An-Naml · Makki · ayah 69 of 93

An-Naml 27:69

قُلْ سِيرُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ فَٱنظُرُوا۟ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَـٰقِبَةُ ٱلْمُجْرِمِينَ

“Say, [O Muḥammad], "Proceed [i.e., travel] through the land and observe how was the end of the criminals."”

Saheeh International

Essence

To those who call the return an old tale, the reply is a walk: go through the land and look how the criminals ended.

A reflection

Why 'criminals', not 'disbelievers'

This command returns in close form at 6:11, where its fuller treatment lives. What is different here is the last word.

The surah has just quoted the deniers (27:67-68). One might expect: see how the disbelievers ended. The ayah says al-mujrimīn, the criminals. Two classical commentaries ask why. One answers that the warning is meant to reach every person who disobeys. The other calls the word a kindness to believers, so that they too leave wrongdoing and fear where it ends.

The lexicons establish the root's picture. It means cutting off. The date harvest was jirām, when the clusters were cut from the palms. Earning was jarm, as if you cut off a share for yourself. A crime, jurm, is earning of the worst kind: what a person cuts and gathers against himself.

So the walk is not only about other people's beliefs. It is about harvests. Every life is gathering something, cluster by cluster.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.