Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 12 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:12

قُل لِّلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ سَتُغْلَبُونَ وَتُحْشَرُونَ إِلَىٰ جَهَنَّمَ ۚ وَبِئْسَ ٱلْمِهَادُ

“Say to those who disbelieve, "You will be overcome and gathered together to Hell, and wretched is the resting place."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Everyone is spreading the bed they will lie in; the ayah tells the proud, plainly and in time, which bed they are making.

A reflection

You lie in what you packed

Two friends reach a mountain hut at midnight in January. One unrolls a four-season sleeping bag. The other unrolls a light summer one, chosen because it was easier to carry up the hill. By three in the morning, only one of them is asleep.

Wa biʾsa al-mihād: and what a wretched bed. The first hearers saw a picture in mihād. The root means smoothing a place and making it easy. A mahd is a child's cradle, levelled and made ready before the baby lies down. A mihād is a bed spread out and smoothed. And mahada li-nafsihi meant to prepare good for oneself ahead of time.

So the ayah's last phrase is not only a description of Hell. It is a quiet indictment. A bed is something you spread in advance. One commentary explains the phrase as: wretched is what was prepared for them. They spent their lives smoothing it.

The Quran uses the same root for the other side. 'Whoever does good, it is for themselves that they are making ready' (30:44). The verb there is yamhadūn: they are spreading their bed. Every person, every day, is preparing a place to rest. The only question is what they are laying down in it.

This turns ordinary choices into bedding. The patience you show your mother is a sheet tucked in. The cruelty you indulge online is a stone under the mattress. Nobody notices at the time. The night comes later.

Tonight, before you sleep in the bed you can see, think of the one you cannot. Lay one good thing in it tomorrow on purpose.

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.