Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 54 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:54

فَٱسْتَخَفَّ قَوْمَهُۥ فَأَطَاعُوهُ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا۟ قَوْمًا فَـٰسِقِينَ

“So he bluffed his people, and they obeyed him. Indeed, they were [themselves] a people defiantly disobedient [of Allāh].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Pharaoh made his people light-minded and they obeyed him, yet the ayah does not excuse them: they had already slipped out of their casing.

A reflection

The scale-pan that rises

Fa-istakhaffa qawmah: so he made his people light. The root kh-f-f has a precise picture in the lexicons. A balance khaffa when one pan was light and rose, because it held too little. Lightness can praise or blame. It can mean nimble and quick at work. Or it can mean light of mind, blown off course by every gust of fear or delight.

The commentaries read Pharaoh's act in several ways. One says he sought from them lightness, meaning speed in answering him and following him. Another, quoting a classical lexicographer, says he found their minds light, with little reason in them. Another says he stirred them up with his words. And another: he provoked them to haste, as one says of a light thing that it springs up.

All of these describe the same human weakness. A mind with little weight in it is easily lifted. It rises at the slightest push. It cannot hold its position against a confident voice.

That is why Pharaoh's speech worked. It was not a good argument. It was gold, rivers and ridicule, aimed at people with nothing heavy enough inside to hold them down.

The Quran warns believers directly against this. Be patient, it says to the Prophet ﷺ. Allah's promise is true. And do not let those who have no certainty make you light (30:60). The same verb. The remedy it names is certainty.

A shopper sees a sign saying everything must go, final hours. She buys three things she does not need, in a rush, and only reads the receipt in the car park.

Ask yourself what weight you carry inside, that would keep you from being lifted by the next confident voice.

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.