Ar-Rum · Makki · ayah 10 of 60

Ar-Rum 30:10

ثُمَّ كَانَ عَـٰقِبَةَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَسَـٰٓـُٔوا۟ ٱلسُّوٓأَىٰٓ أَن كَذَّبُوا۟ بِـَٔايَـٰتِ ٱللَّهِ وَكَانُوا۟ بِهَا يَسْتَهْزِءُونَ

“Then the end of those who did evil was the worst [consequence] because they denied the signs of Allāh and used to ridicule them.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Those who did ugly things met the ugliest end: the outcome carries the same name as the deed that led to it.

A reflection

Where a road of small wrongs arrives

The commentators read this ayah in two ways, and both deserve a hearing.

In the first, most widely held reading, al-sūʾā is the worst of ends, the Fire. It came to them because they denied Allah's signs and mocked them. An early Companion and a leading early commentator are both reported to have explained it this way.

In the second, the order runs differently. The end of those who kept doing evil was that they denied. Their earlier sins carried them, step by step, to the point where they rejected the signs outright. One classical commentator who records this reading links it to two other ayat. 'We turn their hearts and their eyes, as they did not believe the first time' (6:110). 'When they swerved, Allah made their hearts swerve' (61:5).

On this reading, denial is not where the road starts. It is where it arrives.

The Prophet ﷺ described the same slope. Jamiʿ al-Tirmidhi reports it, graded ḥasan, though another grading considers it weaker. When a servant commits a sin, a black spot is marked on his heart. If he stops, seeks forgiveness and repents, the heart is polished clean. If he returns, it spreads, until it covers the heart. That, he said, is the rust Allah mentions: 'rather, what they used to earn has rusted over their hearts' (83:14).

Picture a man who has smoked for twenty years. In the first year, the warning on the packet frightened him. By the fifth, he no longer read it. By the twentieth, he reads it aloud to friends in a mock-solemn voice, and they laugh. Nothing about the warning changed. He did.

That is the shape this ayah traces. Evil, repeated. Then the warnings stop landing. Then they become a joke. The last words of the ayah, 'and they used to mock them', are the final stage, not the first.

So watch the early stages in yourself. The spot you have not yet polished is easier to clean today than tomorrow.

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.