Adh-Dhariyat · Makki · ayah 32 of 60

Adh-Dhariyat 51:32

قَالُوٓا۟ إِنَّآ أُرْسِلْنَآ إِلَىٰ قَوْمٍ مُّجْرِمِينَ

“They said, "Indeed, we have been sent to a people of criminals[1541]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The angels name their errand without naming the town: they were sent to a people whose own deeds had made them criminals.

A reflection

A harvest cut against yourself

Mujrimīn: criminals. The root has a surprising picture behind it. It means cutting off. Jirām was the date harvest, when the clusters were cut from the palms. The shorn wool of a sheep was jarīm. Earning was called jarm, as if you cut a share off for yourself. The lexicons establish this. A crime, jurm, is earning of the worst kind: what a person gathers against himself.

So a mujrim is someone who has been harvesting. Every act is a cluster cut and carried home. One early commentator glosses the people here simply as those who had committed crimes by their disbelief in Allah.

Picture a man in his sixties sitting in a solicitor's office, reading a letter about debts he hid from his family for twenty years. Each was small when he took it on. Each was a cluster he cut and told himself he would deal with later. Now the whole harvest is on the table at once.

The word does not describe a sudden fall. It describes what was gathered, deed by deed, until it was enough to bring the visitors.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.