Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 75 of 78

Ar-Rahman 55:75

فَبِأَىِّ ءَالَآءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ

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

Saheeh International

Essence

Asked again after 'untouched', the question turns to what we guard now: our chastity, our fresh starts, and what Allah has kept for us.

A reflection

The road that keeps its track

A nineteen-year-old starts university. Within a month she has worked out that chastity, in her halls, is treated as a quaint disability. Friends tease her kindly. One asks, not unkindly, whether she is scared of life. She begins to wonder whether her faith has handed her a burden everyone else has been spared.

This refrain, after the second 'untouched', asks which of your Lord's favours you would deny. For her, the honest answer might be: this one. It does not feel like a favour. It feels like a cost.

The Prophet ﷺ framed it the other way round. Whoever guarantees me what is between his jaws and what is between his legs, he said, I guarantee him the Garden. Al-Bukhari records it. Not a restriction to be endured, but a guarantee to be exchanged.

And he told a young Companion: guard Allah, and He will guard you. Al-Tirmidhi records it and grades it himself ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ. The Quran uses the same verb for the believers 'who guard their chastity' (23:5).

The lexicons give that verb a picture from the desert. A clear road that never faded out was called ḥāfiẓ: it kept its track. Every traveller could follow it, in any season.

That is what guarding looks like from outside. Not fear of life. A road that keeps its track while the paths around it blur.

The Garden's companions are described as untouched. The young woman in her halls is not being asked to be less alive. She is being asked to keep her track, and promised that the One she keeps it for will keep her.

If you are where she is, the refrain is not mocking you. It is telling you that your guarding is itself a favour, and a road.

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.