Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 84 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:84

مَن جَآءَ بِٱلْحَسَنَةِ فَلَهُۥ خَيْرٌ مِّنْهَا ۖ وَمَن جَآءَ بِٱلسَّيِّئَةِ فَلَا يُجْزَى ٱلَّذِينَ عَمِلُوا۟ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِ إِلَّا مَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ

“Whoever comes [on the Day of Judgement] with a good deed will have better than it; and whoever comes with an evil deed - then those who did evil deeds will not be recompensed except [as much as] what they used to do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Whatever good you arrive with comes back as something better; whatever evil you arrive with comes back only as itself, never inflated.

A reflection

The sentence leans one way, the scales the other

Read the ayah slowly and its shape is odd. The good deed gets half a line. The evil deed gets the rest, and the evildoers are named twice. 'Whoever comes with the evil deed, then those who did evil deeds are not repaid…'

Classical commentators noticed this. Naming the wrongdoers again, rather than saying simply 'they', is meant to make evil ugly in the hearer's eyes. One commentator compares another ayah where the pattern is reversed: good is repeated and evil mentioned once (17:7). Why the difference? Because this ayah sits in a passage inviting people to the Hereafter. Here, warning sharply against sin is itself the invitation.

So the sentence leans towards warning. Yet the scales lean the other way. The good deed brings back 'better than it'. The evil deed brings back only 'what they used to do', nothing added. One commentator calls this His immense generosity: evil repaid by its like, good by ten times and more.

The word for repaid, yujzā, has a picture in it. The lexicons say jazāʾ is one thing standing in another's place and matching it. To pay off a debt was to jazā it. For evil, the match is exact. For good, the payment overflows the debt.

Two more details soften the warning. One commentator notes the singular 'good deed' beside the plural 'evil deeds'. Piling evil on evil does not inflate the payment for each. One good deed alone still meets something better. Another notes the wording 'they are not repaid except' rather than 'they get what they did'. That leaves room, he says, for pardon.

Is it unfair that good is rewarded beyond its measure? No one is wronged when a gift exceeds a wage. Injustice would run the other way.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.