Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 129 of 165

Al-An'am 6:129

وَكَذَٰلِكَ نُوَلِّى بَعْضَ ٱلظَّـٰلِمِينَ بَعْضًۢا بِمَا كَانُوا۟ يَكْسِبُونَ

“And thus will We make some of the wrongdoers allies of others for what they used to earn.[343]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Wrongdoers are given one another as allies, and set over one another, as the harvest of what they kept on earning.

A reflection

The network he thought he built

A man runs a ring that rigs public contracts. He boasts that he hand-picked every partner: the official, the supplier, the accountant who never asks questions. Ten years later the case comes to court. One by one, each partner he chose takes the stand against him.

The ayah says: and thus do We make some wrongdoers allies of others. The verb belongs to Allah, in the plural of majesty. Nuwallī: We bring them together, We put them in charge of one another. The man thought he was the architect of his network. The ayah says the network was handed to him, as the wages of what he had been doing.

This is a hard word for the ego, and hardest for the ego of the powerful. Every oppressor tells himself a story of his own cleverness. I chose my allies. I rose by my own skill. The ayah removes him from the centre of his own story. His alliances sit inside an order he does not control.

The commentaries draw out the other side of the same verb. Wrongdoers are set over wrongdoers, and through one Allah takes from another. An early ascetic advised that when you see one wrongdoer taking revenge on another, you should stop and look on in wonder.

Does Allah need to announce that He arranges even the alliances of tyrants? Is this a ruler reminding everyone who is in charge? He gains nothing from announcing it. Those who hear it gain a great deal. The oppressed person, watching a cruel coalition rise, learns it is not beyond His arrangement. The wrongdoer, still able to turn back, learns that his partners are not his protection. The rest of us learn to stop admiring networks that are only waiting to turn on themselves.

The majesty here is quiet. It does not thunder. It simply rearranges the wrongdoers' world, until each is seated exactly where his deeds placed him.

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.