Session 8: Creation, Du'a, and the Revived Earth.

Part 1 of 7. About this session.

The previous passage ended with people who forgot the meeting of their Day. This passage begins with the Book they were given. Allah brought them a Book, explained with knowledge, as guidance and mercy. On the Day its promise comes true, they ask for someone to intercede for them, or to be sent back.

Then the passage turns to our Lord, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, covers the night with the day, and holds the sun, the moon and the stars under His command. Straight after this comes a command for us: “Call upon your Lord in humility and privately.” Call on Him in fear and in hope, because His mercy is near to those who do good.

The passage ends with rain. Allah sends the winds as good news, drives heavy clouds to a dead land and brings out fruit. “Thus will We bring forth the dead.” Good land gives its plants easily. Bad land gives only a little, with difficulty.

Part 2 of 7. The passage, in Saheeh International.

Ayah 52.

And We had certainly brought them a Book which We detailed by knowledge - as guidance and mercy to a people who believe.

Ayah 53.

Do they await except its result? The Day its result comes those who had ignored it before will say, "The messengers of our Lord had come with the truth, so are there [now] any intercessors to intercede for us or could we be sent back to do other than we used to do?" They will have lost themselves, and lost from them is what they used to invent.

Ayah 54.

Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne. He covers the night with the day, [another night] chasing it rapidly; and [He created] the sun, the moon, and the stars, subjected by His command. Unquestionably, His is the creation and the command; blessed is Allah, Lord of the worlds.

Ayah 55.

Call upon your Lord in humility and privately; indeed, He does not like transgressors.

Ayah 56.

And cause not corruption upon the earth after its reformation. And invoke Him in fear and aspiration. Indeed, the mercy of Allah is near to the doers of good.

Ayah 57.

And it is He who sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy until, when they have carried heavy rainclouds, We drive them to a dead land and We send down rain therein and bring forth thereby [some] of all the fruits. Thus will We bring forth the dead; perhaps you may be reminded.

Ayah 58.

And the good land - its vegetation emerges by permission of its Lord; but that which is bad - nothing emerges except sparsely, with difficulty. Thus do We diversify the signs for a people who are grateful.

Part 3 of 7. The explanation, from the classical tafsir.

What the classical commentators say about these seven ayat. Take this one if you want to go deeper.

The passage turns from the Hereafter to the Lord who created, then back to the resurrection. The units follow Ibn Kathir’s four comments.

Reading guide: source summaries below are paraphrases, not direct quotations. Reflections and facilitator notes are editorial teaching suggestions. The Verses and audio page uses Saheeh International, whose bracketed words are the translators’ own; English quoted from tafsir editions follows those editions.

Ayat 52 to 53 — The Book, and the Day it comes true.

First, the ayat again, in Saheeh International.

Ayah 52: And We had certainly brought them a Book which We detailed by knowledge - as guidance and mercy to a people who believe.

Ayah 53: Do they await except its result? The Day its result comes those who had ignored it before will say, "The messengers of our Lord had come with the truth, so are there [now] any intercessors to intercede for us or could we be sent back to do other than we used to do?" They will have lost themselves, and lost from them is what they used to invent.

Allah brought them a Book, explained with knowledge, as guidance and mercy. They wait only for its outcome. On that Day they admit the messengers spoke the truth, and ask for intercessors, or to be sent back.

Source summary: Ibn Kathir says that by sending prophets and a Book “explained in detail”, Allah left the idolaters no excuse, and he compares Surah Al-Isra, ayah 15.

Source summary: On ayah 53, the commentators read tawil as the outcome of what the Book promised, not as an interpretation of it. Ibn Kathir calls it “the final fulfillment”, and reports from Ibn Abbas that its Day is the Day of Resurrection. Al-Jalalayn: “its fulfilment the consequences of what is in it”.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari says they ask for intercessors because in this world they were used to having someone to speak for them in their needs. They remember it at a time when there is no friendship and no intercession.

