Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 61 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:61

أَفَمَن وَعَدْنَـٰهُ وَعْدًا حَسَنًا فَهُوَ لَـٰقِيهِ كَمَن مَّتَّعْنَـٰهُ مَتَـٰعَ ٱلْحَيَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنْيَا ثُمَّ هُوَ يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ مِنَ ٱلْمُحْضَرِينَ

“Then is he whom We have promised a good promise which he will meet [i.e., obtain] like he for whom We provided enjoyment of worldly life [but] then he is, on the Day of Resurrection, among those presented [for punishment in Hell]?”

Saheeh International

Essence

Both lives are given by one hand: one walks out to meet a promise, the other enjoys a season and is then summoned.

A reflection

Both gifts came from the same hand

A company director keeps a brass plaque on his desk. Two words are engraved on it: SELF-MADE. Visitors smile at it, but he means it. He left school at sixteen, worked nights and borrowed against his house. Now his firm employs two hundred people. Every word of that story is true. And every word of it leaves something out.

Look at the two verbs in this ayah. Both have the same speaker. Waʿadnāhu: We promised him. Mattaʿnāhu: We gave him enjoyment. Nobody is surprised that the believer's reward is Allah's promise. But the other man's comfort is also Allah's gift. His house, his health and his good years are all mattaʿnāhu: We let him enjoy them. The comparison is not between what Allah gives and what a man makes for himself. It is between two kinds of giving from the same hand.

That is a quiet blow to the ego. The man in the second half of the ayah never believed his comforts came from anyone. Later in this surah, Qarun says it outright: I was given it only because of knowledge I have (28:78). This ayah has already answered him. Even the enjoyment that made him forget was handed to him.

Does Allah need the director to change his plaque, the way a vain patron needs his name on a building? No. Allah says that people are the ones in need of Him, and He is the Rich, the Praised (35:15). The credit is not for Allah's sake. It is for the man, who will one day stand without his plaque.

The difference between the two men is not who received more. It is what each gift was for. One was a promise, pointing forward. The other was a season of comfort, with a summons at its end.

Humility here is not pretending you did nothing. The nights, the loans and the risks were real. Humility is knowing whose hand was open while you worked.

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.