Al-Muddaththir · Makki · ayah 45 of 56

Al-Muddaththir 74:45

وَكُنَّا نَخُوضُ مَعَ ٱلْخَآئِضِينَ

“And we used to enter into vain discourse with those who engaged [in it],”

Saheeh International

Essence

The third thread: we waded into falsehood with those who wade, swept along in a churning current rather than caught alone.

A reflection

Driven into the ford together

Khawḍ's first picture is a river crossing: horses driven in at a ford, the water churning as several riders cross together, none of them walking it alone on dry, solid ground. The same root later covers wading into an affair, or into talk, carrying that churned, collective, slightly out-of-control feeling with it wherever it travels.

The ayah is precise about this collective shape: maʿa al-khāʾiḍīn, with those who wade, not simply 'we indulged in falsehood' as a private, solitary habit. This was never one person privately entertaining bad thoughts alone. It was a current several people entered together, each one's footing made less certain by how many others were churning the same water around them.

This matters because it names something gossip and mockery almost always rely on: company. A cruel joke rarely survives being said to an empty room. It needs the churn of other voices joining in, each one's laughter making the next person's harder words feel more acceptable than they would standing alone. The ford is never crossed solo; it is precisely the crowd of other legs stirring the same water that makes any one person's footing feel safe enough to wade in at all.

The confession names the current, not merely the content. What is being admitted is not only what was said, but the fact that none of it would have happened quite the same way walking that stretch of ground entirely alone.

There is a specific honesty in this that is easy to miss. Blaming bad company is often used as an excuse, a way of denying personal responsibility entirely. This confession does the opposite: it names the current honestly, as a real and contributing factor, while still speaking in the first person throughout. We waded. Not, we were dragged in against our will.

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.