Optional source note — what tawil means here, and the plea to go back.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reports several early readings of tawil here: its reward (Qatada), its outcome (Qatada), its recompense (Mujahid), and from al-Rabi ibn Anas: it keeps arriving, one matter after another, until it is complete on the Day of Resurrection. Ibn Zayd reads it as the Book’s reality, as in Surah Yusuf, ayah 100, where Yusuf says of his dream: “My Lord has made it reality.” Al-Qurtubi takes the word from ala, to return to or end in, and says the readings of Mujahid and Qatada are close.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari also says ayah 52 turns back to the opening of the surah, ayah 2. Al-Qurtubi calls the question about intercessors a wish, and says of “they will have lost themselves”: whoever does not benefit from himself has lost himself. For the plea to be sent back, Ibn Kathir compares Surah Al-An'am, ayat 27 to 28.

Reflection: The Book came while there was still time to act on it. The plea to be sent back is a wish for that same time.

Ayah 54 — The Lord who created and commands.

First, the ayah again, in Saheeh International.

Ayah 54: Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne. He covers the night with the day, [another night] chasing it rapidly; and [He created] the sun, the moon, and the stars, subjected by His command. Unquestionably, His is the creation and the command; blessed is Allah, Lord of the worlds.

Your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then rose over the Throne. He covers the night with the day, and the sun, the moon and the stars are under His command. His is the creation and the command.

Source summary: Ibn Kathir names the six days, Sunday to Friday, and reports a difference of opinion: whether they were like “our standard days”, or each day like a thousand years, as reported from Mujahid, Imam Ahmad, and Ibn Abbas through al-Dahhak. Al-Jalalayn says the days were “of the days of this world that is to say in the equivalent thereof since there was no sun then”.

Source summary: Why six days, and not at once? Al-Jalalayn: “Had He willed He could have created them in an instant”, but “He wanted to teach His creatures to be circumspect”. Al-Qurtubi gives the same reason in his own words, to teach gentleness and care in our affairs, and adds that everything has its appointed time with Allah, which is also why He does not hurry to punish. He compares Surah Qaf, ayat 38 to 39.

Optional source note — rising over the Throne: what the commentators say.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: The commentators affirm it as the ayah says, without asking how. Al-Qurtubi records Imam Malik’s answer: the istiwa is known, and the how is unknown. He says the first generations affirmed it as the Book says, and did not claim to know how. Ibn Kathir names the way of the early imams, among them Malik, al-Awzai, al-Thawri, al-Layth ibn Sad, al-Shafii and Ahmad: to let such ayat pass as they came, without asking how, without likening Allah to His creation, and without denying what He said of Himself. He cites Surah Ash-Shura, ayah 11: “There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing.”

Source summary: Al-Jalalayn: “a presiding befitting of Him”.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Qurtubi also records that many later theologians explained it as the height of Allah’s majesty and dominion, to keep Him free of place and direction. Ibn Kathir says this is not the place to set out all the positions, and al-Qurtubi says that what he has given is enough.

Optional source note — the night and the day, the sun, the moon and the stars.

Source summary: On the night and the day, Ibn Kathir says: “Each of them seeks the other rapidly, and does not come late.” On “His is the creation and the command”, he says: the dominion and the decision.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: The sun, the moon and the stars can be read as things He created, joined to “the heavens”, or as a new sentence: they are made subservient. Al-Jalalayn and al-Qurtubi give both, and Ibn Kathir says the two are close in meaning. Saheeh International’s “[He created]” follows the first.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reports Mujahid: creation began on Sunday and was gathered on Friday, and one of the six days is like a thousand years of what we count. Al-Qurtubi takes tabaraka, blessed, from baraka: abundance and expansion.

Reflection: The ayah about the heavens and the earth leads straight into an ayah about our du'a. The Lord who holds the sun and the moon is the One we are told to call on.

Ayat 55 to 56 — How to call on Him.

First, the ayat again, in Saheeh International.

Ayah 55: Call upon your Lord in humility and privately; indeed, He does not like transgressors.

Ayah 56: And cause not corruption upon the earth after its reformation. And invoke Him in fear and aspiration. Indeed, the mercy of Allah is near to the doers of good.

