Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 105 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:105

أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ بِـَٔايَـٰتِ رَبِّهِمْ وَلِقَآئِهِۦ فَحَبِطَتْ أَعْمَـٰلُهُمْ فَلَا نُقِيمُ لَهُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ وَزْنًا

“Those are the ones who disbelieve in the verses of their Lord and in [their] meeting Him, so their deeds have become worthless; and We will not assign to them on the Day of Resurrection any weight [i.e., importance].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Both Sahihs record the Prophet reciting this verse about a large, heavy man who would not weigh a gnat's wing.

A reflection

A beam that will not lie

Both Sahihs carry a report that fixes this verse to a scene.

The Prophet said this. There will come, on the Day of Resurrection, the great, heavy man who will not weigh with Allah a gnat's wing. And he said: recite, if you wish, and We will not assign to them on the Day of Resurrection any weight.

So the Prophet himself applied this verse to size.

And the word for weight has its own picture. The lexicons give a beam held level between two pans: finding a thing's true weight, on a scale that will not lie.

Not a judgement of worth. A measurement.

A large man steps onto a scale and the dial reads almost nothing. Everyone in the room assumes the instrument is broken, because every other instrument they trust agrees with their eyes.

The scale is the only thing in the room that is working.

And this is where a very ordinary vanity dies, because the vanity in question is not about achievement. It is about presence.

Almost nobody boasts about being substantial. But everybody has a settled, unexamined sense of their own density. The room they take up. The weight their opinion carries. The fact that their absence would be noticed.

That sense is the most reliable self-flattery there is, because it is never stated and therefore never tested.

A narration-based commentary explains the verse in one line: We will not make their scales heavy, because they are empty of good.

A long commentary adds two further readings. That they have no weight or worth with Us at all. Or that no balance is set up for them, since a balance sorts good against bad.

On every reading the instrument is accurate and the man is light.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.