Sūrat ar-Raʿd
Section 4 of 13 · Surah Studies · Mufti Abdul Rahman Mangera
The Guardians
The discussion in verse 11 is of particular interest:
لَهُۥ مُعَقِّبَـٰتٌ مِّنۢ بَيْنِ يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِۦ يَحْفَظُونَهُۥ مِنْ أَمْرِ ٱللَّهِ ۗ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّىٰ يُغَيِّرُوا۟ مَا بِأَنفُسِهِمْ ۗ وَإِذَآ أَرَادَ ٱللَّهُ بِقَوْمٍ سُوٓءًا فَلَا مَرَدَّ لَهُۥ ۚ وَمَا لَهُم مِّن دُونِهِۦ مِن وَالٍ
“For every one (from among you) there are angels replacing one another, in front of him and behind him, who guard him under the command of Allah. Surely, Allah does not change the condition of a people unless they change themselves. When Allah intends evil for a people, there is no way to turn it back, and for them there is no patron other than Him.” (13:11)
This concerns angels: those known as the ḥafaẓah, the guardian angels — the real guardian angels who accompany different people. It has been seen on numerous occasions that a child is protected in a miraculous way.
There is the account of a man who had a swimming pool at the back of his house. The back door was generally kept closed, but on this occasion it was open, and suddenly the family discovered that a child was missing. They rushed out fearing that he had fallen into the pool — and he was not in the pool; he was outside it, but completely wet. How could he be completely wet and yet not in the pool? Had he fallen in, there was no way the child could have got out by himself, for it was beyond his ability — a two-year-old child. The only conclusion they could reach was that perhaps he had fallen in, and then, māshāʾAllāh, the guardian angels had protected him. There have been numerous cases of the kind; it happens to many different people.