Qaf · Makki · ayah 37 of 45

Qaf 50:37

إِنَّ فِى ذَٰلِكَ لَذِكْرَىٰ لِمَن كَانَ لَهُۥ قَلْبٌ أَوْ أَلْقَى ٱلسَّمْعَ وَهُوَ شَهِيدٌ

“Indeed in that is a reminder for whoever has a heart or who listens while he is present [in mind].”

Saheeh International

Essence

All the surah has said is a reminder, landing on anyone with a heart that turns things over, or an ear lent while truly present.

A reflection

Not only for the tender-hearted

A man is invited to a friend's Quran circle. He comes, but sits at the back near the door. When someone asks what he thought, he shrugs. 'I'm not really the spiritual type. Some people have the heart for this. I don't.'

Many of us carry his reading of this ayah without knowing it. 'A reminder for whoever has a heart' sounds like a line for the tender: people who cry easily, who feel things deeply. The rest of us, it seems, are excused.

The words say something else. Several early commentators explain qalb here simply as the intellect, the faculty that understands. The Arabs said 'he has no heart' of a man with no sense. To ask where someone's heart had gone was to ask where his mind had gone. The heart in this ayah is where understanding happens, not only where feeling happens.

The lexicons support this. The root q-l-b means turning a thing over, as bread is turned on the fire. It also names the pure core of a thing, like the white heart of a palm. The qalb is the core of a person that turns matters over and weighs them. Everyone has one.

A classical commentary then notices the indefinite form. Not 'the heart', but 'a heart'. One reading takes it as a heart of real quality. Another takes the opposite: a heart of any kind at all, even a weak one. The Arabs say 'give him something, even a single coin'. On this reading, the reminder is that plain.

And if even that fails, the ayah opens a second door at once. 'Or gives ear while present.' No special sensitivity is required for that. Only attention.

So the man at the back is not excused. He is invited. The ayah was never written for a spiritual elite. It was written for anyone with a mind to turn things over, or an ear to lend.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.