Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 100 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:100

لَعَلِّىٓ أَعْمَلُ صَـٰلِحًا فِيمَا تَرَكْتُ ۚ كَلَّآ ۚ إِنَّهَا كَلِمَةٌ هُوَ قَآئِلُهَا ۖ وَمِن وَرَآئِهِم بَرْزَخٌ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ يُبْعَثُونَ

“That I might do righteousness in that which I left behind."[967] No! It is only a word he is saying; and behind them is a barrier until the Day they are resurrected.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The dying man asks to go back and repair what he left undone; the answer is no, and the repairing belongs to today.

A reflection

What 'righteous deeds' actually means

Ask a group of teenagers what 'doing good deeds' looks like. Most will picture extra prayers, extra fasting, perhaps a long beard or a quiet face. Ask what the dying man in this ayah wants to go back for, and they will imagine the same. More rituals, squeezed into the time he missed.

The word in the ayah is ṣāliḥan, and the lexicons establish a broader picture. The root has a single meaning: the opposite of spoiling. A thing is ṣāliḥ when it is sound and fit for its use. Leather that will make a good sandal was said to be ṣāliḥ for it. To aṣlaḥa something that had gone bad was to set it upright again. The Arabs used the verb for seasoning a cooking pot, and for tending an animal until it thrived. Ṣulḥ is removing the aversion between people.

So a righteous deed, in this language, is a repair. Something broken made to work again.

One concise commentary says what the first repair would be: to bear witness that there is no god but Allah. Another says: to make up what I wasted of faith and obedience. The foundation comes first. Then everything built on it.

Prayer and fasting are part of this, of course. But the root reaches further. The neighbour's broken gate. The orphan's affairs. The brothers who stopped speaking. Al-Tirmidhi records that the Prophet ﷺ asked: shall I tell you of what is higher in rank than fasting, prayer and charity? Setting things right between people. Al-Tirmidhi calls it ṣaḥīḥ; another grading considers it weaker.

The dying man wants to go back and fix things. You have not died. What is broken that you could fix this week?

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.