Al-Isra · Makki · ayah 19 of 111

Al-Isra 17:19

وَمَنْ أَرَادَ ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةَ وَسَعَىٰ لَهَا سَعْيَهَا وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ كَانَ سَعْيُهُم مَّشْكُورًا

“But whoever desires the Hereafter and exerts the effort due to it while he is a believer - it is those whose effort is ever appreciated [by Allāh].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Want the Hereafter, walk towards it at the pace it asks, with faith underneath, and Allah Himself will thank the effort.

A reflection

When the One who needs nothing says thank you

Every bin day, before seven, a woman on a terraced street goes out in her dressing gown. She drags the neighbours' wheelie bins off the pavement and lines them against the walls. A man at number fourteen walks to the bus stop with a white cane. He has no idea why his route is always clear. She has done it for six years.

The ayah ends with a word that should stop us: mashkūran, thanked. Not merely accepted, not merely recorded. Thanked, by Allah.

The Arabs pictured gratitude through animals and plants. A horse was shakūr when a handful of fodder made it sleek: the little it was given showed on it. A plant was proverbially grateful for turning green when a cloud merely passed over. When Allah is called al-Shakūr, the lexicons explain, it means a small deed grows with Him and is multiplied.

Sahih al-Bukhari reports a story the Prophet ﷺ told. A man walking along a road found a thorny branch lying across it, and moved it aside. Allah thanked him for it, and forgave him. That was the whole deed: a branch moved off a path.

An early commentator explained the ayah's thanks in the same spirit. Allah thanked them for their good deeds and overlooked their bad ones.

None of this is because Allah needs our effort. He is the Rich, and we are the ones in need (35:15). Whoever strives, strives for his own soul (29:6). That is exactly what makes the thanks astonishing. It is pure generosity.

Many people today are worn down by effort no one sees: the carer, the night cleaner, the parent whose sacrifices the children never notice. Often it is less the work that exhausts than the silence around it. The ayah answers that silence. There is One who sees the branch moved and the bins pulled back, and who thanks.

Worship, in this light, is not a tax paid upwards. It is a relationship with the most appreciative Witness there is.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.