Picture a man alone in the desert at night. It is cold, it is dark, and danger could be anywhere in the black around him. So he kneels over a few sticks and works at them, desperate, until at last a flame catches and the whole landscape leaps into view. And then, in the space of a breath, the light is gone, and he is left in a dark deeper than before, unable to see at all.
That is the first example Allah strikes in the longest surah of the Qur'an, and it is a portrait of the hypocrite. This is day two of twenty-seven, retold faithfully from Nouman Ali Khan's series, and before he lets us look at the fire, he sits us down with the people it was struck for.
Two enemies, and the harder one
وَمِنَ ٱلنَّاسِ مَن يَقُولُ ءَامَنَّا بِٱللَّهِ وَبِٱلْيَوْمِ ٱلْءَاخِرِ وَمَا هُم بِمُؤْمِنِينَ
“And of the people are some who say, "We believe in Allāh and the Last Day," but they are not believers.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:8 Read 2:8 with tafsir
The opening of al-Baqarah sorts people into three. There are the believers. There are those who openly reject, the disbelievers. And then there is a third group, harder to see and harder to deal with: those who say the words of faith with their tongues while their hearts are somewhere else. Nouman Ali Khan lingers here, because the Qur'an does, and because the danger is real. An enemy outside the walls you can see and brace for. An enemy who stands inside them saying we believe just like you, who can demoralise and divide and weaken from within, is the one that can truly hurt you.
He points out something the first listeners felt instantly. The Qur'an keeps laying the story of Musa, peace be upon him, over the life of the Prophet ﷺ, like two transparencies on one projector. Before the sea, Musa faced Pharaoh, the enemy outside, just as the Prophet ﷺ faced Quraysh in Makkah. After the sea, Musa's hardest trouble came from within his own people, just as the Prophet's ﷺ did once the Muslims reached Madinah. That is why hypocrisy fills so much of the Madani Qur'an, and this example is the opening shot of that long and painful subject.
The portrait drawn before the picture
ٱللَّهُ يَسْتَهْزِئُ بِهِمْ وَيَمُدُّهُمْ فِى طُغْيَٰنِهِمْ يَعْمَهُونَ
“[But] Allāh mocks them and prolongs them in their transgression [while] they wander blindly.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:15 Read 2:15 with tafsir
Before Allah strikes the image, He draws the people in plain words, and every line tightens the knot. They try to deceive Allah and the believers, and deceive only themselves. There is a disease in their hearts, and it grows. Told to stop spreading corruption, they answer that they are only reformers. Told to believe as the believers believe, they sneer, shall we believe as the fools believe, calling the very Companions who gave up everything for Allah fools. They tell the believers we are with you, then tell their own circle, in private, we were only mocking you.
And then comes the line the fire will turn on. Every time they act, Allah answers. They mock, and it is Allah who mocks them, leaving them to stumble on in their transgression, wandering blind. Hold onto that pattern, because in a moment it will explain the strangest words in the whole parable: they move, and Allah responds in kind.
The fire in the dark
مَثَلُهُمْ كَمَثَلِ ٱلَّذِى ٱسْتَوْقَدَ نَارًا فَلَمَّآ أَضَآءَتْ مَا حَوْلَهُۥ ذَهَبَ ٱللَّهُ بِنُورِهِمْ وَتَرَكَهُمْ فِى ظُلُمَٰتٍ لَّا يُبْصِرُونَ
“Their example is that of one who kindled a fire, but when it illuminated what was around him, Allāh took away their light and left them in darkness [so] they could not see.”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:17 Read 2:17 with tafsir
Now the picture. Someone out in the wilderness, cold and exposed in the dark, struggles to kindle a fire, and at last it catches and lights up everything around him. Nouman Ali Khan notes how exactly this is chosen. You do not light a fire in the middle of a city; you light one when you are lost in the open, which was the daily reality of a desert people. To the Arabs this was not a metaphor from a book. It was last Tuesday.
He notes the weight of the word, too. The Arabs did not use mathal for any ordinary comparison; they kept it for an image so apt it became a coined saying, repeated unchanged for generations, like a proverb you are not allowed to reword. So when Allah opens with mathaluhum, their likeness is, He is striking exactly that kind of picture: one built to echo forever.
