Muhammad · Madani · ayah 37 of 38

Muhammad 47:37

إِن يَسْـَٔلْكُمُوهَا فَيُحْفِكُمْ تَبْخَلُوا۟ وَيُخْرِجْ أَضْغَـٰنَكُمْ

“If He should ask you for them and press you, you would withhold, and He would expose your hatred [i.e., unwillingness].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah knows that if He pressed you for all your wealth, you would hold back and your hidden grudges would surface.

A reflection

A hoof worn thin

"If He were to ask you for it, and yuḥfikum..." The verb is usually translated "press you", or "demand it all". Its root holds a picture from the road.

One lexicon gives the root several origins. The plainest is ḥafā: the thinning of a hoof or a camel's pad from too much walking, until it is worn down. A ḥāfī is someone with nothing on his feet at all. One commentator traces the verb in this ayah to exactly that picture. It means making an animal walk until its hoof is worn thin.

From there, to aḥfā a question was to press it until there was nothing left of it. The commentaries add another use. Aḥfā shāribahu: he trimmed his moustache right down to the skin. Another commentator defines the verb as going to the very limit in anything, leaving nothing of the insistence out.

So the ayah describes asking that wears a person down to the bone. Not a request, but a demand pressed until there is nothing left to give.

Picture a man walking down a busy high street. A street fundraiser in a bright tabard steps into his path, smiling. He says he is in a hurry. She walks beside him, still talking. He says no, politely. She follows him forty metres, asking again. By the time he reaches the corner, he is angry. For years afterwards, he crosses the road when he sees that charity's tabard. He has never given to it.

The ayah names that dynamic precisely. Pressing someone to the limit does not open their hand. It closes it, and leaves a grudge behind.

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.