Al-Mulk · Makki · ayah 15 of 30

Al-Mulk 67:15

هُوَ ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلْأَرْضَ ذَلُولًا فَٱمْشُوا۟ فِى مَنَاكِبِهَا وَكُلُوا۟ مِن رِّزْقِهِۦ ۖ وَإِلَيْهِ ٱلنُّشُورُ

“It is He who made the earth tame[1717] for you - so walk among its slopes and eat of His provision - and to Him is the resurrection.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The earth is described as a beast so completely broken that you may stand on the one place it would never let you stand.

A reflection

Something was lowered so you could stand on it

Dhalūl is a word from the stable. It means the compliant one, the beast broken in, the animal that submits to you. The sources give its verbal noun as dhull, softness and compliance, and the lexicons set that root squarely against ʿizz, might. Its other pictures are a path trodden smooth by use, and fruit hanging low enough to reach.

So the earth is not described as generous or abundant. It is described as compliant, in a word whose opposite is power.

The commentaries list what that compliance consists of, and it is more practical than poetic. He did not make it rock so rough that walking on it is prevented. He made it soft enough to dig, so that wells can be sunk and buildings raised out of it. And had it been stone or metal, one of them adds, it would bake in summer and freeze in winter. Planting would be impossible, and it could not hold the dead and the living.

Watch a man sink a well by hand. He goes down through topsoil and then clay, slowly, a bucket at a time, and at nine metres he hits rock and stops. Everything he has been able to do depended entirely on the ground agreeing to be moved. He is not strong. He is working in material that gives.

We talk about mastering the earth, taming it, conquering a landscape. Not one of those words is honest. The ground was handed over already broken, before anyone arrived with a spade. Pride is mostly a failure to notice that, and it is a cheap kind of arrogance, because the clay did all the yielding.

And someone will ask why He points this out, and whether that is not simply taking credit. Read the word again. Dhull is lowness; something has been lowered so that you could stand on it. That is not a boast. That is the opposite of one, and it is said plainly so that the man in the well knows whose clay he is in.

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.