Call on your Lord humbly and privately; He does not like those who overstep. Do not spoil the earth after it has been set right. Call on Him in fear and in hope: His mercy is near to those who do good.

Source summary: Ibn Kathir explains tadarruan wa khufyatan as “in humbleness and humility”, and brings the narration from the Two Sahihs in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told people who raised their voices that they were not calling one who is deaf or absent (core on the hadith page).

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari says: call on Him alone, sincerely, humbly, and privately, between you and Him, not loudly to be seen. He records al-Hasan al-Basri: the Muslims used to strive in du'a and no voice was heard from them, only a whisper between them and their Lord.

Source summary: All four read “transgressors” here as those who overstep in du'a. Al-Jalalayn: “braggarts and loud-mouthed in their supplications”. Ibn Kathir reports Abu Mijlaz: “asking to reach the grade of the Prophets”, and the narration of Abdullah ibn Mughaffal (optional on the hadith page).

Source summary: On ayah 56, Ibn Kathir explains fear and hope as “fearing what He has of severe torment and hoping in what He has of tremendous reward”. Al-Qurtubi says hope and fear should be like the two wings of a bird, carrying a person on his way; with one alone, he falls.

Optional source note — corruption, and “near”.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari and al-Jalalayn read the corruption as associating partners with Allah and disobeying Him, after He set the earth right by sending messengers. Al-Qurtubi says the ban is general, on all corruption, little or much, and reports al-Dahhak’s examples: stopping flowing water, or cutting down fruit trees to cause harm.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari says the reward promised to those who do good is near to them, because nothing stands between them and it except their souls leaving their bodies. Why qarib, near, is masculine here is a point of grammar the commentators discuss; the Arabic words page has it.

Source summary: For a quiet du'a, Ibn Kathir compares ayah 205, and al-Tabari and al-Qurtubi bring Zakariyya’s du'a in Surah Maryam, ayah 3: “When he called to his Lord a private supplication.”

Reflection: A quiet du'a does not need an audience. It is said to One who is near and hears it.

Ayat 57 to 58 — Rain on a dead land, and two kinds of ground.

First, the ayat again, in Saheeh International.

Ayah 57: And it is He who sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy until, when they have carried heavy rainclouds, We drive them to a dead land and We send down rain therein and bring forth thereby [some] of all the fruits. Thus will We bring forth the dead; perhaps you may be reminded.

Ayah 58: And the good land - its vegetation emerges by permission of its Lord; but that which is bad - nothing emerges except sparsely, with difficulty. Thus do We diversify the signs for a people who are grateful.

Allah sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy, drives heavy clouds to a dead land and brings out every kind of fruit: so He will bring out the dead. Good land gives its plants by His permission; bad land gives only a little, with difficulty.

Source summary: Ibn Kathir says “before His mercy” means before the rain, and reads the end of ayah 57 as the resurrection: “just as We bring life to dead land, We shall raise up the dead on the Day of Resurrection”.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari says the mercy here is the rain, and that the parable is for those who denied the resurrection: for One who has this power, raising the dead is easy.

Source summary: On ayah 58, al-Jalalayn says the good land is “a similitude of the believer who when he hears an admonition he heeds it and benefits from it”, and the bad land a similitude of the disbeliever. Ibn Kathir brings the Prophet’s sallallahu alayhi wa sallam parable of rain on three kinds of ground, the second core reading on the hadith page.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: Al-Tabari reports the believer and the disbeliever from Ibn Abbas and Qatada, and from al-Suddi a reading about hearts: when the Qur'an came down, the believing heart took it in and faith settled there, and the other heart kept nothing from it that would help it. Al-Qurtubi reports the same kind of reading from al-Hasan: a parable for hearts.

Optional source note — how the word for the winds is read.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: The Arabic on this site reads bushran, “as good tidings”. Al-Qurtubi names it as the reading of Asim and gives Surah Ar-Rum, ayah 46 as its witness. Al-Jalalayn’s text reads nushuran, “unfolding”, and he gives bushran as a third variant. Al-Tabari’s text reads nashran, gently blowing winds that raise the clouds, and he calls nashran and nushuran two well-known readings. Al-Qurtubi lists seven. When al-Jalalayn or al-Tabari explain this word, they are explaining their own reading.

