Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 27 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:27

وَيَوْمَ يَعَضُّ ٱلظَّالِمُ عَلَىٰ يَدَيْهِ يَقُولُ يَـٰلَيْتَنِى ٱتَّخَذْتُ مَعَ ٱلرَّسُولِ سَبِيلًا

“And the Day the wrongdoer will bite on his hands [in regret] he will say, "Oh, I wish I had taken with the Messenger a way.[1018]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Hands that could have taken a path beside the Messenger end up biting themselves, and their owner once sat at his side.

A reflection

Not a villain far away: a regular at his table

Most readers who know this ayah picture someone distant. The wrongdoer is a hardened enemy, a persecutor, a man who never came near the truth. His regret must be about terrible deeds. It is a scene about other people.

Read the words again. He does not say: I wish I had not killed, or stolen, or lied. He says: yā laytanī ittakhadhtu maʿa al-rasūli sabīlā. If only I had taken a path with the Messenger. His regret is about company and direction. It is about a road he could have walked, beside someone he knew.

The commentaries make the closeness plain. The man most often named in the reports used to sit with the Prophet ﷺ a great deal. One commentary adds that he liked to hear him talk. He was not hostile at first. He was a regular.

Then the commentaries widen the lens deliberately. One explains that 'the wrongdoer' carries the article of a whole kind. The description is the cause: he bites his hands because he did wrong, so whoever does that wrong is included. Another says the man is left unnamed so the ayah reaches every wrongdoer who obeyed someone against Allah. A third says simply: whether it came down about him or another, it is general.

So the man in this ayah may be someone who heard the Quran often. He may have liked it. He may have nodded along, admired the speaker and meant to get round to it.

That is the assumption the ayah dislodges. The danger it describes is not distance from the truth. It is nearness without taking hold. The hands were close enough to grasp the rein. They never closed on it. On that Day, they close on each other.

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.