Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 46 of 165

Al-An'am 6:46

قُلْ أَرَءَيْتُمْ إِنْ أَخَذَ ٱللَّهُ سَمْعَكُمْ وَأَبْصَـٰرَكُمْ وَخَتَمَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِكُم مَّنْ إِلَـٰهٌ غَيْرُ ٱللَّهِ يَأْتِيكُم بِهِ ۗ ٱنظُرْ كَيْفَ نُصَرِّفُ ٱلْـَٔايَـٰتِ ثُمَّ هُمْ يَصْدِفُونَ

“Say, "Have you considered:[305] if Allāh should take away your hearing and your sight and set a seal upon your hearts, which deity other than Allāh could bring them [back] to you?" Look how We diversify[306] the verses; then they [still] turn away.”

Saheeh International

Essence

None but Allah could return hearing, sight and understanding if He took them, yet though the signs are turned every way, they lean aside.

A reflection

Handed back to you every morning

Sleep is a nightly rehearsal of this ayah. Each night your hearing dims, your eyes close and your understanding slips away. Each morning they are handed back. You did not fetch them. You could not.

The Prophet ﷺ named this every morning. On waking he would say: praise be to Allah, who gave us life after causing us to die. And to Him is the rising (Sahih al-Bukhari). Sleep was a small death, and waking a small return.

A smaller rehearsal waits at the dentist. An hour after the injection, you prod a lip you cannot feel. You tell it to feel, and it ignores you. It is your lip. You have fed it and spoken through it all your life. It does not take orders from you. Feeling comes back when it is given back.

Now the ayah raises the stakes. Not a lip for an hour, but hearing, sight and the heart's understanding, all at once. Tell me, it asks: which god other than Allah would bring them back to you? The Makkans had idols they looked to for many needs. None of them had ever been asked to return an ear.

This is where pride should shrink. We say 'my eyes', 'my mind', 'my judgement'. The grammar of ownership hides a loan. The very faculties we use to argue with Allah, to doubt and to boast, are lent by Him every second.

Does He need us to admit it? No. He was the Owner before we noticed, and remains so if we never do. The admission is for us. A borrower who knows he is borrowing handles the thing more gently, and is less inclined to show off with it.

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.