Al-Mumtahanah · Madani · ayah 6 of 13

Al-Mumtahanah 60:6

لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِيهِمْ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَةٌ لِّمَن كَانَ يَرْجُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ وَٱلْيَوْمَ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَ ۚ وَمَن يَتَوَلَّ فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ هُوَ ٱلْغَنِىُّ ٱلْحَمِيدُ

“There has certainly been for you in them an excellent pattern for anyone whose hope is in Allāh and the Last Day. And whoever turns away - then indeed, Allāh is the Free of need, the Praiseworthy.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Turn away from the example if you wish; nothing is lost from Allah's side, only from yours.

A reflection

What turning away actually costs

Having just offered Ibrahim's example for a second time, the ayah closes with a quiet statement that could sound almost like indifference: whoever turns away from it, Allah is al-Ghanī, utterly free of need, al-Ḥamīd, praiseworthy in Himself. He is not left poorer by anyone's refusal.

This is one of the clearest places the Quran corrects a mistake many people carry without ever examining it: the quiet assumption that disobedience wounds Allah the way it would wound a person, that turning away is a kind of injury done to Him which He must then react to. The ayah removes that picture entirely. Someone who turns away from the clearest example on offer has not touched Allah at all. He remains exactly what He was: self-sufficient and praised in Himself, needing nothing from anyone's compliance.

This is where the ego runs out of room to hide. A person can resist guidance for years while quietly imagining their resistance is a kind of standing up to something, a meaningful act of defiance against a power that minds. The ayah removes that drama completely. There is no contest here between equals, no wound being inflicted on a needy God. There is only a person declining something offered freely for their own good, and losing nothing but their own share of it.

Allah's greatness is not a threat here. It is the plainest possible correction to the pride that imagines its own defiance matters to Him at all, when the only person who actually loses anything is the one who turned away.

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.