Al-Qalam · Makki · ayah 39 of 52

Al-Qalam 68:39

أَمْ لَكُمْ أَيْمَـٰنٌ عَلَيْنَا بَـٰلِغَةٌ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ ۙ إِنَّ لَكُمْ لَمَا تَحْكُمُونَ

“Or do you have oaths [binding] upon Us, extending until the Day of Resurrection, that indeed for you is whatever you judge?”

Saheeh International

Essence

A contract has two parties who both struck hands on it — and only one side remembers ever signing this one.

A reflection

An oath needs two hands, not one

Aymān, oaths, comes from yamīn, the right hand — the lexicons preserve the custom behind the word directly: two parties sealed an agreement by striking their right hands together. A yamīn was never a private conviction one side held alone. It was, by definition, a mutual act, requiring someone on the other side who also remembered raising their hand.

This is precisely what exposes Quraysh's claim as empty before any further argument is needed. An oath with only one party who recalls making it, and silence on the other end, is not an oath. It is a story one side tells about an agreement that never had two hands in it to begin with.

A handshake deal between two equal business partners, cited years later by one side alone, with the other partner having no memory of any such conversation and no document anywhere, convinces no reasonable observer. Whatever is being described, it is not what the word "deal" actually means. The word requires both hands, both memories, both parties present at the striking.

Quraysh's demand for "oaths upon Us" assumes exactly this missing second hand: Allah's, supposedly extended in agreement to a bargain He was never party to striking. The ayah's challenge does not need to argue the content of the supposed oath. It only needs to ask where the other hand was. There is a reason oaths carry such weight throughout the Qur'an's own moral vocabulary: a promise sworn this way binds precisely because both parties were present and accountable for it afterwards. Allah's own oaths, sworn by His creation throughout the Qur'an, are never made in secret or disputed later; they stand because the One swearing them is also the One keeping the record. Quraysh wanted the binding force of that kind of oath while supplying none of what actually makes an oath binding: a counterparty who remembers making it.

The full entry has 4 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.