Adh-Dhariyat · Makki · ayah 42 of 60

Adh-Dhariyat 51:42

مَا تَذَرُ مِن شَىْءٍ أَتَتْ عَلَيْهِ إِلَّا جَعَلَتْهُ كَٱلرَّمِيمِ

“It left nothing of what it came upon but that it made it like disintegrated ruins.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Whatever the wind touched it left like threshed straw, so ask what in your life could survive a wind like that.

A reflection

Not ruins: straw on the threshing floor

Most English translations end this ayah with 'ruins'. The word suggests a broken wall, a doorway still standing, something a tourist could photograph. The Arabic image is far more complete than that.

In the speech of the Arabs, one early commentary says, ramīm was what had dried out of the earth's plants and then been trampled. Picture the threshing floor after harvest. The grain has been beaten out. What is left is straw, crushed under hooves and feet, light enough for any breeze to lift. Other early readers gave the same family of pictures: dry straw, the brittle remains of trees, dust pounded fine. The lexicons add the other use of the root: bone so old it has crumbled. That picture is established, and it is consistent. Ramīm is something that once stood, held sap or marrow, and is now so dry and broken it has no shape at all.

At a farm open day, children watch a demonstration of threshing by hand. A man swings a flail over a heap of wheat. The grain falls through. The chaff and broken straw blow across the yard, and the children chase it, laughing, because it weighs nothing.

Now place ʿĀd beside that picture. They were famous for their size and strength. They built on every height. And the wind left them, their herds and their houses like the stuff that blows across a threshing yard.

The translation 'ruins' leaves a little dignity standing. There is a wall, a column, a story. Ramīm leaves nothing standing. That is the point. Their pride had been in what stands: bodies, towers, fortresses. The ayah answers with a word for what can no longer stand at all.

When you next sweep up dry leaves, or see straw blown along a lane, remember this ayah. Everything that is proud of standing is one wind away from that.

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.