Finding solace in the reprimand: hearts as hard as rocks - or harder

A meditation on Quran 2:74

I read a lot of Quran during Ramadan so I can get through it from start to finish in the holy month. There are verses I love and look forward to each time, verses I remember from reading to reading, verses that strike me with their beauty and stick with me, so that seeing them is like seeing an old friend.

The other day, I read one of these verses. Chapter 2, verse 74 speaks of a people whose hearts have hardened.

ثُمَّ قَسَتْ قُلُوبُكُم مِّنۢ بَعْدِ ذَٰلِكَ فَهِىَ كَٱلْحِجَارَةِ أَوْ أَشَدُّ قَسْوَةًۭ ۚ وَإِنَّ مِنَ ٱلْحِجَارَةِ لَمَا يَتَفَجَّرُ مِنْهُ ٱلْأَنْهَـٰرُ ۚ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَشَّقَّقُ فَيَخْرُجُ مِنْهُ ٱلْمَآءُ ۚ وَإِنَّ مِنْهَا لَمَا يَهْبِطُ مِنْ خَشْيَةِ ٱللَّهِ ۗ وَمَا ٱللَّهُ بِغَـٰفِلٍ عَمَّا تَعْمَلُونَ ٧٤

“Then after that your hearts became hardened. They were as hard as rocks, or even harder. For there are some rocks from which rivers gush forth; and there are some that split open and send forth water; and there are some that sink in awe of God. And God is not unaware of what you do.”

I’ve read the verses in Arabic my whole life, and the Arabic of the Quran is old and complex. It’s the classical Arabic of the people of 7th century Arabia, much different than the slang Egyptian we use today in conversation. So I would “get” parts of the verse and miss others. I knew we were talking about hearts as hard as rocks, but I didn’t quite follow what happened with the rocks after that. Sometimes, as I read, I would put a sticky note onto the page so I could remember to look up the translation later. More often than not, later would be forgotten until the next time I came across those same verses, which could take months, or even years to circle back to.

And so, I spent most of my life finding this verse intimidating. What if I was one of these hard hearted people? Was a hard heart the same as a numb heart? I would read my Quran and feel almost nothing, just words in a second language, sometimes difficult to shape my mouth around. The ‘almost nothing’ would be replaced by dread - why couldn’t I feel more? What was wrong with me?

When I finally read the translation a few years ago, something broke in me. Here was a reprimand, a scolding of these heartless people, lost in the annals of history. And then, immediately after, a description of all the ways a rock could still be soft. A rock’s hardness could be worn down, over centuries, millennia of water coursing around it, on it, through it. A rock could split open. A rock could feel.

Photo by Good Free Photos on Unsplash

Suddenly, the reprimand felt more hopeful. I could overcome my numbness too. I could find the softness in the words over time, could learn them beyond simply knowing how to make the sounds, where to raise my tongue and where to engage my throat and where to place the itgham and the iqlab and the ikhfa’ and the ithhar¹.

Most of the verses I have fallen in love with are ones that, at first, made me nervous. Ones that caught my attention enough to mark them with a sticky note. Enough to search into their meaning. The wild thing is that they’re much more poetic in Arabic, even when I can’t understand them. There’s a rhythm to the Quran, and the translations lose that rhythm in the crossover to another language.

This week, as I came upon the verse, I found myself considering the reprimand again, considering the focus on the hardened heart. And instead of being afraid of it, I was comforted with the recognition of its existence.

We are living through incredibly well-documented massacres of Palestinians in Gaza. I watch reel after reel on my phone of children with their limbs blown off, of mothers grieving, of families holding the shrouds of their loved ones.

And then I watch the reels of politicians and spokespeople, confronted with the truth by journalists and activists, their dead eyes sneering as they give their canned responses. Some politicians don’t bother. A reel of a US Senator a couple of weeks ago comes to mind. The man turns to the activist who’s found him walking the halls of government and says, “you know what I think? I think we should kill them all.” With a smile. On his face.

As hard as rocks or harder.

I’d rather know the truth, I suppose. I’d rather know who wants to “kill them all” than be lied to.

In response to my poem about Gaza a couple of weeks ago, I got multiple responses along the same lines. Every Gazan is complicit. It’s their fault.

As hard as rocks or harder.

There is nothing new under the sun, of course. There have been people this cruel from the dawn of time. This is why a verse in a book that is over 1400 years old tells the story of hard hearts from before its time.

And yet. That doesn’t mean it should be acceptable. I’ve come around. I’m happy for the reprimand.

Thank you for reading Letters from a Muslim Woman. I share the joys and challenges of being a visibly Muslim woman in a sometimes-unfriendly world. This week we crossed 1000 subscribers, and I’m just wanted to say that I’m grateful for every single one of you.

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Nancy B

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Let’s chat in the comments:

1. Is there a book you like to read over and over?

2. Is there a saying or a phrase that you used to feel one way about and now feel differently about?

3. Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic? How do you feel about optimism and pessimism?

I’m continuing to share resources about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. This week I’m sharing two resources. The first is an incredible article that Naomi Klein wrote for The Guardian on Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar Winning Speech for his incredible film: The Zone of Interest is about the danger of ignoring atrocities – including in Gaza

The second is this podcast episode from Brene Brown’s Unlocking Us, with Author and Political Scientist Khaled Elgindy. This is a great explainer on how we have reached this moment.

1. The itgham, iqlab, ikhfa’ and ithhar are references to specific rules from Tajweed, which is set of rules to help readers recite the Quran in the same way that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) learned it from Angel Gabriel. This is a whole area of scholarship in Islam and people learn it to various degrees, from being taught in a religious study circle all the way to having a full fledged university degree which focuses on it.