An-Najm · Makki · ayah 51 of 62

An-Najm 53:51

وَثَمُودَا۟ فَمَآ أَبْقَىٰ

“And Thamūd - and He did not spare [them] -”

Saheeh International

Essence

Thamud built to last, and He left nothing of them; what remains in this world is only what He chooses to leave.

A reflection

Only He decides what remains

A wedding photographer has twenty years of work stored on three hard drives in his basement. Two thousand couples, first dances, grandparents now gone. He has always said, with some pride, 'I preserve people's memories.' Then a pipe bursts on a Sunday night while the family is away. By Monday all three drives are under water.

He did nothing wrong. He took precautions. But he had quietly started to believe that keeping things was in his power.

Wa-thamūda fa-mā abqā: and Thamud, and He left nothing remaining. The verb abqā, to leave something remaining, belongs to Allah here, as everywhere. He is the One who decides what lasts. Thamud believed they had decided it themselves. The Quran says elsewhere that they carved homes out of mountains, feeling secure (15:82). Rock is the most permanent thing a person can build in. And He left nothing of them.

One classical commentator read the phrase slightly differently: He did not spare them. The Arabic abqā ʿalā means to show restraint, to hold back from finishing something off. On that reading, the ayah says He held nothing back once their time came.

Either way, the ego meets a hard fact. Everything we build to outlast us, the house, the business, the archive, the reputation, survives only if He leaves it. Our efforts at permanence are borrowed permanence.

Is it arrogant for Allah to say so? Not when it is simply true. One ayah in another surah says it plainly: 'Everyone on it will pass away, and there will remain the Face of your Lord' (55:26-27). The verb there is the same root as abqā. Only He remains of Himself. Everything else remains by His leave.

So the photographer, after his grief, might hold his work differently. Still careful, still professional. But no longer saying 'I preserve'. Saying instead: 'I do my best, and what remains is what Allah leaves.'

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.