Ash-Shams · Makki · ayah 14 of 15

Ash-Shams 91:14

فَكَذَّبُوهُ فَعَقَرُوهَا فَدَمْدَمَ عَلَيْهِمْ رَبُّهُم بِذَنۢبِهِمْ فَسَوَّىٰهَا

“But they denied him and hamstrung[1934] her. So their Lord brought down upon them destruction for their sin and made it equal [upon all of them].”

Saheeh International

Essence

They called the warning a lie and cut her down; then their Lord closed the ground over them all, for their sin.

A reflection

Shaped, and then levelled

The ayah ends with a verb the surah has used before. Fa-sawwāhā: and He levelled it. Seven ayat earlier, the same verb described the soul: wa-mā sawwāhā, and the One who proportioned it (91:7). The One who shapes can also level.

The commentators give two readings of the levelling. He made the ruin even over them, so that none escaped: young and old, high and low, man and woman alike. Or He levelled the ground over them, as earth is smoothed over a grave. The root pictures both: rough ground made flat, and all things made equal.

Think of the man who struck the blow. The Prophet ﷺ described him as mighty and protected among his clan (91:12). His protection was the whole point of him. In one verse, he is made level with everyone he thought he stood above.

Picture a condemned tower block on the edge of a city. Forty years of concrete, steel and lives. The engineers set their charges for months. On the morning, a crowd gathers behind the barriers. There is a crack, a pause, and eleven seconds later there is only a cloud of dust at ground level. Everything that stood above the street is now the street.

The ego builds itself upward: status, security, the people who have our back. The ayah shows how quickly Allah can make it all level ground.

Does He speak of His power this way because He wants to be feared for its own sake? A hadith qudsi in Sahih Muslim answers. If all of you, first and last, had the heart of the most wicked man among you, it would not lessen My dominion at all. He loses nothing by our defiance. The warning is for us.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.