An-Najm · Makki · ayah 8 of 62

An-Najm 53:8

ثُمَّ دَنَا فَتَدَلَّىٰ

“Then he approached and descended”

Saheeh International

Essence

Then he drew near and came down, like a bucket lowered into a well: what is high comes down when someone below needs it.

A reflection

Lowered like a bucket on a rope

Tadallā comes from the same root as dalw, the bucket. The first hearers lived by wells, and knew this movement in their arms. The bucket is let down hand over hand, swinging on its rope, until it touches water.

The commentaries fill out the picture. A fruit tadallat when it hung down from the branch; hanging bunches of grapes were dawālī. A man dangled his legs from a bed. And a poet described a honey-gatherer lowering himself down a cliff face on a rope to reach the wild bees: he tadallā onto them.

One commentator explains the verb in this ayah as hanging in the air, suspended. Another says its root sense is coming down to something until you are close to it. Either way the angel, who a moment ago filled the eastern sky, is now lowered towards one man on the ground.

Picture a mountain rescue helicopter hovering over a ledge where a walker has fallen. The machine cannot land. So a winchman is lowered on a cable, turning slowly, until his boots touch the rock beside her. All the power is up there in the roaring rotor. All the help arrives at the end of a rope.

That is the shape of revelation. It does not wait at the top for us to climb. It is let down to where we are, into the well we are standing in, to bring something up.

And it is the shape of every real kindness. Whatever height you occupy, of knowledge, money or position, it becomes useful only when it is lowered to someone who needs it. Ask who is at the bottom of your well this week, and how much rope you are willing to pay out.

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.