Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 10 of 165

Al-An'am 6:10

وَلَقَدِ ٱسْتُهْزِئَ بِرُسُلٍ مِّن قَبْلِكَ فَحَاقَ بِٱلَّذِينَ سَخِرُوا۟ مِنْهُم مَّا كَانُوا۟ بِهِۦ يَسْتَهْزِءُونَ

“And already were messengers ridiculed before you, but those who mocked them were enveloped by that which they used to ridicule.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The twin of 21:41, but here it names the requests just answered as mockery, and comforts the Prophet ﷺ only after the argument.

A reflection

Mockery wearing a question's clothes

This exact ayah returns at 21:41, where its fuller treatment lives. What is different here is what it follows.

The three ayat before it answer demands. Send a book on parchment they can touch. Send down an angel. Make the messenger an angel. Each was phrased as a request for evidence, and each was answered seriously. Only now does the Quran name what lay underneath. Two modern commentaries say plainly that the demand for an angel was itself mockery.

The verb is istuhziʾa, from a form that suggests seeking out. The lexicons describe this kind of mockery as joking kept behind a straight face. It is not open laughter. It is ridicule dressed as inquiry.

Anyone who sits in office meetings knows the type. Every month the same colleague asks, with a small grin, when the miracle product is launching. It is technically a question. Answer it seriously and you have still lost, because nobody was really asking.

The Quran's order is worth noticing. It answered the dressed-up questions on their own terms first. Only afterwards did it name the mockery. Good faith was extended before bad faith was called out.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.