Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 122 of 165

Al-An'am 6:122

أَوَمَن كَانَ مَيْتًا فَأَحْيَيْنَـٰهُ وَجَعَلْنَا لَهُۥ نُورًا يَمْشِى بِهِۦ فِى ٱلنَّاسِ كَمَن مَّثَلُهُۥ فِى ٱلظُّلُمَـٰتِ لَيْسَ بِخَارِجٍ مِّنْهَا ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ زُيِّنَ لِلْكَـٰفِرِينَ مَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ

“And is one who was dead and We gave him life and made for him light by which to walk among the people like one who is in darkness, never to emerge therefrom? Thus it has been made pleasing to the disbelievers that which they were doing.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Faith is a second life you did not give yourself, and a light handed to you for walking among people, not for hiding from them.

A reflection

You were the dead man in this ayah

A theatre usher walks the side aisle during the second act. A small torch hangs from her wrist, pointed at the floor. Twenty years ago she sat in row K on a school trip, slumped and half asleep. Nobody would have picked her as the one who would carry the light.

Most of us read this ayah as a picture of two other people. There is the believer, lit and walking, and the unbeliever, lost in the dark. We quietly place ourselves in the first portrait and someone else in the second.

But look at the first verb. Kāna maytan: he was dead. The lit man of this ayah is not someone born glowing. He is a former corpse. The commentaries read that death as disbelief, misguidance or ignorance, and the life as guidance and faith. The reports name Umar, Hamza and Ammar as men the ayah may have pictured. Each of them once stood exactly where the second man stands.

Then come two verbs whose subject is not him. Fa-aḥyaynāhu: then We gave him life. Wa jaʿalnā lahu nūran: and We made for him a light. He did not revive himself. He did not light his own torch.

This is where the ego is meant to shrink. Religious pride takes a gift and wears it as an achievement. Whoever looks down on those in the dark has forgotten the first words of his own story. The Arabs called land never ploughed or built on mawāt, dead land. Nobody congratulates a field for the rain.

Is it self-regard for Allah to insist on the credit? He gains nothing from our thanks. The reminder is for us, because pride is the one illness that puts the light out. Whatever you carry was handed to you at the door. The fitting response is gratitude, and gentleness towards those still sitting in row K.

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.