Memorize Surah al-Mulk Ramadan 2021 | Verse 23

Āyah 23

قُلۡ هُوَ ٱلَّذِیۤ أَنشَأَكُمۡ وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمۡعَ وَٱلۡأَبۡصَـٰرَ وَٱلۡأَفۡـِٔدَةَۚ قَلِیلࣰا مَّا تَشۡكُرُونَ

(My Prophet,) Say: “No doubt, He, God, is The One who created all of you and made you exist. And He is The One who gave and endowed all of you with the ability to hear, see, and have emotional intelligence. All of you hardly show any appreciation.”

Allāh tells the Prophet ﷺ to say the following. Focusing it back onto our creation, origination, or existence, and so many things we take for granted.

Perhaps we can say, some people are grateful for “rizq”, things they are given, and being given direction— the past two āyāt. But here, Allāh ﷻ wants us to focus on things even more basic: just existing and having senses.

You think you did everything on your own? How did you “earn” your senses?!

What did we do to gain our eyesight if we’ve been blessed with it? Did we buy it? Did we earn it? Again, these are gifts, blessings, and luxuries from Allāh . He can take them away at a moment’s notice. He is simply allowing us to use these blessings – they do not belong to us.

And even more so, what on earth would any of us do if we lost any of these three blessings? How would we react if we could no longer see? Even for a day or two? Or if we could no longer hear? Or if we could no longer feel?

And fuʾād is really interesting because it’s not a “sense” like sight or hearing. It’s our ability to emotionally think and process. That’s something so crucial to our humanness – if we lost that, we’d be numb, and almost socially dead.

But most people aren’t grateful. They don’t care. They ignore and deny these blessings. But as true believers, we should be grateful. We should truly show Allāh   that we acknowledge His favors, and that we appreciate everything He’s given us. We say “Al-Ḥamdulillāh” every bit of perfect praise and absolute thanks belongs to and is due to Allāh , The One True God. And remember, it’s not just that phrase that does the job, we have to use the blessing in a manner that makes God happy. We do so by using our eyes and ears to listen to The Truth, Guidance, Qurʾān, Sunnah, and we believe and follow it. We use it for good. And we restrain our senses from being used to partake in anything that would make God angry.

قُلۡ هُوَ ٱلَّذِیۤ أَنشَأَكُمۡ

• Say
• He is The One who
• Created all of you, brought you into being/existence, originated you

وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمۡعَ وَٱلۡأَبۡصَـٰرَ وَٱلۡأَفۡـِٔدَةَۚ

• And He made, specifically for all of you
  • Mutaʿalliq bi al-khabr muqaddam
• Hearing ➝ the ability to hear, understand, listen
• Sight ➝ the ability to see, recognize, visualize, believe
• Emotional Intelligence ➝ Not logic and rationale, and not sheer emotion
  • But you using both emotions and reason

قَلِیلࣰا مَّا تَشۡكُرُونَ

• Very little
• You don’t give thank, show gratitude and appreciation
• You don’t thank Allāh for anything at all
• You barely give any thanks

Always take time out throughout your day to:

• Truly tell and show Allāh that you are grateful
• Say Alḥamdulillāh
• Use all of these blessings in the best way
  • Don’t use it for bad
  • Use it for good