Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 89 of 165

Al-An'am 6:89

أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَاتَيْنَـٰهُمُ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ وَٱلْحُكْمَ وَٱلنُّبُوَّةَ ۚ فَإِن يَكْفُرْ بِهَا هَـٰٓؤُلَآءِ فَقَدْ وَكَّلْنَا بِهَا قَوْمًا لَّيْسُوا۟ بِهَا بِكَـٰفِرِينَ

“Those are the ones to whom We gave the Scripture and authority and prophethood. But if they [i.e., the disbelievers] deny it, then We have entrusted it to a people who are not therein disbelievers.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Book, the judgement and prophethood never waited on one crowd; if some cover them over, Allah has already placed them in other hands.

A reflection

The queue does not end at your door

A regular at a small bakery has a complaint. The baker will not hold back the first loaf of the morning for him. 'Do that again,' he says, 'and I'll take my custom elsewhere.' The baker nods politely and looks past him. The queue runs out of the door and round the corner.

Most of us carry a quieter version of that man inside. Our pride half-believes that faith is a favour we are doing. We pray, and some small voice keeps a ledger of how good of us it was.

This ayah takes that voice apart. It names the gifts first: the Book, the judgement and the prophethood. 'We gave them', says Allah. Then it says: if these people cover them over, fa-qad wakkalnā. The verb is in the past, and qad is a word of certainty. Allah has already entrusted these gifts to a people who do not deny them. The keepers were in place before the refusal was spoken.

So the message never stood at anyone's door, waiting. The Makkan leaders who rejected it imagined they were deciding its fate. They were only deciding their own.

Someone may object. Is this a God who wants to be believed in, and who replaces those who will not admire Him? Is that not vanity? The answer lies in the direction of the gift. One classical scholar of the heart drew it out from this very ayah. When Allah entrusts something to a servant, it is a command, a kindness and a robe of honour. It is not, he wrote, from any need of His. A king does not need the man he honours with his seal. The man needs the honour.

That is the humbling turn for the ego. Belief is not our donation to Allah. It is our appointment. And an appointment can pass to someone else, while the One who appoints loses nothing at all.

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.