'Abasa · Makki · ayah 14 of 42

'Abasa 80:14

مَّرْفُوعَةٍ مُّطَهَّرَةٍۭ

“Exalted and purified,”

Saheeh International

Essence

Lifted high and kept pure by Another, these pages need no one's approval; they ask only for clean hands and a clean heart.

A reflection

Lifted from where it rests

Marfūʿa, 'raised', comes from a root whose first sense is very physical, and the lexicons state it plainly. Rafʿ is the opposite of waḍʿ, setting down. You lift a thing from where it rests. You build a wall higher. After the harvest, the grain was lifted and carried up to the threshing floor. And you took a case up to the ruler, presenting it to someone above.

From the physical came the moral: rifʿa, high standing, the opposite of lowliness.

The commentators give the raising of these pages several senses, and the root holds them all. The pages are raised in rank with Allah. They are raised in place, one view says, in the seventh heaven. They are raised in mention and worth. And one view adds that they are raised above doubt and contradiction, lifted clear of anything that could pull them down.

There is a lovely echo of this root in a surah revealed to comfort the Prophet ﷺ: 'And We raised high your mention' (94:4). The same verb.

Think about where that places this surah. ʿAbasa opens with the Prophet ﷺ being corrected. A lesser leader might have feared that such an episode would lower him in people's eyes. Yet the Book that corrected him is itself raised, and so is his name. He was not lowered by accepting correction from the raised pages. He was lifted with them.

That reverses a common fear. We often avoid correction because we think it will set us down. We defend ourselves, explain, justify. But the root of this word suggests another way. What Allah raises cannot be set down by anyone, and what He sets down cannot be raised by anyone. The only question is whether we stand with what He has raised.

The self-sufficient man of Quraysh thought he was high. He looked down on the message and on the blind man who wanted it. The pages he brushed aside were raised above the heavens. He was the one sitting low, and did not know 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.