Adh-Dhariyat · Makki · ayah 20 of 60

Adh-Dhariyat 51:20

وَفِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ءَايَـٰتٌ لِّلْمُوقِنِينَ

“And on the earth are signs for the certain [in faith]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The earth under your feet is crowded with signs pointing to its Maker, but only the heart whose doubt has settled can read them.

A reflection

Thirty centimetres of borrowed ground

Two neighbours spend a whole year in dispute over a garden boundary. Thirty centimetres of lawn. There are letters, a surveyor, raised voices over the fence. Both men stand on the disputed strip as if it were the most important ground on earth. Neither of them made a single grain of it.

The ayah turns the eye to that ground. In the earth are signs. One classical commentator lists some of them with wonder. The earth is spread out like a carpet for what lies on it, with roads and passes for those who travel. It is divided into plain and mountain, land and sea. Tracts lie side by side, hard and soft, fertile and salty. It is like a mare that conceives every colour of plant and tree. Its fruits differ in taste and scent, all watered by one water (13:4). Every part of it suits the needs of those who live on it, in health and in sickness.

The ego that fights over thirty centimetres has forgotten whose earth it is. We buy and fence and inherit, and rightly so, for ownership is real among people. But underneath every deed of sale lies ground that was made, spread, watered and filled with life by Another. We are tenants who quarrel about the furniture.

Is this Allah demanding our admiration? He needs none of it. The signs are not there to flatter Him. They are there to free us. They free us from the arrogance of thinking we made our world, and from the anxiety of holding it together.

The next time you stand in a garden, a field or a park, look down before you look around. Then remember Whose ground it is, and hold your portion of it more lightly.

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.