Al-'Alaq · Makki · ayah 13 of 19

Al-'Alaq 96:13

أَرَءَيْتَ إِن كَذَّبَ وَتَوَلَّىٰٓ

“Have you seen if he denies and turns away -”

Saheeh International

Essence

The forbidder is summed up in two verbs: he called the truth a lie, and he turned his back so as not to see it.

A reflection

One verb for the tongue, one for the body

A woman notices that her elderly father keeps asking the same question twice in an afternoon. She mentions it to her brother. 'He's just tired,' he says, and changes the subject. She mentions it again a month later. He turns back to the television. He is not stupid, and he loves his father. Looking would simply mean everything changing.

Two verbs sit side by side here, and they describe different things. Kadhdhaba: he called the truth a lie. Tawallā: he turned his back. The first is something the tongue does. The second is something the whole body does.

One classical commentator explains why this was not honest confusion. The opening of the surah had set out clear signs: being created, being taught, the pen. And any sound mind knows, he says, that stopping a servant from serving his master is a foolish thing to do. So a man who denied those signs and blocked another's worship knew, by his own reason, that he was in the wrong. He was not searching and failing to find. He was refusing to look.

Much denial works this way. The evidence is rarely missing. It is simply unwelcome. So the tongue produces a reason to dismiss it, and the body turns towards something else. The order in the ayah matches the order in life. First we say it is not true. Then we arrange things so we never have to check.

The brother in front of the television is not the man in this surah. He is not attacking anyone. But he shows how ordinary the two movements are, and how easily they become a habit.

The remedy is not only to argue better. It is to turn round. To face the thing you have been keeping behind you, for ten honest minutes, and let it say what it has been trying to say.

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.