Muhammad · Madani · ayah 23 of 38

Muhammad 47:23

أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ لَعَنَهُمُ ٱللَّهُ فَأَصَمَّهُمْ وَأَعْمَىٰٓ أَبْصَـٰرَهُمْ

“Those [who do so] are the ones that Allāh has cursed, so He deafened them and blinded their vision.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those who spoil the earth and cut their kin are driven far from mercy, their hearing stopped and their sight clouded over.

A reflection

The wolf driven from the camp

"Those are the ones whom Allah has cursed." In English, "curse" can sound like a spell, a magical harm laid on someone. The Arabic word, laʿana, carries a different picture.

The lexicons give the root a single sense: driving away and keeping at a distance. The wolf was called laʿīn, the one chased off. So was a man cast out by his own people. A poet described scaring a wolf from its place as one drives off an outcast. One lexicon adds that from Allah it means being cut off from His mercy and help.

The commentaries follow this exactly. One concise commentary says: He removed them far from His mercy. Another classical commentator says: He put them far from Himself, or far from good.

So the "curse" here is not a hex. It is distance. They had cut their own ties to their kin. Now they find themselves cut off from the tie that matters most.

Picture a man barred from his local pub after one fight too many. On a cold Friday night he stands across the road. Through the steamed-up windows he can see the warm lights, the crowded tables, friends laughing at a joke he cannot hear. Nobody is hurting him. He is simply outside.

That is the shape of this ayah's warning. To be "cursed" is to stand outside the warmth of mercy, looking in.

Read in place, the ayah also explains why. It follows straight on from spreading corruption and cutting family ties (47:22). Those who drive their own kin away from them find themselves, in the end, driven away. The door was shut first from their side.

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.