Az-Zukhruf · Makki · ayah 61 of 89

Az-Zukhruf 43:61

وَإِنَّهُۥ لَعِلْمٌ لِّلسَّاعَةِ فَلَا تَمْتَرُنَّ بِهَا وَٱتَّبِعُونِ ۚ هَـٰذَا صِرَٰطٌ مُّسْتَقِيمٌ

“And indeed, he [i.e., Jesus] will be [a sign for] knowledge of the Hour, so be not in doubt of it, and follow Me.[1446] This is a straight path.”

Saheeh International

Essence

ʿĪsā's return is a lit landmark for the Hour: be certain it is coming, and walk the straight road towards it now.

A reflection

A mountain with a fire on its peak

Wa-innahu la-ʿilmun li-l-sāʿah: and he is a knowledge of the Hour. Most of the early commentators read 'he' as ʿĪsā, son of Maryam. His coming down before the end is one of the great signs that the Hour is near.

The word chosen is striking. Not 'a sign of the Hour', but ʿilm, knowledge itself. One classical linguist explains it: the sign is named knowledge because knowledge comes through it. Another reading, preserved from early Companions, says ʿalam: a landmark.

The lexicons let us see what an Arab saw in that word. The root, one lexicon says, is a mark on a thing that sets it apart. A knight who wore a mark in battle was muʿlam, easy to pick out. A banner was an ʿalam. So was a mountain, standing out from the land around it. A poet of the first hearers' generation mourned her brother this way. The guides of the caravans steered by him, she said, as if he were a mountain with a fire on its peak.

That is the picture. Night on open ground, no road, no lights. Then far off, a fire on a summit. You do not argue with it. You simply know where you are.

Picture four friends rowing a small club boat back to the harbour at dusk. Sea fog has come down, and the tide is turning. For twenty minutes every direction looks grey. Then the cox sees it: the red warning light on the transmitter mast above the town. Nothing has changed in the water. Everything has changed in the boat.

The ayah offers that kind of certainty about the Hour. Not a date, but a fixed point. When ʿĪsā comes, nobody will need persuading that the end has drawn near.

And until then? The ayah does not ask anyone to wait for the fire on the peak. It asks for certainty now, and for walking now. The landmark confirms the road. It does not replace 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.