At-Tariq · Makki · ayah 17 of 17

At-Tariq 86:17

فَمَهِّلِ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ أَمْهِلْهُمْ رُوَيْدًۢا

“So allow time for the disbelievers. Leave them awhile.[1905]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah's last command is not 'strike back' but 'give them time', said twice and gently, because the outcome is already in better hands.

A reflection

The man who pulled back his hand

Sahih Muslim records a scene at a deathbed. ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ is dying and weeping, his face turned to the wall. His son reminds him of good news the Prophet ﷺ once gave him. ʿAmr turns back and tells his life in three stages.

There was a time, he says, when no one hated the Messenger of Allah more than I did. Nothing would have pleased me more than to get hold of him and kill him. Then Allah put Islam into my heart. I came to him and said: stretch out your hand, so that I can pledge to you. He stretched it out, and I pulled my hand back. What is it, ʿAmr? I wanted to make a condition. What condition? That I be forgiven. Did you not know, the Prophet ﷺ said, that Islam wipes out what came before it?

Later in the same account, ʿAmr says that no one became more beloved to him than the Prophet ﷺ. He could not fill his eyes with him, out of awe.

That is what respite can grow. This surah came down in Makkah, to a man surrounded by people working hard against him (86:15). The command was: give them time. One commentary explains it. Do not busy yourself with taking revenge on them, and do not pray for their destruction. Another notes that the warning is also an invitation to take the opposite path.

Picture a man who, years ago, led the campaign against a small mosque's planning application. He wrote the letters and spoke at the council meeting. The mosque was built anyway, and its people kept greeting him in the street. A decade later, he is carrying crates of food out of its kitchen for a Ramadan food drive, arguing about how to stack them.

Strategy usually means winning the next move. This ayah thinks in lifetimes. Perhaps Allah will put affection between you and those of them you now hold as enemies (60:7). Give time, and leave the door where a heart can find it.

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.