Maryam · Makki · ayah 77 of 98

Maryam 19:77

أَفَرَءَيْتَ ٱلَّذِى كَفَرَ بِـَٔايَـٰتِنَا وَقَالَ لَأُوتَيَنَّ مَالًا وَوَلَدًا

“Then, have you seen he who disbelieved in Our verses and said, "I will surely be given wealth and children [in the next life]"?”

Saheeh International

Essence

A poor blacksmith asked for his wages and was told to wait for the Resurrection, and Allah answered the joke with an ayah.

A reflection

A blacksmith's bill became revelation

This ayah began as an unpaid bill.

Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim both record the scene from the man it happened to. Khabbab ibn al-Aratt was a smith in Makka before Islam. He worked for al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil, and in one wording he had made him a sword. The money owed to him built up, and he went to collect it.

The answer was a condition. I will not pay you until you disbelieve in Muhammad ﷺ. Khabbab replied that he would not, not until al-ʿĀṣ died and was raised again. In other words, never.

Then came the joke. So I will die and be raised? Leave me until then. I will be given wealth and children there, and I will pay you. The next thing on record is revelation, quoting his own words back to him. Have you seen the one who disbelieved in Our signs and said, I will surely be given wealth and children?

Hear what the first listeners heard. A craftsman with no clan to protect him had been mocked out of his wages. Now the mockery was being recited as revelation, in the very words of the man who said it. The rich man's line had been entered into a record he could not edit.

The narrations add that the passage runs on to and he will come to Us alone, three ayat later. The story is not finished in one verse. It is a case being heard.

Hold on to that unpaid bill. Everything in the next three ayat is about who settles it, and where.

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.