From fire to light
There is a quieter thread inside the word fire. The one other man in the Qur'an who set out in the dark to kindle a flame was Musa, peace be upon him, who saw a fire in the distance, went toward it for warmth and direction, and found there not fire but guidance, the very word of his Lord. Notice, Nouman Ali Khan says, that the parable speaks of kindling a fire, nar, and then says Allah took away their light, nur. You set out for fire; what was really on offer was light.
So who is the one kindling the fire? The reading he leans toward is that it is the Prophet ﷺ himself, who withdrew to the cave above Makkah searching for some answer to a world drowning in its own wrongs, until Jibril came with the Qur'an, a revelation the Book itself calls light. And the word for how it lit the surroundings, ada'at, is not the cool word for light. It carries heat in it, like the desert sun, because this light came with warning and intensity, not only comfort. The fire was struck, and everything around it stood revealed.
Why Allah says He took their light
Then the strangest turn in the parable. The fire is burning, the surroundings are lit, and Allah says He took away their light and left them in darkness. But the fire is still there. The Prophet ﷺ is still there. It is the hypocrites who backed away from the flame, who said of the believers, we will not get too close to that, we are fine at a safe distance. So why does Allah say He took their light, as if He were the one who walked off with it?
Because of the pattern, Nouman Ali Khan explains: they move, and Allah responds. How did Allah take their light? By leaving them to the very distance they chose, allowing them to drift on. And look at the word, their light. The light was meant for them. They were brought nearer to it than anyone on earth, Allah Himself bringing the Prophet ﷺ into their city so they would be close, a gift held out to them and to no Roman or Persian alive. And they went blind to it.
It is a law woven through all of creation, he reminds us. Blindfold your eyes for six months and you will not see when you open them. Bind your legs and they will not carry you. Refuse a gift from Allah long enough and the very ability to receive it is taken away. So a man could sit an arm's length from the Prophet ﷺ, hear the Qur'an in the Prophet's own voice, and feel nothing, because he had spent his light. Left, the ayah says, in darknesses, plural, each step away a deeper dark, drifting toward those whose hearts were already sealed shut.
Deaf, dumb, blind, and the order that explains it
صُمٌّۢ بُكْمٌ عُمْىٌ فَهُمْ لَا يَرْجِعُونَ
“Deaf, dumb and blind - so they will not return [to the right path].”
Surah al-Baqarah 2:18 Read 2:18 with tafsir
You would expect, after a parable that ends in darkness and not seeing, that the next word would be blind. Instead Allah says deaf, then dumb, then blind. Nouman Ali Khan calls the order one of the most remarkable things in the passage, and here is why. In the world of the spirit, true light is not seen; it is heard. The Qur'an is called light, and the Qur'an is not looked at, it is listened to. So the failure starts in the ears.
Deaf: they refuse to listen to the word of Allah. Dumb: a person who cannot hear properly never learns to speak properly, and so, having shut out the word, they will not speak the truth either. He brings it straight into our world. The influencer hears something true and stays silent, because saying it would cost the following, the contract, the next deal, so better to change the subject. The follower will not agree with the truth, because agreeing would cost the friends, the group, the belonging. And only then, blind: refusing to see what is plainly, blazingly lit. Deaf and dumb and blind is not a list of three faults. It is the anatomy of how a heart goes dark, and it begins with refusing to listen.
The mirror: close to the light, and blind to it
Now the picture turns, and it is no longer about them. Here is what Nouman Ali Khan will not let us leave without: being near Islam is not the same as being in it. You can be in the masjid, inside the sound of the Qur'an, raised in a Muslim home, closer to the light than most of humanity, and still be the man with the spent eyes who feels nothing. Nearness was never the gift. Receiving it was. And a gift unused, by the law Allah wove into everything, is slowly withdrawn.
Notice too that the one who kindles the fire is usually a single person, alone, while the crowd keeps its distance. To hold the light has a way of making you the odd one out, even, he says, among Muslims: he has met girls in Muslim countries mocked by classmates and family for wanting to cover, for praying in the corner at break. Blindness is the convenient choice; it costs nothing to stay where it is dark. Lighting the fire is work, and following it is work. And yet the ayah does not end with Allah keeping the light from them. It ends, so they will not return. They are the ones who walked away, and the door home was never locked. Which means it is still open for you tonight. Do not let the gift go unused. Keep choosing the light, and keep coming back to it.