Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 105 of 165

Al-An'am 6:105

وَكَذَٰلِكَ نُصَرِّفُ ٱلْـَٔايَـٰتِ وَلِيَقُولُوا۟ دَرَسْتَ وَلِنُبَيِّنَهُۥ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ

“And thus do We diversify the verses so they [i.e., the disbelievers] will say, "You have studied,"[336] and so We may make it [i.e., the Qur’ān] clear for a people who know.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah turns His signs to every side; some will sneer 'you studied this', while for people who truly know, it is made plain.

A reflection

A word thrown as an insult

In a second-hand bookshop, a student finds an old copy of her set text. The spine is cracked in three places. The pages have gone soft as cloth from years of other students' thumbs. Someone went over this book so often that it gave way under them.

That is the picture inside the accusation in this ayah. Darasta, they said: you studied. The root's first images are physical. A dars was a faint path. Grain was threshed by treading it underfoot, over and over. An old garment worn thin with use was darīs. One classical lexicographer explained studying from here. You tread the words until they lie light on your tongue. Another said you soften a text by much reading, as a cloak softens by much wearing.

So the sneer had a sharp edge. You did not receive this, they meant. You wore it down from other men's books.

The early reciters preserved several readings of the word, and each sharpens a different accusation. Darasta: you studied it. Dārasta: you studied it with others, reading to them and they to you. Darasat: these stories are old and faded, like the traces of an abandoned camp. Borrowed, or worn out. Those were the two charges.

Yet the same root reappears later, in the mouth of the Prophet ﷺ, as a word of honour. In Sahih Muslim he describes people gathering in one of Allah's houses. They recite His Book and yatadārasūnahu, study it together among themselves. Tranquillity comes down on them. Mercy covers them. Angels surround them. Allah mentions them among those with Him.

The word Makkah threw as an insult became the word for one of the most blessed gatherings on earth. The sneerers had the vocabulary right. They had the source wrong.

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.