Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 60 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:60

وَمَآ أُوتِيتُم مِّن شَىْءٍ فَمَتَـٰعُ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا وَزِينَتُهَا ۚ وَمَا عِندَ ٱللَّهِ خَيْرٌ وَأَبْقَىٰٓ ۚ أَفَلَا تَعْقِلُونَ

“And whatever thing you [people] have been given - it is [only for] the enjoyment of worldly life and its adornment. And what is with Allāh is better and more lasting; so will you not use reason?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Everything you have been given is the enjoyment and adornment of this life; what is with Allah is better and lasts, so think.

A reflection

Every line of the CV is in the passive

A man turns sixty and, for a retirement speech, rereads his own CV. Degree, first job, promotions, the business he built. Then he notices something. Every line he wrote as an achievement had a giver behind it. The teacher who pushed him. The interviewer who took a chance. The health that held for forty years. The intelligence he never chose. Read honestly, the whole document is in the passive voice.

The ayah opens with exactly that grammar. Wa-mā ūtītum, and whatever you have been given. The verb is passive: no one in the sentence earns, builds or wins. Then min shayʾin, of anything at all. The phrase leaves nothing out. Wealth, children, status, talent, time: all of it falls under 'given'.

The root of the verb has a lovely picture. Ityān is coming with ease. The Arabs called a torrent running down its course atiyy, and the same word named the channel that carries water to a pool. A well-worn road that everyone comes along was mītāʾ. The form used here makes someone come to have a thing: to give. What you have reached you the way water reaches a pool, along a channel you did not dig.

That changes how loss feels as well as how gain feels. If it was given, it can be taken back without injustice. If it was given, it was never the measure of who you are. The one who sees his life in the passive is harder to flatter and harder to break.

The ayah was first heard by Makkans afraid of losing their trade and safety if they believed. It answered them by naming what they feared to lose: things given, for a while.

Try it with your own life. Write down three things you are proud of. Then rewrite each one in the passive, naming the Giver. Notice what happens to the pride, and to the fear.

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.