An-Nazi'at · Makki · ayah 31 of 46

An-Nazi'at 79:31

أَخْرَجَ مِنْهَا مَآءَهَا وَمَرْعَىٰهَا

“He extracted from it its water and its pasture,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Two words, water and pasture, stand for every drink and meal the earth has ever given, and He brought them out of it.

A reflection

Three days without the tap

A water main bursts under a market town. For three days, no water comes from any tap. Lorries arrive in the supermarket car park and people queue in the rain for bottled water, six litres each. A businessman in a good coat stands behind a pensioner with a shopping trolley. By the second day, everyone is talking about how much water they used to waste.

This ayah describes the supply behind every tap. Akhraja minhā māʾahā wa marʿāhā: He brought out of it its water and its pasture. The sources explain the water as the springs that burst out of the ground. The pasture is what people and livestock eat. One classical scholar notes that these two words stand for everything we use and enjoy from the earth. He adds that even salt is included, because it comes from water.

We live, most of us, far from the springs and the fields. Water arrives through pipes; food arrives in plastic. It is easy to believe that the supermarket and the water company are the source. The burst main strips that illusion away in an afternoon. Behind every pipe is a spring He brought out. Behind every shelf is a pasture He made grow.

That is majesty that humbles every level of society equally. The powerful and the poor stand in the same queue when the water stops. No amount of money brings water out of rock. The ego that assumes its comfort is self-made discovers, very quickly, that it is thirsty.

A doubt may come: is this a Lord asking for gratitude because He needs it? One scholar sets these signs in the argument of the surah. The One who brings water out of dead ground can bring you out of it too. And the Quran is plain that He needs nothing. The gratitude is ours to give, and ours to gain from.

Next time you turn on a tap, let the water run over your hand for a second before you use it. Say al-ḥamdu li-llāh.

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.