Paraphrase from the Arabic: On ayah 58, al-Tabari also reports Mujahid: a parable for Adam and all his children, some of whom believed and became good, and some of whom did not. Al-Qurtubi reports al-Nahhas: the quick to understand are like the good land, and the slow like the bad.

Reflection: The same rain falls on both kinds of ground. What comes up depends on the ground, and the ayah ends with people who are grateful.

Part 4 of 7. Hadith connected to the passage.

Narrations that sit alongside this passage.

Reading guide: the English passages below are plain-language summaries of narrations reported from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. They are not direct quotations or translations. The Arabic is quoted from the Sunnah.com page named beneath each one, and the full source entry with its chain is one click away. Connections to the verses are editorial.

Core reading: You are not calling one who is deaf or absent.

Summary: On a journey, whenever the Companions climbed a high place, they said Allahu akbar out loud. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said: Go easy on yourselves. You are not calling one who is deaf or absent. You are calling One who hears, who sees, and who is near. The narration goes on; this summary stops here.

Narrated by Abu Musa al-Ashari.

Sahih al-Bukhari 7386, Book 97, Hadith 16, also Sahih Muslim 2704a.

Connection to the verses, editorial reflection: Ibn Kathir brings this narration at ayah 55, on calling on Allah humbly and privately. Its word for near is the word ayah 56 uses for Allah’s mercy.

Core reading: Guidance like rain on three kinds of ground.

Summary: The guidance and knowledge Allah sent me with are like heavy rain on land. Good ground took in the water and grew plants and grass in plenty. Hard ground held the water, and people drank from it and watered their animals and fields. Bare ground held no water and grew nothing. The first is like the one who understands Allah’s religion, benefits, learns and teaches. The last is like the one who does not care for it and does not accept the guidance.

Narrated by Abu Musa al-Ashari.

Sahih al-Bukhari 79, Book 3, Hadith 21, also Sahih Muslim 2282.

Connection to the verses, editorial reflection: Ibn Kathir brings this narration under ayat 57 to 58. The ayah has two kinds of land; the narration has three.

Optional reading: Ask for Paradise.

Summary: Abdullah ibn Mughaffal heard his son pray: O Allah, I ask You for the white palace on the right side of Paradise when I enter it. He said: My son, ask Allah for Paradise, and seek refuge with Him from the Fire. I heard the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam say that there will be people who overstep in supplication.

Narrated by Abdullah ibn Mughaffal, through Abu Naama.

Sunan Ibn Majah 3864, Book 34, Hadith 38, Grade: Sahih (Darussalam, as listed on Sunnah.com), also, which adds purification (Grade: Sahih (Al-Albani, as listed on Sunnah.com)).

Connection to the verses, editorial reflection: Ibn Kathir brings this narration for the end of ayah 55: “He does not like transgressors.” A father gives his son a fuller du'a.

Optional reading: At the wind, worry; at the rain, mercy.

Summary: Aisha said that on a day of strong wind or dark cloud, you could see it in the face of the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He would come and go, uneasy, and when it rained he was glad. She asked him about it. He said he was afraid it might be a calamity coming on his community, and when he saw the rain he said: it is mercy.

Narrated by Aisha.

Sahih Muslim 899a, Book 9, Hadith 15, also Sahih al-Bukhari 3206.

Connection to the verses, editorial reflection: Ayah 56 asks us to call on Allah in fear and in hope, and ayah 57 calls the rain His mercy. Here the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam feels both before a cloud. None of the commentators brings this narration at the ayah; the link is ours.

Optional reading: Fresh from its Lord.

Summary: It rained while we were with the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He uncovered part of his body until the rain fell on it. We asked him why. He said: because it has just come from its Lord.

Narrated by Anas ibn Malik.

Sahih Muslim 898, Book 9, Hadith 14, also (Grade: Sahih (Al-Albani, as listed on Sunnah.com)).

Connection to the verses, editorial reflection: In ayah 57 Allah sends the rain to a dead land. None of the commentators brings this narration at the ayah; the link is ours.

