Ash-Sharh · Makki · ayah 1 of 8

Ash-Sharh 94:1

أَلَمْ نَشْرَحْ لَكَ صَدْرَكَ

“Did We not expand for you, [O Muḥammad], your breast?[1944]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Your chest is not too tight for Him: He opens hearts, and before you ask, He asks you to remember that He already has.

A reflection

Only He can open a chest

A-lam nashraḥ laka ṣadrak: did We not open your chest for you? The question is built so that only one answer fits: yes, You did.

We live in an age of self-management. Breathing apps, productivity hacks, a new routine every January. Some of it helps. But no one has ever installed calm in their own chest by force. The anxious mind cannot order itself to be still. The ego likes to believe it controls its inner weather. It does not.

That is why the verb belongs to Allah. Mūsā (as) had to ask: my Lord, open my chest for me (20:25). Here the opening is announced as already done, before it was asked for. One classical writer drew the contrast in a single line: one was the seeker who asked, the other the one sought and given.

Someone may ask why God speaks as 'We'. It is not a plural of gods. It is the plural of majesty, as kings once wrote 'we'. One classical reflection draws the lesson: the greatness of the Giver shows the greatness of the gift. A width put into a chest by the One who spread out the heavens is not a mood that passes with the weather.

Notice the small word laka, for you. The sentence could stand without it. One reading hears a reminder in it: this opening was done for your sake, not His. He gains nothing from your calm. You do.

That is where pride finally rests. The chest you could not widen by effort was widened as a gift. The only fitting answer is the one the question was built for.

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.