Taha · Makki · ayah 112 of 135

Taha 20:112

وَمَن يَعْمَلْ مِنَ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ وَهُوَ مُؤْمِنٌ فَلَا يَخَافُ ظُلْمًا وَلَا هَضْمًا

“But he who does of righteous deeds while he is a believer - he will neither fear injustice nor deprivation.”

Saheeh International

Essence

In the court that matters most, nothing you did in faith is shaved off, and nothing you did not do is added.

A reflection

Not robbed, and not nibbled

Why two words? Ẓulman wa-lā haḍmā: no wrong, and no haḍm. If the ayah promised fairness, why name two kinds of unfairness?

The commentaries answer with a precise distinction. Ẓulm, here, is being denied your right entirely. Haḍm is being denied part of it. One is the theft; the other is the nibble. One commentary gives them a second shape too. Ẓulm is adding to someone's bad deeds; haḍm is shaving their good ones. Either way, the ayah closes both doors.

Most of us have met the nibble more than the theft. Picture a delivery driver who is paid per drop by an app. One month a 'routing update' arrives. The rate per drop falls by a few pence, the distance estimates shrink slightly, and waiting time at restaurants stops counting. Nothing dramatic. No one stole his wages. He just works the same hours and takes home less, and cannot quite prove where it went.

That is haḍm. The lexicons give it a physical root: crushing, pressing, packing in. A slender waist looked 'pressed in'. Food is 'digested', huḍima, when it dissolves until nothing is left. The nibble is the injustice that disappears into the system.

One commentary connects haḍm to the people condemned at the opening of Surah al-Mutaffifin. When they take a measure from others, they take it in full. When they measure out to others, they give short.

Now hear the promise. Whoever does righteous deeds, as a believer, does not fear either. Not the theft, and not the nibble. Every rounding, every routing update, every small erosion of what you were owed in this world: none of it has a counterpart there.

And a quiet challenge follows. If He refuses to nibble at your record, what are you nibbling from other people's?

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.