Al-Waqi'ah · Makki · ayah 78 of 96

Al-Waqi'ah 56:78

فِى كِتَـٰبٍ مَّكْنُونٍ

“In a Register well-protected;[1619].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Everyone knows what the guarded Book is, and the commentaries give six different answers to it.

A reflection

Six answers, and no agreement

Ask a reader what the guarded Book in this ayah is and the answer comes back immediately. The Preserved Tablet. It is in the footnote of almost every translation.

The commentaries are not nearly so settled, and the list is longer than anyone expects.

Some say the Preserved Tablet, and one commentary calls this the soundest, citing another ayah about a glorious recitation in a guarded Tablet.

Some say the scrolls in the hands of the angels, and one reflective commentary argues for this at length, with ten reasons.

Some say the copy in our own hands. One concise commentary states it flatly: a Book written, guarded, and it is the muṣḥaf. Two early authorities are named for it.

Some say the Torah and the Gospel, in which this Book and the man it would come to are mentioned.

One says the Psalms.

And one reading, that it means the heart of the believer, is reported and then set aside by the commentary that reports it.

Six answers. That is worth knowing for its own sake. It shows how much of what we are certain of is a footnote we absorbed.

And notice that the disagreement does not touch the point. On every one of the six, the Book is somewhere kept, and the keeping is somebody else's doing. The dispute is about which keeping. The ayah is about the fact of it.

The root of the second word adds one more thing, and it is more personal than it looks. The lexicons start it at sheltering and guarding something in a covered place. From it comes a shelter, and then the sense of keeping a thing hidden within oneself.

The Book uses that middle sense of people. In one ayah, Allah knows what you keep concealed in yourselves. In another, your Lord knows what their breasts conceal.

So one root covers a Book guarded above and a man's chest. You are also a kitāb maknūn. There is something in you nobody in your house has seen, and the keeping of it is as real as the keeping of the Book. The difference is in the contents, and in who the keeper is.

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.