Surah Al-Mulk 67:21
سُورَةُ المُلۡكِ · Meccan · Verse 21 of 30
أَمَّنْ هَٰذَا ٱلَّذِى يَرْزُقُكُمْ إِنْ أَمْسَكَ رِزْقَهُۥ ۚ بَل لَّجُّوا۟ فِى عُتُوٍّۢ وَنُفُورٍ
Translation
Who can provide for you if He withholds His provision? Yet they persist in their insolence and their avoidance of the Truth.
English translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem.
Meaning and reflection
'Or who is it that would provide for you if He withholds His provision?' The Surah presses the same point from a gentler angle: not just protection, but sustenance. al-Saadi and Ibn Kathir note the rain, the crops, the daily bread are not our property but His ongoing gift, and the whole system waits on His permission to continue. 'Rather, they persist in arrogance and aversion.' Ask yourself: I speak of my income as something I 'make', as if the provision ran through my hands by my own doing. But every link in the chain, the health to work, the rain, the market, the breath, is held open by Him. If He simply paused the flow, who is my backup supplier? Does that reframe how I hold what I earn, and how tightly I grip it?
Grounded in classical tafsir: al-Saadi, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur.
Topics that discuss this verse
Surah Al-Mulk 67:21 is discussed in 2 study guides on Maani. Each guide gathers the key verses, Arabic words and lessons of one Quranic topic.
Reflect on this verse
Open Surah Al-Mulk 67:21 in Maani to reflect on it through the Five Lenses: its wording, its context, what it means for you, its connections across the Quran and its lessons, grounded in classical tafsir.