Optional reading: At the end of a gathering.

Part 5 of 7. Arabic words in the passage.

Four words: the outcome of the Book, two words for how to call on Allah, the good news before the rain, and the little that bad ground gives. The doa we make every day comes from the same root as the first word of ayah 55.

Tawilahu, ayah 53.

Saheeh International: “its result” — Do they await except its result?

Meaning in context: Its outcome: what the Book promised, coming true. All four commentators read the word this way here, not as “interpretation”. Ibn Kathir calls it “the final fulfillment”. It comes twice: they wait for it, and on the Day it comes, they admit the messengers told the truth.

Root: hamza-w-l. Lane gives the verb first as “He, or it, returned”, and the form of this word as “he made it, or caused it, to return”. Tawil is disclosing “that to which a thing is, or may be, reduced, or that which it comes, or may come, to be”: where a thing ends up.

For reflection: The Book's outcome will come either way. Which of its promises do you live by now, and which are you still waiting to see?

In this surah: As tawil, only here, twice in one ayah. The same root gives awwal, first, at ayah 38, 39 and 143.

Grammar: Verbal noun, form II — accusative masculine, with the pronoun “its” attached. The fourth word of ayah 53; the seventh word, tawiluhu, is the same word in the nominative.

Elsewhere in the Qur'an: The root occurs 170 times. The verbal noun tawil occurs 17 times, eight of them in Surah Yusuf, where the corpus glosses it “interpretation”. When Yusuf's dream comes true, he says:Al-Tabari reports Ibn Zayd reading ayah 53 by this ayah.

Surah Yusuf, ayah 100 — “this is the explanation of my vision of before. My Lord has made it reality.”

From the tafsir: The early readings of tawil in al-Tabari, and Ibn Zayd's link to Yusuf's dream.

Tadarruan wa khufyatan, ayah 55.

Saheeh International: “in humility and privately” — Call upon your Lord in humility and privately.

Meaning in context: Two words for how to call on Allah. Tadarru is humbling yourself as you ask; khufya is quietly, in secret. Ibn Kathir: “in humbleness and humility”. Al-Tabari says privately means between you and Him, not loudly to be seen. In Indonesian we say doa, from dua. The first word of the ayah, udu, call upon, is from the same root.

Root: d-r-ayn. Lane, said of a man: “He was, or became, lowly, humble, or submissive”. kh-f-y: the corpus gives the verb as “to hide”. We have no lexicon line for this root.

For reflection: When did you last make du'a where no one else could hear it?

In this surah: Tadarruan comes again at ayah 205: “remember your Lord within yourself in humility and in fear without being apparent in speech”. Ibn Kathir compares it here. The verb from d-r-ayn is at ayah 94.

Grammar: tadarruan: verbal noun, form V — accusative masculine indefinite. khufyatan: noun — accusative feminine indefinite, joined by wa, and. The third and fourth words of ayah 55.

Elsewhere in the Qur'an: Tadarruan occurs 3 times and khufya twice. The two stand together only here and at Surah Al-An'am, ayah 63, where Saheeh renders the first word differently:Zakariyya's du'a uses the adjective from kh-f-y:The pairing is the corpus count; the link to Surah Al-An'am, ayah 63 is our observation. Al-Tabari and al-Qurtubi bring Surah Maryam, ayah 3 here.

Surah Al-An'am, ayah 63 — “[when] you call upon Him imploring [aloud] and privately”.

Surah Maryam, ayah 3 — “When he called to his Lord a private supplication.”

From the tafsir: Al-Hasan al-Basri's whisper, in al-Tabari. The first core narration is on the hadith page.

Bushran, ayah 57.

Saheeh International: “as good tidings” — And it is He who sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy.

Meaning in context: Good news. The winds come first, as good news of what is coming. Ibn Kathir says “before His mercy” means “before the rain”, and al-Tabari says the mercy here is the rain. In Indonesian we often call rain rahmat; in this ayah, too, the mercy is the rain.

Root: b-sh-r. Lane ties the word to bashara, the skin: news that changes a person's complexion. Then “joyful, or glad, tidings; good news”, and the word “when used absolutely, relates only to good”.

