Ad-Dukhan · Makki · ayah 21 of 59

Ad-Dukhan 44:21

وَإِن لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا۟ لِى فَٱعْتَزِلُونِ

“But if you do not believe me, then leave me alone."”

Saheeh International

Essence

If they will not believe, Musa asks only to be left alone: neither for me nor against me, until Allah judges between us.

A reflection

The unarmed one

Iʿtazilūni, leave me alone, comes from a root that one lexicon traces to a single origin: setting aside, moving a thing off to one side. A man is bi-maʿzil from his companions when he is over there rather than among them. A shepherd takes his flock away and grazes it apart. A traveller who will not pitch camp with the party but settles at a distance is a miʿzāl.

The root has a striking military picture too. Al-aʿzal was a man with no spear, who therefore stayed out of the fighting. The Arabs even named a star after him. Of two bright stars in the same region of the sky, one was the spear-bearer, and the other the unarmed one.

Put that picture beside Musa's words. If you will not believe me, he says, then be aʿzal towards me. Put down your spears. Stand off to one side.

He is not asking them to love him, or agree with him, or even listen any further. He is asking for the most basic thing one person can ask of another who disagrees: do not attack me.

One commentator glosses it as: leave me be, neither for me nor against me. Another: let me go my way, and hold back your harm.

Picture two stars side by side in the night sky. One is named for its spear. The other is named for having none. They shine in the same patch of darkness, neither one striking the other.

That is all Musa asks. It is a startlingly modest request from a man with a clear proof from his Lord. And it says something about the message he carried. A call that only asks, at its lowest point, to be left unharmed is not a call that ever needed spears.

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.