Maryam · Makki · ayah 68 of 98

Maryam 19:68

فَوَرَبِّكَ لَنَحْشُرَنَّهُمْ وَٱلشَّيَـٰطِينَ ثُمَّ لَنُحْضِرَنَّهُمْ حَوْلَ جَهَنَّمَ جِثِيًّا

“So by your Lord, We will surely gather them and the devils; then We will bring them to be present around Hell upon their knees.[822]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The man who crumbled a bone in the square is gathered with the voices that misled him, and set on his knees at the edge.

A reflection

Sworn by your Lord

The ayah opens with an oath: fa-wa-rabbika, so by your Lord. Allah swears by Himself, and names Himself in relation to the Prophet ﷺ: your Lord. The commentaries notice the tenderness in that. Joining His name to the Prophet's ﷺ, they say, raises the Prophet's standing. It is like another oath in the Qur'an, by the Lord of the heaven and the earth. The one being mocked in Makkah is honoured in the very oath that answers his mockers.

One commentary notices something else. The oath is placed on the gathering, not on the resurrection. As if the resurrection had already been settled by the ayah before, and needed no further oath. What needed confirming was what comes after: the gathering, the kneeling, the edge.

Then comes the picture. Think of the man who said will I really be brought out alive?, perhaps crumbling a bone in a crowded square. He is gathered, and brought around Hell jithiyyan, on his knees. The posture of the proud is gone. One commentator calls it the posture of the humiliated, or of the helpless.

The ego recoils at that, and some readers hear it as a tyrant's threat. Why would God swear oaths and speak of people on their knees? The commentators give the simplest reason for the oath. Weighty news is confirmed by an oath; it is for the listener's sake, not the speaker's. And the kneeling is not an invented humiliation. It is the truth about a creature finally made visible. The one who stood so tall in the square was never as upright as he looked.

The humble do not wait for that day to kneel. The surah has already shown them, a few ayat earlier, falling to the ground of their own accord.

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.