Al-Hashr · Madani · ayah 19 of 24

Al-Hashr 59:19

وَلَا تَكُونُوا۟ كَٱلَّذِينَ نَسُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ فَأَنسَىٰهُمْ أَنفُسَهُمْ ۚ أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْفَـٰسِقُونَ

“And be not like those who forgot Allāh, so He made them forget themselves. Those are the defiantly disobedient.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Forgetting Allah is often sold as finally remembering yourself; the ayah says the reverse: whoever forgets Him is made to forget their own self.

A reflection

Leaving God out does not put the self in

A familiar story runs like this. Religion keeps people looking upward, worrying about God's opinion. Set it aside and you can finally pay attention to yourself: your needs, your wellbeing, your own life. On that story, forgetting God is the first step to remembering who you are.

The ayah says the exact reverse. Those who forgot Allah, He made to forget themselves. The self is not found by leaving Him out. It is lost.

A classical spiritual writer explains how. Such people do not forget themselves in every respect. They remember their appetites very well: their wants, their comforts, their share. What they forget is the self's real interest. They forget its flaws, which need mending. They forget its good, which needs pursuing. And they forget the perfection it was made for.

Picture a man whose watch reports his heart rate, his sleep score and his steps every hour. He knows his blood pressure to the decimal point. One evening his teenage daughter asks, half joking, what he thinks his life is for. He has no answer at all. Every number about his body is to hand. The one question about himself is blank.

That is the forgetting the ayah describes, and it is not rare. It can coexist with intense self-attention. The forgetting is not of the body or the wants. It is of the thing the body and the wants were meant to serve.

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.