Al-'Ankabut · Makki · ayah 7 of 69

Al-'Ankabut 29:7

وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ لَنُكَفِّرَنَّ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّـَٔاتِهِمْ وَلَنَجْزِيَنَّهُمْ أَحْسَنَ ٱلَّذِى كَانُوا۟ يَعْمَلُونَ

“And those who believe and do righteous deeds - We will surely remove from them their misdeeds and will surely reward them according to the best of what they used to do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those who believe and do good are promised two things on oath: their bad deeds buried, and a reward measured by their best.

A reflection

The farmer's word, turned to mercy

The Arabs called a farmer kāfir, because he covers the seed with earth. Night was kāfir, because its darkness covers everything. The lexicons give the root a single meaning: covering and concealing. This is established, not a guess.

From that root comes the word for disbelief, kufr: covering a truth one has seen. And from the same root, in this ayah, comes nukaffiranna: We will surely cover their bad deeds.

Notice the symmetry. The disbeliever covers what should be shown, the truth and the blessing. Allah covers what should stay hidden, the sins of those who turned to Him. The same act of covering, turned in opposite directions, is the difference between ruin and rescue.

One concise commentary explains it as wiping out their sins. Another says it means removing the bad deed by the good, until it is as though it had never been done. The farmer's image holds both. Seed under the earth is no longer on display. And in time it is not even seed any more.

The grammar carries the force of an oath. There is an emphatic la- at the front of the verb and an emphatic -nna at its end. Allah is not saying 'perhaps'. He is binding Himself to cover.

There is something tender here for anyone haunted by their past. You may have spent years trying to hide what you did, from others and from yourself. The ayah tells you to stop doing the hiding alone. Believe, do good, and leave the covering to the One who has promised it.

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.