Al-Qiyamah · Makki · ayah 19 of 40

Al-Qiyamah 75:19

ثُمَّ إِنَّ عَلَيْنَا بَيَانَهُۥ

“Then upon Us is its clarification [to you].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah did not only promise to keep His words; He promised to make them clear, in His time and through His Messenger.

A reflection

I only distribute; Allah gives

'Then upon Us is its clarification'. The explanation, too, belongs to Allah. That is a hard sentence for the human ego, especially the clever kind.

We like to think understanding is our achievement. The scholar whose reading is quoted. The speaker whose insight is shared a thousand times. The reader who feels, after an hour with a difficult passage, that he has cracked it.

The Prophet ﷺ spoke of understanding in very different terms. Sahih al-Bukhari records him saying that when Allah wants good for someone, He gives them understanding of the religion. Then he added: I am only the one who distributes, and Allah is the One who gives. The man to whom the clarification was promised called himself a distributor of what he had been given.

An award-winning translator of poetry is asked on stage how she finds the right word. The audience expects technique. 'I sit with the line until the word is given,' she says. 'Then I write it down before it goes'. Several people laugh. She is not joking.

That is the humility this ayah asks of anyone who handles the Quran's meanings. You can study, and you must. But when a meaning truly opens, it has been given.

Someone may ask why Allah insists that the clarification is His. Does He need the credit? He needs nothing from anyone; whoever strives, strives only for himself (29:6). The insistence protects us. A person who believes insight is self-made grows proud of it, and pride is the quickest way to stop learning. The one who knows it is given keeps asking.

So the ego's claim on understanding goes too. We do not explain the Quran into clarity. At best we are shown, and pass on what we were shown.

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.