Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 31 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:31

سَنَفْرُغُ لَكُمْ أَيُّهَ ٱلثَّقَلَانِ

“We will attend to you, O prominent beings.[1599]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The One who is never busy will turn wholly to the two weighty ones, as a herdsman lifts a sheep to weigh it.

A reflection

Be careful what you wish for: to be attended to

Think of a young cook in a busy kitchen who resents being invisible. For two years the head chef has walked past his station without a word. He tells his friends he just wants to be noticed.

Then comes the night of the inspection. The head chef stands at his station for the entire service. He tastes every plate. He lifts every pan. He asks why the sauce was reduced this far and not further. By the end, the young cook would give a month's wages to be invisible again.

This ayah turns on that feeling. We will attend to you, O two weighty ones.

The verb is first person plural, the We of majesty. The One speaking has just been described as asked by everything in the heavens and the earth (55:29). Now He addresses two kinds of creature by name and says His attention is coming to them.

The ego wants to be attended to. It wants to be the one people make time for, the one whose name is called first. Much of human vanity is a hunger for exactly this sentence: I will give you my whole attention.

The ayah grants it, and the granting is terrifying. When the Lord of all the worlds gives a creature His undivided attention, the creature discovers how much there is to account for.

The name He uses deepens it. Al-thaqalān, the two weighty ones. The commentaries give several reasons for the name. They are the load on the earth's back, alive and dead. They are the creatures weighted with responsibility. And one early reading says: weighted with sins.

So the ego's favourite self-image, I am someone of weight, is accepted and turned. Yes, you are heavy. Now you will be weighed.

The humbling thing is not that He might ignore you. It is that He will not.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.