At-Tin · Makki · ayah 8 of 8

At-Tin 95:8

أَلَيْسَ ٱللَّهُ بِأَحْكَمِ ٱلْحَـٰكِمِينَ

“Is not Allāh the most just of judges?”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah ends with a question that has only one honest answer: is not Allah the wisest and most just of all who judge?

A reflection

Stepping down from the bench

On the drive home, a man listens to a radio phone-in about other people's marriages. A caller describes her husband in three sentences, and the man at the wheel has already decided who is to blame. By the next junction he has judged two more strangers, a politician and a footballer. He arrives home tired, as though he has worked a full day at court.

The surah ends with a question built to be answered: is not Allah the most decisive of all who judge? One commentator explains that when a question is put to a negative in this way, it becomes a statement. The listener is led to say the answer himself: yes, He is.

That 'yes' does something to the ego. Most of us spend our days on a small bench of our own. We judge people from fragments: a phone-in, a headline, one bad afternoon in an office. We rarely know the full story, the hidden motives, or what the person did in secret yesterday. Yet pride hands down verdicts with confidence. The ayah invites us to climb down. There is a Judge whose knowledge has no gaps and whose judgement has no bias. The courtroom is His.

Isn't it arrogant, someone might ask, for God to call Himself the best of judges? A human judge who praised himself would be suspect, because he might gain from the claim. One classical commentator explains what this Judge's justice is for. He wrongs no one. From His justice He will establish the Day, to give the wronged their due from those who wronged them. The claim protects the weak, not the One who makes it. It gives Him nothing. It gives the victim of every unseen wrong a court that cannot be bribed.

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.