Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 17 of 165

Al-An'am 6:17

وَإِن يَمْسَسْكَ ٱللَّهُ بِضُرٍّ فَلَا كَاشِفَ لَهُۥٓ إِلَّا هُوَ ۖ وَإِن يَمْسَسْكَ بِخَيْرٍ فَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

“And if Allāh should touch you with adversity, there is no remover of it except Him. And if He touches you with good - then He is over all things competent.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Whatever harm touches you, only the One who touched you can lift it, and the good He sends, no one can pull back.

A reflection

Insured against everything except a mouth ulcer

He has prepared for every disaster he can name. A backup generator in the garage. Savings in three currencies. Private health cover, and a second passport in the safe. Then a single ulcer appears inside his cheek. For nine days it turns every meal into a negotiation. There is nothing he can buy that will make it heal one hour sooner.

Small harms expose the illusion that large preparations build. The ego likes to think of itself as a remover. I sort things out. I know a way. I can make this go away. The ayah answers in a single clause: fa-lā kāshifa lahu illā huwa, 'there is no remover of it except Him'. The grammar is total. The commentaries note that the negation sweeps away the whole category of removers. Not most of them. Every one, of every kind.

Then the second half widens further: 'And if He touches you with good, He is capable of everything'. Not capable of that one good, but of everything. The sentence starts with your one problem and ends with the whole of His power.

Someone may ask why God insists on this. Why stress that He alone removes harm? Is it a demand for credit? Look at the alternative. If anyone else could lift what He has laid on you, your safety would depend on who you know. The powerful would buy their way out of every affliction, and the weak would have nowhere to go. The ayah closes that market. The poorest person at the bus stop and the richest man behind his gates knock on exactly the same door.

That is humbling for the proud and a relief for the small. You were never the remover. You were only ever the one asking.

And the word for removing carries a picture of its own. Harm is a cover laid over you, and only one hand can draw it back.

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.