Al-Anbya · Makki · ayah 34 of 112

Al-Anbya 21:34

وَمَا جَعَلْنَا لِبَشَرٍ مِّن قَبْلِكَ ٱلْخُلْدَ ۖ أَفَإِي۟ن مِّتَّ فَهُمُ ٱلْخَـٰلِدُونَ

“And We did not grant to any man before you eternity [on earth]; so if you die - would they be eternal?”

Saheeh International

Essence

No human before the Prophet was granted endless life; so if he dies, will those who gloat over it live for ever?

A reflection

Only One remains

Wa mā jaʿalnā li-basharin min qablika al-khuld: and We did not grant any human being before you endless life. The verb is Allah's: "We did not grant." Life is not something a person holds by right. It is given, and its length is set by the One who gives it.

A narration-based commentary places beside this ayah two others that complete it. Everyone on the earth will perish, and the Face of your Lord, full of majesty and honour, remains (55:26-27). The ayah's denial is total. Not one human, prophet or king or scholar, has been given what belongs to Allah alone.

One classical commentator adds a phrase that sharpens it: "any human", whoever he may be. Endless life in this world, he says, would run against the wisdom of both creation and law.

Picture a celebrated architect giving a long interview in his studio. He speaks warmly about his career. Near the end, the interviewer asks what he hopes for. He smiles and says his buildings will make him immortal. People will walk through them centuries after he has gone. It is a beautiful hope, and a revealing one. Even the most gifted of us reaches for a kind of khuld, some way of not entirely ending.

The ayah meets that reaching with honesty. You will not remain; your buildings will not remain for ever either. Our pride wants to leave a permanent mark. The ayah says permanence is not ours to have.

A sceptic might ask whether this is a God jealous of His own endlessness. But the ayah is not boasting. It is correcting a lie that every human ego tells: that it will somehow be the exception. Allah gains nothing by our mortality. We gain everything by knowing it. A life that knows it will end is a life that can finally ask what it is for.

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.