Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 116 of 165

Al-An'am 6:116

وَإِن تُطِعْ أَكْثَرَ مَن فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ يُضِلُّوكَ عَن سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ إِن يَتَّبِعُونَ إِلَّا ٱلظَّنَّ وَإِنْ هُمْ إِلَّا يَخْرُصُونَ

“And if you obey most of those upon the earth, they will mislead you from the way of Allāh. They follow not except assumption, and they are not but misjudging.[338]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Truth about God is not settled by a show of hands: the crowd follows guesses, and a guess repeated by millions is still a guess.

A reflection

Not a licence to be a contrarian

A young man discovers this ayah and builds a worldview on it. If most people believe something, he reasons, it must be wrong. Within a year he believes every theory that the majority laughs at. He is very sure he is among the few.

It is a common way to hear the ayah: the majority is always wrong, so being in the minority proves you right. The ayah itself gives a different test. It does not say 'they are many, so they are wrong'. It says why the many go astray: 'they follow nothing but assumption, and they do nothing but guess'. The fault named is the method, not the number.

One later commentator mentions some who took the ayah as forbidding anyone to follow anyone but the prophets, since good people are few. He dismisses that reading briefly. A classical commentator places the ayah in its context. The surah has just answered the objections and laid out the proof (6:114-115). Once the proof is clear, he says, a sensible person should not be shaken by the talk of those who do not know.

So the ayah cuts both ways. The crowd that believes a thing because everyone does is following assumption. So is the lone contrarian who disbelieves it for the same reason in reverse. Both have let the headcount do their thinking.

The commentaries do note that in the Prophet's time most people on earth were astray. Elsewhere the Quran says most people will not believe, however much you wish it (12:103). But that is a description, not a method. The method the ayah teaches is to ask, of the many and the few alike: is this knowledge from Allah, or an estimate?

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.