An-Najm · Makki · ayah 16 of 62

An-Najm 53:16

إِذْ يَغْشَى ٱلسِّدْرَةَ مَا يَغْشَىٰ

“When there covered the Lote Tree that which covered [it].[1568]”

Saheeh International

Essence

What covered the Lote Tree is left unnamed, and the Prophet himself said he did not know what those colours were.

A reflection

Colours he had no name for

Idh yaghshā s-sidrata mā yaghshā: when there covered the Lote Tree what covered it. The ayah does not say what. It names the act of covering twice and leaves the thing itself unspoken.

The commentaries say this vagueness is deliberate. One explains that it tells us whatever covered the tree was among the signs of Allah's majesty that no description can contain. It is the same pattern as mā awḥā, what He revealed, a few ayat earlier.

Then the Prophet's own words confirm it. In Sahih al-Bukhari, near the end of his account of the Ascension, he says the Lote Tree was covered by colours. Then: I do not know what they were. In Sahih Muslim, Anas reports him saying that when Allah's command covered it, it changed. None of Allah's creation could describe its beauty.

The most eloquent man who ever lived reached the edge of language and said: I do not know.

Picture a man on a winter night in the far north who steps out of a cabin and sees the aurora for the first time. Green curtains moving across the whole sky. He has a camera, a phone and a good vocabulary. He uses none of them. He stands in the snow and says: oh. Later he tries to tell his family. Every word he chooses is too small.

That is not a failure of speech. It is speech being honest about its limits.

There is a lesson for how we talk about Allah. We can be precise about what He has told us. Beyond that, the most reverent words are often the fewest. Sometimes the truest thing a believer can say is: subḥān Allāh. I do not have words for it.

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.