Al-Qamar · Makki · ayah 24 of 55

Al-Qamar 54:24

فَقَالُوٓا۟ أَبَشَرًا مِّنَّا وَٰحِدًا نَّتَّبِعُهُۥٓ إِنَّآ إِذًا لَّفِى ضَلَـٰلٍ وَسُعُرٍ

“And said, "Is it one human being[1582] among us that we should follow? Indeed, we would then be in error and madness.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Thamud's real objection was not to following, but to following someone like themselves, ordinary, alone and without an entourage.

A reflection

The anatomy of a sneer

In a family business, the uncles meet to approve a big expansion. The youngest nephew, twenty-three, quietly points out a flaw in the numbers. The uncles smile, thank him, and move on. Six months later the flaw sinks the deal. Nobody had disputed his arithmetic. They had simply not been able to take it from him.

Listen to how Thamud phrase their refusal. A classical theologian takes the sentence apart word by word, and every word is a sneer. They put "a human being from among us, one" before "shall we follow him?", to front their reasons. They make him indefinite: "a human", not "Salih" or "the man who claims prophethood". Indefiniteness, he says, is belittling. They say "a human" rather than even "a man". They say "from among us", which he reads two ways. Of our own kind, nothing special. Or one of ours, a part of us; and the part follows the whole, not the reverse. And "one": alone, with no troops, servants or followers. Or one of the commoners, not of the notables.

A spiritual commentary adds the decisive point. Their objection was not to following as such. Had he been an angel, or a stranger, or a powerful group, they would have followed without feeling humiliated. What they could not bear was to follow someone who was like them.

That is snobbery, and it is very old and very modern. We take truth easily from the impressive: the famous, the credentialled, the wealthy, the foreign expert. We struggle to take it from the person beside us. The junior colleague, the younger sibling, the quiet neighbour, the convert, the cleaner.

The mirror question is uncomfortable. Whose words do I discount before I have weighed them? Whose correction would I accept from a stranger with a title, but not from my own spouse or child?

This week, take one piece of advice seriously from someone you usually overlook. Weigh it as if it came with a title.

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.