Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 66 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:66

إِنَّهَا سَآءَتْ مُسْتَقَرًّا وَمُقَامًا

“Indeed, it is evil as a settlement and residence."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Hell is described in the vocabulary of home, a place to settle and a place to stay, and that is what makes it unbearable.

A reflection

Not a pit, an address

This ayah is four words long, and most reciters pass through it at speed. It sounds like a footnote to the plea before it: Hell is bad, as everyone knows. The picture most people carry of Hell is physical. Fire, chains, heat. A place of pain.

The two nouns the ayah chooses point somewhere else. Mustaqarr is a place where one settles. Muqām is a place where one stays, a residence. These are words of dwelling. Elsewhere the Quran uses mustaqarr for the earth itself, where people live for a time (2:36). Here the horror is not described as a moment of agony. It is described as a home: somewhere you would settle, and stay.

A woman on a stroke ward is told she will be moved to long-term care. The bed is the same one she has lain in for a month. The nurses are the same. What has changed is that it is no longer a stay. It has become an address. Everyone in the family hears the difference at once.

That is the weight of this ayah. Pain that will end can be endured; people endure terrible things because they are passing. What the servants of the Merciful dread is a terrible place that becomes where one lives.

The commentaries add a grammatical point. This ayah is not joined to the previous reason with 'and'. One reading says each reason stands on its own. The punishment clings, and, separately, the place itself is evil as a home. Either alone would be enough to make them plead.

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.