For reflection: The winds come before the rain. When good news reaches you, do you thank Allah then, or only when the good thing arrives?

In this surah: The root again at ayah 188: bashir, a bearer of good tidings.

Grammar: Noun — accusative masculine indefinite. The fifth word of ayah 57.

How it is read: The Arabic on this site reads bushran; al-Qurtubi names it as the reading of Asim. Al-Jalalayn's text reads nushuran and al-Tabari's nashran. The tafsir page has the detail.

Elsewhere in the Qur'an: The root occurs 123 times. The noun bushr occurs only 3 times, and each time it is the winds before His mercy:At Surah Ar-Rum, ayah 46 another word from the root: “He sends the winds as bringers of good tidings”. Ibn Kathir and al-Qurtubi cite Surah Ar-Rum, ayah 46 here. That all three are about the winds is the corpus count.

Surah Al-Furqan, ayah 48 — “And it is He who sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy”.

Surah An-Naml, ayah 63 — “who sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy”.

From the tafsir: The mercy as the rain, and how the word for the winds is read.

Nakidan, ayah 58.

Saheeh International: “sparsely, with difficulty” — but that which is bad - nothing emerges except sparsely, with difficulty.

Meaning in context: A little, and with difficulty: what bad ground gives. Al-Qurtubi calls it the hard ground that refuses to give good. The commentators read the two lands as a parable: for the believer and the disbeliever (al-Jalalayn; Ibn Abbas and Qatada in al-Tabari), or for hearts that receive the Qur'an (al-Suddi in al-Tabari, al-Hasan in al-Qurtubi).

Root: n-k-d. Lane, of a life: “hard, or strait, and difficult”. Of a well: “The well came to have little water”. Of a man: “he gave little: or gave not at all”.

For reflection: Lane uses the word for a person who gives little. Where do you give only a little, and with difficulty, and where do you give freely?

In this surah: Only here, and the only time the root comes in the Qur'an.

Grammar: Noun — accusative masculine singular indefinite. The twelfth word of ayah 58. Al-Tabari lists other readings, nakadan and nakdan, and chooses nakidan, ours, by the agreement of the reciters of the cities.

Elsewhere in the Qur'an: Nowhere else. In the same ayah the good land is al-baladu al-tayyibu, from the root of tayyibat, a word from session 05.

From the tafsir: The readings of the two lands. The Prophet's sallallahu alayhi wa sallam parable of rain on three kinds of ground is on the hadith page.

More words to notice.

Wa-rahmatan, ayah 52, 56, 57: “Mercy”, three times in this passage: the Book is guidance and mercy (ayah 52), the mercy of Allah is near (ayah 56), and the winds come before His mercy, which al-Tabari says is the rain (ayah 57). The noun rahma occurs 114 times. Indonesian rahmat.

Al-khalqu wa-l-amru, ayah 54: “The creation and the command.” Ibn Kathir: “the dominion and the decision”. The noun khalq occurs 52 times and amr 166. Indonesian makhluk, a creature, is from the root of khalq.

Al-mutadina, ayah 55: “Transgressors”: those who go past the limit. All four commentators read it here as overstepping in du'a. Lane: “He went, or passed, beyond it; exceeded it; or transgressed it”. The noun occurs 6 times.

Wa-tamaan, ayah 56: “Aspiration”: hope. The noun occurs 4 times, and each time fear comes just before it (ayah 56, Surah Ar-Ra'd, ayah 12, Surah Ar-Rum, ayah 24, Surah As-Sajdah, ayah 16). Session 07's yatmauna (ayah 46) is the verb from the same root.

Hathithan, ayah 54: “Rapidly”: the night seeks the day swiftly (al-Tabari, from Ibn Abbas and al-Suddi). The root comes only here.

Thiqalan, ayah 57: “Heavy” rainclouds, heavy with their water (al-Qurtubi). The root of thaqulat, heavy, at ayah 8, the scales of session 01. The same clouds at Surah Ar-Ra'd, ayah 12: “generates the heavy clouds”.

