Al-A'la · Makki · ayah 7 of 19

Al-A'la 87:7

إِلَّا مَا شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ يَعْلَمُ ٱلْجَهْرَ وَمَا يَخْفَىٰ

“Except what Allāh should will. Indeed, He knows what is declared and what is hidden.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Even the best memory ever given rested on Allah's will, and He sees both what we say aloud and the fear hidden behind it.

A reflection

The professor and the word for spoon

For thirty years he taught linguistics. He could explain the history of a word across five languages. Three weeks after a stroke, he sits at a hospital table with a picture card in front of him. It shows a spoon. He knows exactly what it is. The word will not come.

The previous ayah promised: you will not forget. This one adds: illā mā shāʾa llāh, except what Allah wills. Why add an exception to such a promise?

One classical reading answers that Allah never willed him to forget anything. The exception is there to teach. If He had wished, He could have taken away what He revealed; another ayah says exactly that (17:86). So the Prophet's ﷺ unfailing memory was a gift of His grace, not a product of his own strength. If that was true of the best memory ever given, what about ours?

We are proud of our minds. The qualifications on the wall. The quick answer in the meeting. The phone numbers still known by heart. Yet a single night of fever, or a small bleed in the brain, can scatter them. The professor did nothing wrong. He was simply reminded, very suddenly, whose his mind was.

Then the ayah names His knowledge: innahu yaʿlamu al-jahra wa-mā yakhfā, He knows what is spoken openly and what is hidden. Our knowledge is borrowed and patchy. His is complete, and needs no card to prompt it.

Why declare His will and His knowledge at all? He needs no recognition; He is free of need (35:15). The one who needs the reminder is the proud mind, which so easily forgets its Lender. Hold what you know the way you would hold a borrowed book: carefully, gratefully, ready to give it back.

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.