Qaf · Makki · ayah 2 of 45

Qaf 50:2

بَلْ عَجِبُوٓا۟ أَن جَآءَهُم مُّنذِرٌ مِّنْهُمْ فَقَالَ ٱلْكَـٰفِرُونَ هَـٰذَا شَىْءٌ عَجِيبٌ

“But they wonder that there has come to them a warner from among themselves, and the disbelievers say, "This is an amazing thing.”

Saheeh International

Essence

They called a warner from among their own people 'a strange thing', a verdict that said more about those who gave it than about him.

A reflection

A label that describes the one who sticks it on

ʿAjiba means to wonder, to be astonished. One classical lexicon defines wonder as a state that comes over a person who does not know a thing's cause. That is why, it adds, this kind of wonder cannot be ascribed to Allah, who knows every hidden thing.

Hold that definition against the ayah. The Makkans said of the warner's coming, 'This is a strange thing', shayʾun ʿajīb. They meant it as a verdict on him. By the lexicon's own account, it was a confession about themselves. 'Strange' is the word for a cause you have not yet found.

One commentator draws the thread back to the oath. The surah has just sworn by a majīd Quran, glorious and full. Then comes 'rather, they wondered'. Their refusal, he says, was not because the Book lacked glory. It came from what they did not know, since wondering at a thing implies not knowing its cause.

Picture a fourteen-year-old clearing her late grandfather's desk. She finds a wooden slide rule with a sliding middle and rows of tiny numbers. 'What's this weird ruler?' she asks, and nearly drops it in the bin. Her grandfather designed bridges with it. The object was not weird. Her word described the edge of her knowledge, not the instrument.

Every 'weird', 'odd' and 'strange' carries this double edge. It can open a question: what am I missing here? Or it can shut a door: I do not understand it, so it must be wrong.

So when something in the Quran strikes you as strange, a ruling or a story, the word itself is a clue. It marks the place where your knowledge stops. That is no reason to bin the thing. It is the exact place to start digging.

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.