Part 6 of 7. Questions for discussion, and personal reflection.

These are the questions the halaqa discusses. The first three are the core questions; the rest are optional. Pause after each one and think it through, or talk it over with someone.

Question 1, core, on ayah 55.

Ayah 55 says: call on your Lord tadarruan wa khufyatan, humbly and privately. Al-Tabari records al-Hasan al-Basri: the early Muslims worked hard at their du'a, and no voice was heard from them, only a whisper between them and their Lord. Much of the du'a we hear is said out loud, at a gathering or after a talk. What makes a quiet du'a, alone and in your own words, hard to keep up?

Question 2, core, on ayah 54.

Ayah 54 says Allah created the heavens and the earth in six days. Al-Jalalayn says He could have created them in an instant, but “He wanted to teach His creatures to be circumspect”: careful, and not in a hurry. Al-Qurtubi says the same in his own words: to teach gentleness and care in our affairs. Where are you in a hurry for change, in yourself or in someone close to you? What would it look like to give it time?

Question 3, core, on ayah 58.

Ayah 58 shows the same rain on two kinds of land. The good land brings out its plants by permission of its Lord; the bad land gives only a little, nakidan, with difficulty. Al-Tabari reports al-Suddi, and al-Qurtubi reports al-Hasan, reading this as a parable for hearts receiving the Qur'an. Think of a reminder that stayed with you and changed something, and one you heard and soon forgot. What was different in you the first time?

Question 4, optional, on ayah 52.

Ayah 52 calls the Book “guidance and mercy to a people who believe”. Al-Qurtubi says the believers are named because they are the ones who benefit from it. Think of an ayah or a part of the Qur'an that has been a mercy to you, in a hard time or an ordinary one. What was it, and what did it do for you?

Question 5, optional, on ayah 56.

Ayah 56 says: “invoke Him in fear and aspiration”. Al-Qurtubi says hope and fear should be like the two wings of a bird; with only one, a person falls. The word for hope, tama, has the root of session 07's word yatmauna. In your du'a, which wing do you lean on more, and what helps you keep both?

Question 6, optional, on ayah 57.

In ayah 57 the winds drive heavy clouds “to a dead land”, and Allah brings out every kind of fruit. Ibn Kathir reads it as a sign of the resurrection: “just as We bring life to dead land, We shall raise up the dead”. Is there something in your own life, a habit of prayer, a friendship, your time with the Qur'an, that feels like dry ground right now? What would the first rain look like?

Question 7, optional, on ayah 55.

Ayah 55 ends: “indeed, He does not like transgressors”, which the commentators read as those who overstep in du'a. On the hadith page, Abdullah ibn Mughaffal hears his son ask for the white palace on the right side of Paradise, and gives him a fuller du'a: ask Allah for Paradise, and seek refuge with Him from the Fire. Has someone ever taught you a better way to make du'a? How did they do it?

Tadabbur — personal reflection.

These are personal applications, written for this session. They are separate from the verse translation and from the tafsir.

Reflection 1. Ayah 55 asks for du'a said humbly and privately. Once this week, make one du'a with no one else in the room, in your own words.

Reflection 2. Ayah 57 calls the rain His mercy. The next time it rains, stop for a moment and say alhamdulillah.

Reflection 3. Ayah 54 ends: “blessed is Allah, Lord of the worlds.” Say it once this week when you look up at the night sky.

Reflection 4. Finish this silently: One du'a I will make quietly this week is blank. One reminder I want to let grow in me is blank.

Part 7 of 7. Lectures to watch later.

These are talks by other scholars, to watch later if you want to go further. The links are at the foot of the Tafsir page. The descriptions are editorial.

Yasir Qadhi: How Loud Your DUA Should Be?, Ep number 13, Etiquettes of DUA.

Connection to the verses, editorial reflection: From the transcript, a short talk on ayah 55: how loud our du'a should be. He reads the ayah at the start, and from Surah Al-Ma'idah, ayah 29 brings the narration of the Companions who raised their voices, the first core reading on the hadith page. He says a soft voice is the default, and du'a out loud in a group is the exception.