Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 49 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:49

وَوُضِعَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبُ فَتَرَى ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ مُشْفِقِينَ مِمَّا فِيهِ وَيَقُولُونَ يَـٰوَيْلَتَنَا مَالِ هَـٰذَا ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ لَا يُغَادِرُ صَغِيرَةً وَلَا كَبِيرَةً إِلَّآ أَحْصَىٰهَا ۚ وَوَجَدُوا۟ مَا عَمِلُوا۟ حَاضِرًا ۗ وَلَا يَظْلِمُ رَبُّكَ أَحَدًا

“And the record [of deeds] will be placed [open], and you will see the criminals fearful of that within it, and they will say, "Oh, woe to us! What is this book that leaves nothing small or great except that it has enumerated it?" And they will find what they did present [before them]. And your Lord does injustice to no one.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Book is described with the verb for abandoning, negated: it leaves nothing behind, and neither the small nor the great gets lost.

A reflection

Exactness is the mercy in this verse

The verse ends on a denial rather than a boast. Your Lord wrongs nobody.

The commentaries set two other passages beside it. Allah does not wrong by the weight of an atom. If there is a good deed He multiplies it, and gives from Himself a great reward. And: We set the scales of justice for the Day of Resurrection, so no soul is wronged in anything. Were it the weight of a mustard seed We would bring it, and We suffice as reckoners.

So the exactness runs both ways, and we rarely hear the second direction.

In one weights and measures case a shopkeeper was brought in over a faulty balance and the inspection found that the error ran against him. For nine years every customer had been given slightly more than they paid for. He had never checked, because the till had always worked out and nothing had ever gone wrong.

He was not a generous man. He was a man with an unchecked beam.

That is where a large opinion of oneself gets quietly dismantled. Pride needs an approximate record, because approximation is where self-flattery lives. We round our own motives up and other people's down, and the rounding is invisible because nobody is ever audited.

The verse removes the rounding, and then says the One doing it wrongs nobody.

Which means the small good you have forgotten is not an unrecorded kindness either. Most of us fear the ledger because we only picture one column. It is the same instrument.

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.