At-Tur · Makki · ayah 37 of 49

At-Tur 52:37

أَمْ عِندَهُمْ خَزَآئِنُ رَبِّكَ أَمْ هُمُ ٱلْمُصَۣيْطِرُونَ

“Or have they the depositories [containing the provision] of your Lord? Or are they the controllers [of them]?”

Saheeh International

Essence

They acted as if they held the keys to God's storehouses and the pen over His creation; they held neither, and neither do we.

A reflection

Holding keys you were never given

The Quraysh objected not only to the message but to the messenger. Why him? Surely prophethood should have gone to someone more important. This ayah answers the ego behind that objection with a question. Do they hold the treasuries of your Lord?

One early authority explained the treasuries here as prophethood itself. Another put it vividly. Are the keys of your Lord's message in their hands, so that they can place it wherever they wish? A concise commentary combined them: prophethood, provision and more, as if they could give whomever they chose whatever they chose.

The lexicons picture a khizāna as a locked room where precious things sit beyond the reach of hands, with a keeper at its door. The ayah asks: are you the keeper? Have you even been given a key?

Picture a night porter at an old hotel. Every key to every room hangs on the board behind him. Guests arriving late treat him as if he runs the place. He decides who gets the corner room with the view. After a few years he half believes it. But he owns nothing. The keys go back on the board at the end of each shift. The owner, whom he has never met, can change every lock tomorrow.

The Quraysh were worse off than the porter. They had not even been handed the board. Yet they spoke as though Allah's gifts were theirs to allocate: prophethood to this man, not that one; rain to this valley, not that.

The same pride lives in quieter forms today. It decides who deserves guidance, who deserves success, who deserves a second chance. It resents when Allah gives to someone it would have passed over. The ayah's answer is the same as ever. These are your Lord's treasuries. He has not asked for your opinion on how to spend them.

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.