Qaf · Makki · ayah 4 of 45

Qaf 50:4

قَدْ عَلِمْنَا مَا تَنقُصُ ٱلْأَرْضُ مِنْهُمْ ۖ وَعِندَنَا كِتَـٰبٌ حَفِيظٌۢ

“We know what the earth diminishes [i.e., consumes] of them, and with Us is a retaining record.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The earth takes from the dead grain by grain, and every grain is known; with Allah is a Book that keeps whatever the earth takes.

A reflection

We lose our own memories; He knows every grain

Qad ʿalimnā: We have known. The verb is past, and sealed with qad, a particle of certainty. The knowing does not begin once the deniers raise their question. It is already complete.

And look at what is known. Not the stars, not the oceans, but the most humbling thing imaginable. 'What the earth takes from them': flesh, bone and hair, wearing away in the dark. The early commentators listed it just like that.

Now set our own knowing beside it. A woman wants to show her niece one photo from her wedding day. It is somewhere on her phone, among twenty thousand others. She scrolls for ten minutes, past holidays, receipts and screenshots, and gives up. Her own wedding, on her own phone, and she cannot find it.

That is the ego's true scale. We cannot keep track of memories kept in our own pocket. We forget names at the door and keys in the coat. We lose the thread of our own lives.

Allah knows every particle the earth has taken from every human being ever buried. Nothing of them, one commentator says, goes astray from Him so that returning it would become hard. Another says His knowledge reaches that far precisely so that the return is within His power.

Someone may ask whether there is pride in Allah declaring His own knowledge. In a person, boasting usually covers a lack. Here the declaration answers a fear. The deniers assumed that scattering meant losing. Allah says, in effect: I have not lost you. That is not vanity. It is reassurance from the only One able to give it.

So the ego bows twice. Once before a knowledge it cannot measure. And once in relief, because the self it cannot keep track of is kept track of perfectly.

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.