An-Najm · Makki · ayah 61 of 62

An-Najm 53:61

وَأَنتُمْ سَـٰمِدُونَ

“While you are proudly sporting?[1575]”

Saheeh International

Essence

One word paints the listener who will not hear: heedless, amused, singing over the warning, head held high, pressing on without turning aside.

A reflection

Camels that never turn aside

On a long night drive, a coach of tired travellers passes a brightly lit sign at the roadside: a warning of a closed bridge ahead. Most of the passengers are asleep. The driver, eyes fixed on the road, music low, does not turn his head. He presses on for twenty minutes before he reaches the barrier.

The word in this ayah, sāmidūn, carried a picture like that for the first hearers. The lexicons record that camels were called sawāmid when they pressed on through the night without tiring and without turning aside. A man was sāmid when he lifted his head and squared his chest. From those two pictures grew the other meanings: heads held high, carefree play, even singing.

So when the ayah says wa-antum sāmidūn, and you are sāmidūn, it paints a whole posture. People pressing on, heads up, eyes forward, never turning aside to look at what has just been said to them.

The commentators gathered a remarkable range of meanings for this one word. Heedless and amused, said one Companion. Turning away, said others. Proud, said another report, heads raised. Swollen with anger, said one early scholar. And one report from the same Companion: singing, in the dialect of Himyar, where usmud lanā meant 'sing to us'. They would sing when they heard the Quran, it says, to drown it out.

The lexicons note that all of these fit the ayah. And the camel picture holds them together. A heedless traveller does not look at the sign. A proud one will not lower his head to read it. A singing one cannot hear it. An angry one will not stop.

The ayah closes its rebuke with this word because it describes the deepest problem. Not ignorance, but refusal to turn aside. The warning was right there, at the roadside. They pressed on.

So the question for every reader is the coach driver's question. Is there a sign by the road I keep passing without turning my head?

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.