Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 59 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:59

فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ

“So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?”

Saheeh International

Essence

After ruby and pearl, the question asks whether you will deny beauty itself as a favour: in the Garden, in creation, in your own face.

A reflection

The scarves put away in a drawer

A woman starts praying regularly in her thirties. Within a month she has folded away every coloured scarf she owns. Plum, saffron, a green one her sister brought from abroad. She now wears grey and navy. Colour, she has decided, is vanity, and vanity is a sin.

Many sincere people carry the same assumption. Beauty belongs to the world; holiness is plain.

The ayah before this refrain likens the people of the Garden to rubies and pearls. The refrain then asks which of your Lord's favours you would deny. Beauty is on the list.

The Prophet ﷺ settled the question in a conversation that Muslim records. He said that no one with an atom's weight of pride in his heart will enter the Garden. A man asked the obvious worry. People like their clothes to be fine and their sandals to be good. Is that pride?

He answered: Allah is beautiful, and He loves beauty. Pride is rejecting the truth and looking down on people.

That sentence draws the line exactly where it belongs. Beauty is not the problem. Contempt is. A fine garment worn to honour the day is loved. The same garment worn to look down on a poorer neighbour has turned into something else, and it is not the cloth that changed.

So the woman with the drawer of folded scarves has denied a favour by mistake. She thought she was refusing vanity. She was refusing something Allah loves.

She does not need to wear saffron to be devout. But she may take the green one out of the drawer and put it on for Friday. Then she can say quietly in front of the mirror: this is from Him, and He loves it.

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.