Al-Jathiyah · Makki · ayah 8 of 37

Al-Jathiyah 45:8

يَسْمَعُ ءَايَـٰتِ ٱللَّهِ تُتْلَىٰ عَلَيْهِ ثُمَّ يُصِرُّ مُسْتَكْبِرًا كَأَن لَّمْ يَسْمَعْهَا ۖ فَبَشِّرْهُ بِعَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍ

“Who hears the verses of Allāh recited to him, then persists arrogantly as if he had not heard them. So give him tidings of a painful punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The most dangerous deafness is in people who hear perfectly well, and then tie themselves shut as though nothing had been said.

A reflection

A knot pulled tight over the source

Yuṣirru, he persists, comes from a root about tying. The lexicons picture a man knotting his coins into a cloth: that bundle is a ṣurra, a purse. A related word, ṣirār, was the cloth a herdsman tied over a she-camel's udder so the calf could not drink. Iṣrār, persisting, belongs here: a resolve pulled tight. One lexicon reads it as knotting yourself into a sin. The image is established in the lexicons.

Two commentaries add a second, livelier picture. The word was also used of a wild ass pressing on with the herd, its ears flattened back against its head. It will not turn, and it will not listen.

Put those images beside the ayah. A man hears the signs of Allah recited to him. The milk of guidance is right there. And he ties a cloth over the source, pulls the knot tight, and walks on with his ears pinned back.

Picture a woman whose younger sister keeps leaving the same voicemail. 'Please ring Mum, she isn't well.' Every message is gentle; every message is true. After the third, she sets a filter so that her sister's number goes straight to a folder she never opens. She has not refuted anything. She has simply tied the cloth tight. Months later she discovers what she missed.

The ayah describes the habit with a present tense: he hears, then he persists. One commentary notes that 'recited to him' points to recitation that goes on and on. The signs keep coming; the knot keeps being tightened.

The hopeful thing about a knot is that it was tied by a hand, and a hand can untie it. Persistence in wrong is not fate. It is a choice repeated. The same choice, reversed and repeated, is repentance.

Is there a message in your life you have filtered into a folder you never open? Perhaps the next time it arrives, read 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.