Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 155 of 165

Al-An'am 6:155

وَهَـٰذَا كِتَـٰبٌ أَنزَلْنَـٰهُ مُبَارَكٌ فَٱتَّبِعُوهُ وَٱتَّقُوا۟ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُرْحَمُونَ

“And this [Qur’ān] is a Book We have revealed [which is] blessed, so follow it and fear Allāh that you may receive mercy.”

Saheeh International

Essence

This is the Book He sent down, full of good; walk behind it, guard it from your own bending, and mercy is the destination.

A reflection

A Book you do not review

A man finishes reading a translation of the Quran and opens a book website. He gives it three stars. 'Powerful in places,' he writes, 'but too demanding, and the structure is hard to follow'. He means no harm. He reviews everything he reads.

This ayah quietly removes the reviewer's chair. Wa-hādhā kitābun anzalnāhu: and this is a Book We sent down. The speaker is not an author hoping for good notices. It is the One who sent it down from above.

One classical commentary notices the order of the description. 'We sent it down' comes before 'blessed', though one might expect the praise first. The reason, it says, is that the Makkans denied that anything had been sent down at all. So the first thing to settle is where the Book comes from. Everything else follows from that.

The same commentary reads the indefinite kitābun as a Book of a standing that cannot be measured. That changes the reader's posture. We are used to standing above what we read: judging, ranking, skimming. The ego enjoys that seat. It feels like freedom.

Before this Book, the seat is reversed. The reader does not rate the Book; the Book rates the reader. Arrogance does not survive that reversal for long. You can still question, still struggle, still ask what a line means. But you ask as one addressed by his Lord, not as a critic in the front row.

One more detail sharpens it. Hādhā, this, is a near pointer. The Book is not far away in a library. It is the very thing being recited to you, in your hands, in your language.

The man with the three stars was not wrong to read closely. His mistake was where he sat. Humility here is not dimming the mind. It is moving one chair.

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.