Surah Ash-Shu'araa (26) — Ayah 128

(Ayah 128) {اَتَبْنُوْنَ بِكُلِّ رِيْعٍ اٰيَةً تَعْبَثُوْنَ : ’’ رِيْعٍ ‘‘} Elevated place. In the dictionary, {’’رِيْعٌ‘‘} (with kasrah and fathah) means elevated land or every wide path or every road or an open path in the mountain or a high mountain. It is used with a tā for the singular. {’’ اٰيَةً ‘‘} Sign, memorial. {’’ تَعْبَثُوْنَ ‘‘ ’’عَبَثٌ‘‘} (ʿ) To do useless and futile work, meaning you do useless and futile work. By {’’كُلُّ رِيْعٍ‘‘} is meant many elevated places, because not every elevated place can be made a memorial, nor did they make one. Hud (peace be upon him) first invited his people to the fundamental teachings brought by all the prophets: faith in Allah, piety towards Him, and obedience. After that, he expressed disapproval of some of their actions. The first is that on every elevated and prominent place, where your pride and arrogance, your grandeur and wealth and power can be displayed, you make some kind of memorial, which has no benefit in this world or the Hereafter. The purpose of Hud (peace be upon him) is to turn them away from this tendency of ostentation, because of which such futile acts are done and it is thought that we are not answerable to anyone. Spending wealth extravagantly, someone builds a magnificent tomb as his memorial, someone erects a lofty minaret, someone constructs a pavilion. The pyramids of Egypt and the Taj Mahal, which are counted among the wonders of the world, are also such futile and useless memorials of their founders, for which they will have to answer. These memorials have been condemned because they indicate pride and arrogance, extravagance, and wasting precious life, the cause of which is that their makers do not have a sense of accountability.