'Abasa · Makki · ayah 24 of 42

'Abasa 80:24

فَلْيَنظُرِ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنُ إِلَىٰ طَعَامِهِۦٓ

“Then let mankind look at his food -”

Saheeh International

Essence

The ungrateful are told to look at their plate, because the plainest meal carries a chain of gifts that no one at the table arranged.

A reflection

And before that?

The surah has just said that the human being has not yet fulfilled what he was commanded. Its next move is surprising. It does not threaten. It says: let him look at his food.

One commentator explains the link. If this is how the human being is, still falling short despite so many gifts, let him look at his food. Perhaps then he will fulfil what he owes. Another notes a pattern in the Quran. Whenever it points to signs within the self, it follows them with signs in the world outside. The surah has shown us our own making. Now it turns to the table.

And a third explains why food comes first. It is the mainstay of life. The looking meant here, he says, is the heart's looking, by reflection. How did Allah create this food, and prepare the means of living, so that we might prepare for the return?

Picture a six-year-old at dinner who asks her father where the rice comes from. From the shop, he says. And before that? A lorry brought it. And before that? A farmer grew it. And before that? He planted seeds, and it rained. And who made it rain? He puts his fork down. He has run out of people.

That is exactly where this ayah wants to take us. Follow any meal back far enough and every human hand drops out of the chain. What remains is rain we did not send, soil we did not make, seeds whose life we cannot explain. One commentator notes that the stages before a meal exists are clearer to the eye than what happens inside the body afterwards. So the Quran starts there, with what anyone can see.

A person might object: why should I thank God for food I paid for? But the money bought only the last link. The chain behind it was a gift.

Pride likes to sit at the table as a self-made man. This ayah gently asks him to look down at his plate, and follow it back until his pride runs out of links.

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.