Qaf · Makki · ayah 13 of 45

Qaf 50:13

وَعَادٌ وَفِرْعَوْنُ وَإِخْوَٰنُ لُوطٍ

“And ʿAad and Pharaoh and the brothers [i.e., people] of Lot”

Saheeh International

Essence

ʿĀd, Pharaoh and the brothers of Lūṭ join the roll: strength, rule and appetite each found its own way to say no.

A reflection

His brothers, though they wanted him gone

Two deckhands on a trawler have shared the night watch for twelve years. They argue about everything: football, politics, how to coil a rope. Yet each calls the other brother. If one went overboard, the other would be in the water after him before thinking.

This ayah uses that word for a surprising group. Not 'the people of Lūṭ', as other surahs say, but ikhwānu Lūṭ: the brothers of Lūṭ. These are the people who rejected him and wanted him gone.

They were not his brothers by blood. A theological commentary explains that Lūṭ was sent to a community he knew and lived among, not to a vast nation like Nūḥ's. A linguistic commentary adds that they are said to have been his in-laws, and stresses that brotherhood of lineage is not meant.

So what kind of brotherhood is this? The lexicons open a door. One classical derivation takes akh, brother, from the ākhiyya: a loop of rope with both ends buried in soft ground, where a horse was tethered. One brother is tied to another as the horse is to its loop. The Arabs also called a thing the brother of whatever it matched or clung to. A man could be the brother of hard work, or of a bitter winter.

That is the bond the ayah names. Lūṭ was tied to these people by years of shared streets, marriages and markets. He did not choose them for their virtue. He did not disown them for their vice. And when he warned them, he warned from inside the tether, not from a distance.

It reshapes a narrow idea of brotherhood. We tend to think a brother is either a blood relative or someone who shares our beliefs. The Quran here uses the word for neighbours who opposed everything Lūṭ stood for. Their rejection did not erase the bond. It made their refusal heavier, because it came from those who knew him best.

Who are you tied to in this way? The colleague, the in-law, the neighbour on the same stairwell. You did not choose them. But you are, in the Quran's sense, their brother.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.