At-Tariq · Makki · ayah 8 of 17

At-Tariq 86:8

إِنَّهُۥ عَلَىٰ رَجْعِهِۦ لَقَادِرٌ

“Indeed, He [i.e., Allāh], to return him [to life], is Able.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The One who turned a single gush of water into you is not stretched by the thought of doing it again.

A reflection

Not stretched

Innahu: truly He. Again the Maker is not named. After two passive verbs, He is now meant by a pronoun alone, and one classical note sees honour in that too. Who else could 'He' be? Then la-qādir, able, with two words of emphasis stacked before it. Another commentary explains the force of it: He is plainly able; it neither slows Him nor defeats Him.

The Arabs saw qudra, power, in a horse. They called one aqdar when its hind hooves landed exactly where its forefeet had stepped, every stride measured. Qudra is being able to bring about the measure you intend. The same root gives qadar, the measure and decree of all things.

Sahih al-Bukhari reports a hadith qudsi on exactly this ayah's claim. The son of Adam denied Me, and had no right to. His denial is his saying: He will not bring me back as He began me. Yet the first creation is no easier for Me than bringing it back.

Now look at how we measure ourselves. We love capacity: bandwidth, output, what our systems can handle. A start-up founder tells a conference that his platform 'scales to anything'. A month later, one power failure in one data centre takes the whole service down for a day. His capacity was real, and it was borrowed: from power grids, engineers, hardware and a thousand things he did not control. Every human 'able' has conditions attached.

His does not. The ayah's double emphasis leaves no room for 'if'.

Is it arrogant for God to speak of His power like this? Arrogance is claiming a greatness you do not have. He needs nothing from our belief: you are the ones in need of Allah, and Allah is the Free of need, the Praiseworthy (35:15). The statement is for us, and it is merciful. It is hard to stay proud of your own capacity beside One who made you once and will do it again without effort. And it is hard to despair, once you know nothing in you is beyond His power to restore.

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.