Taha · Makki · ayah 74 of 135

Taha 20:74

إِنَّهُۥ مَن يَأْتِ رَبَّهُۥ مُجْرِمًا فَإِنَّ لَهُۥ جَهَنَّمَ لَا يَمُوتُ فِيهَا وَلَا يَحْيَىٰ

“Indeed, whoever comes to his Lord as a criminal - indeed, for him is Hell; he will neither die therein nor live.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every person will come to their Lord; whoever arrives having harvested only against himself meets a state where he neither dies nor truly lives.

A reflection

Warning the man who will kill you

A finance officer is being dismissed. He found the fraud, and his manager is getting rid of him before he can report it. As he packs his box, he stops at the manager's door. He does not shout. He says quietly: this will destroy you. Please stop while you still can. Then he leaves.

One commentator says the plain sense of the passage is that these words are the continuation of the magicians' admonition to Pharaoh. They were warning him of Allah's lasting punishment, and inviting him towards His everlasting reward.

Think about where they were standing. Pharaoh had just promised to cut off their hands and feet and crucify them. They were minutes, perhaps hours, from death. And their response was to warn their executioner about his own fate.

Other commentators read these ayat as Allah's own words, beginning a new statement. Both readings are recorded. But if they are the magicians' words, they reveal something extraordinary about faith newly born. It made these men care about the soul of the man who was about to kill them.

One commentator notes the way the sentence opens: innahu, truly the matter is this. It signals, he says, that what follows is a grave and weighty truth. The magicians were not cursing Pharaoh. They were stating the most important fact they knew, to the person who most needed to hear it.

This is a demanding model for anyone who has been wronged. The natural response to an oppressor is anger, or silence. The magicians chose a third way: a sincere warning.

You may never face Pharaoh. But you will face people who wrong you. Before you write them off, consider whether a calm, honest warning might still reach them. The magicians' did not reach Pharaoh. It has reached millions since.

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.