Al-Buruj · Makki · ayah 13 of 22

Al-Buruj 85:13

إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ يُبْدِئُ وَيُعِيدُ

“Indeed, it is He who originates [creation] and repeats.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The king could only end lives; the Lord of this ayah begins everything that begins and brings back everything that returns.

A reflection

He, and He alone, begins

The ayah points twice before it says anything. Innahu huwa: truly, it is He, He Himself. Arabic uses that doubled pointing to close a door. Not you, not them, not the king in the story. Him.

Then the verb: yubdiʾu, He begins. The Arabs called a well dug in untouched ground, where no one had ever dug, a badīʾ. To begin, in this sense, is not to carry on what someone else started. It is to open what was never open, with no model before it. The lexicons draw a description of Allah from it: al-Mubdiʾ, the Originator.

One early reading takes the ayah without limit. He begins everything that is begun and repeats everything that is repeated, and no one else has any share in either.

A novelist is asked at a book signing where her new idea came from. 'From me,' she says, and the audience laughs warmly. She is not wrong about the hard work. But every word she used, she inherited. The language was there before her. So were the eyes that read, the memory that stored and the morning light she wrote by. She arranged beautifully. She did not originate.

That is the ego's favourite myth: authorship. We like to be the first cause of our success, our ideas, even our children's good manners. This ayah returns the credit to its owner. At our best, we are wells dug in ground He opened.

Is it pride for Allah to insist on this? Consider what the Quran says of the alternative. 'The truth has come, and falsehood neither begins nor repeats' (34:49). Falsehood cannot originate anything, and it cannot restore anything. Any claim to be the first cause, made by anyone but Him, is that falsehood. His insisting is simply the truth said plainly.

He gains nothing from our acknowledgement. We are the ones who gain: relief. You no longer have to be the origin of your own worth. You only have to be grateful for it, and humble about what you did with 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.