Maryam · Makki · ayah 39 of 98

Maryam 19:39

وَأَنذِرْهُمْ يَوْمَ ٱلْحَسْرَةِ إِذْ قُضِىَ ٱلْأَمْرُ وَهُمْ فِى غَفْلَةٍ وَهُمْ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ

“And warn them, [O Muḥammad], of the Day of Regret, when the matter will be concluded;[814] and [yet], they are in [a state of] heedlessness, and they do not believe.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The Prophet is told to warn of the Day of Regret, when everything is settled for ever, while people today drift on, unmarked and unaware.

A reflection

Regret is not only for the lost

Most readers hear 'the Day of Regret' as a day for other people: the deniers, the wicked, those who mocked. The good, we assume, will feel only relief.

The commentaries are more searching. One concise commentary defines it as the day when the evildoer regrets his evil, and the doer of good regrets not having done more. Another records the view that regret reaches everyone, and that the good regret how little good they did.

Sahih al-Bukhari gives that idea a precise shape. No one enters Paradise without being shown the seat he would have had in the Fire, had he done evil, so that his gratitude increases. No one enters the Fire without being shown the seat he would have had in Paradise. Had he done good, it would have been his, and so it becomes regret for him.

Everyone, then, is shown a second seat. For one person it is the seat they escaped. For another it is the seat they could have had.

Picture a woman who gave to almost every appeal for forty years. In her last week she asks her daughter to set up one standing order she always meant to start, for an orphanage she visited once. It is not guilt that moves her. It is the sudden clear sight of what more was possible.

That is the mildest form of this Day's regret, and it is felt by the righteous. The ayah is not first a threat aimed at others. It is a warning to everyone who still has a today in which to fill the empty seat.

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.