence, were not standing outside events looking in. They were inside the measure, every stride already counted. They thought they were the ones deciding. The ayah says they were the ones being measured.

This is how the ego should hear it too. Whatever power we hold, at work, at home, online, it is held inside a measure we did not set. Measure with your own forearm. Know your size.

Another commentary notes that the word used is a promise, waʿadnāhum, and that He never breaks a promise. That signals it will certainly happen. And it did. Of their great men, none escaped at Badr and after, it says, except those who took shelter in faith.

A young man is promoted fast and begins to talk down to the cleaners and the junior staff. Two years later, a restructure removes his whole department overnight. The cleaner he ignored is the one who helps him carry his boxes to the car.

Allah needs no one to admire His power. He describes it so that we stop being frightened of those who borrow a little of 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.