Ad-Dukhan · Makki · ayah 28 of 59

Ad-Dukhan 44:28

كَذَٰلِكَ ۖ وَأَوْرَثْنَـٰهَا قَوْمًا ءَاخَرِينَ

“Thus. And We caused to inherit it another people.”

Saheeh International

Essence

So it was: Allah passed the drowned people's gardens to another people, and the true Owner of every inheritance never changed.

A reflection

The field that changed hands nine times

Picture a clerk at a land registry office. On her screen is a single field on the edge of a village. She types in the name of its new owner. Out of curiosity she scrolls back through the records. The field has changed hands nine times since the first map was drawn. Every owner, in turn, called it theirs. Not one of them is alive.

This ayah describes the same movement on the scale of a nation. Wa-awrathnāhā: and We made it pass, as an inheritance, to another people. The gardens, springs, crops and fine places of Pharaoh's court were not destroyed. They simply changed hands, by the decision of the One who gives and takes.

The Qur'an names Allah as the final heir of everything. It is We who give life and give death, and We are the inheritors (15:23). Every human owner is a link in a chain of temporary holders. Only One is at the end of the chain.

That is humbling for the ego in a direct, practical way. People speak of 'my land', 'my house', 'my company', 'my legacy'. The words are not false; ownership is real in its season. But pride creeps in when the season is forgotten. The field does not remember its owners. The One who passes it on remembers all of them.

Some hear 'We made them inherit' as a God shuffling property arbitrarily. But this inheritance followed a story of injustice and warning. Those who had enslaved others lost their land. Those who had been enslaved received it. The passing was not random. It was a judgement and a mercy at once.

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.