Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 48 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:48

وَمَا نُرِيهِم مِّنْ ءَايَةٍ إِلَّا هِىَ أَكْبَرُ مِنْ أُخْتِهَا ۖ وَأَخَذْنَـٰهُم بِٱلْعَذَابِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ

“And We showed them not a sign except that it was greater than its sister, and We seized them with affliction that perhaps they might return [to faith].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every sign shown to Pharaoh's court was greater than the last, and even the hardships came with a door left open: perhaps they would return.

A reflection

A hand on the rein, turning the camel home

Wa-akhadhnāhum bi-al-ʿadhāb: We seized them with the punishment. The commentaries list what came: years of drought, failing fruit, the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood. Then comes a phrase that changes how all of it reads. Laʿallahum yarjiʿūn: so that perhaps they would return.

The verb for seizing, akhadha, has a picture in the lexicons. A hand closing on a camel's rein. A rein is not a chain. Its purpose is to turn the animal, to bring it back onto the road.

And yarjiʿūn means going back to where one started. The lexicons picture a traveller returning home, birds returning after migration, the rain that comes back again. An early commentator glosses it simply: so that they might repent, or remember.

This is where the ego is humbled in an unexpected way. We imagine that a powerful being who sends hardship must be showing off strength, or venting anger. Here the One who controls floods and locusts uses them as a hand on the rein. His power is spent on bringing people home.

He needs nothing from their return. He is not diminished by their refusal. The return was for them.

A young man drifts for years, comfortable and careless. Then in one winter he loses his job and his father falls ill. Sitting in a hospital car park at two in the morning, he prays properly for the first time since childhood. Years later he calls it the winter he was turned round.

When hardship comes, it is worth asking not only why, but towards where. The hand on the rein is always turning you somewhere.

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.