Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 24 of 165

Al-An'am 6:24

ٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ كَذَبُوا۟ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ ۚ وَضَلَّ عَنْهُم مَّا كَانُوا۟ يَفْتَرُونَ

“See how they will lie about themselves. And lost from them will be what they used to invent.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Watch it as if it had already happened: they lie against their own souls, and everything they invented to lean on simply slips away.

A reflection

Chalk lines on the lawn

Before a builder digs the foundations for an extension, he sometimes marks its outline on the lawn. White lines on the grass show exactly where the walls will stand. The owners walk round it with a cup of tea. 'It's bigger than I thought,' says one. 'It blocks the kitchen window,' says the other. Moving a chalk line costs nothing. Moving a wall costs everything.

The ayah opens with a command: unẓur, look. The commentaries agree that this is looking with the heart, the kind of looking that takes a lesson. And it uses a strange tense. 'Look how they lied' is in the past, though the scene has not happened yet. One commentary explains that once something has been foretold, it can be spoken of as already done. Its future is that certain.

So the reader is walked round the chalk outline of the Day. Here is the gathering, here is the question, here is the sworn denial. Here, finally, is the moment when every invented support simply is not there. It is told in the past tense, as finished, so that you feel how solid it is.

Why show it at all? Because a chalk line can still move. The people in the scene cannot change their answer. We can. The ayah is addressed first to the Prophet ﷺ, and through him to every reader. It is not shown to entertain, or merely to frighten. It is shown so that whoever sees it can rebuild before the concrete is poured.

That gives the reader a practice. When you meet an ayah about the Day, slow down and walk round it. Stand where they stand, hear what they say, and notice what is missing. Then come back to your own life with one question. Which line in my plans needs to move while moving it is still cheap?

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.