Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 4 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:4

عَلَّمَهُ ٱلْبَيَانَ

“[And] taught him eloquence.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The gift of making what is inside you plain to someone else is listed right after being created, and before the sun.

A reflection

The voice you are proud of was taught

A speechwriter keeps a folder of every phrase of hers that made a headline. She can turn a minister's muddle into a line people repeat over breakfast. She is good, and she knows it, and the knowing has hardened into something.

Words are among the deepest sources of pride a person has. The quick answer in the meeting, the post that travelled, the argument won at dinner. Being articulate feels like a personal achievement, because nobody can see where it came from.

This ayah says where it came from. He taught him al-bayān. The verb has the same subject as everything else in this opening: al-Raḥmān. One commentary describes how physical the gift is. Speech had to be made easy for creatures, each letter released from its own place in the throat, on the tongue or at the lips. That machinery was installed, not invented.

Another commentary puts bayān at the heart of what separates the human from every other animal: articulate speech that expresses what is in the mind. So the very faculty used to argue that we are self-made is itself on the list of gifts.

A sceptic may object that a God who points out His gifts is fishing for praise. But a gift named is not a debt invoiced. He needs nothing from the tongue that thanks Him (35:15). The point runs the other way. The tongue needs to know what it is, so that it does not become an instrument of vanity.

Arrogance in speech looks strange, seen this way. It is a borrowed voice performing a solo about itself. The humbler way is not silence. It is speaking well, and knowing whose gift is doing the speaking.

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.