Al-Ahqaf · Makki · ayah 25 of 35

Al-Ahqaf 46:25

تُدَمِّرُ كُلَّ شَىْءٍۭ بِأَمْرِ رَبِّهَا فَأَصْبَحُوا۟ لَا يُرَىٰٓ إِلَّا مَسَـٰكِنُهُمْ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ نَجْزِى ٱلْقَوْمَ ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ

“Destroying everything by command of its Lord. And they became so that nothing was seen [of them] except their dwellings. Thus do We recompense the criminal people.”

Saheeh International

Essence

A wind under its Lord's command uproots everything it is sent against, and by morning only the empty houses of a mighty people remain.

A reflection

Even the wind has a Lord

Three words in the middle of the ayah change how the whole storm is seen: bi-amri rabbihā, by the command of its Lord. The wind is not a blind force. It has a Lord, and it moves when He commands.

One commentary says that mentioning the command, the Lord, and attaching Him to the wind shows the greatness of His affair. Another adds that winds and the turning of their reins are among the wonders of His creation and the greatest of His forces. A third draws a wider lesson: every created thing has a time appointed by the command of its Maker, neither earlier nor later.

ʿAd were famous for strength. One report says they spread across the land and overpowered its peoples by their power. Their ego had made them the strongest thing they knew. Then came something stronger that answered to Someone else.

Picture the chief engineer of a vast offshore wind farm, proud of turbines built to survive any storm in a century of records. One night a forecast arrives beyond anything modelled. He orders every blade feathered and every crew off the sea. In the control room he says quietly to a junior: 'We built for what we could imagine. The weather doesn't ask us what we imagined.'

Is it arrogance for Allah to command the winds? He needs nothing from them, and nothing from us (35:15). The arrogance in this story belonged to ʿAd. The lesson for us is smallness, and a kind of relief. The storms of our lives are not random. They have a Lord. So do we.

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.