Saba · Makki · ayah 54 of 54

Saba 34:54

وَحِيلَ بَيْنَهُمْ وَبَيْنَ مَا يَشْتَهُونَ كَمَا فُعِلَ بِأَشْيَاعِهِم مِّن قَبْلُ ۚ إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا۟ فِى شَكٍّ مُّرِيبٍۭ

“And prevention will be placed between them and what they desire,[1243] as was done with their kind before. Indeed, they were in disquieting doubt [i.e., denial].”

Saheeh International

Essence

Doubters are barred from the faith they want too late, like their kind before; doubt left unattended becomes a wall.

A reflection

Wanting it once it is out of reach

A woman's brother lives three time zones away. Every spring she says the same thing. Next summer, when work is calmer, when the children are older. Eleven summers pass that way. The flight she finally books is for his funeral. On the plane she wants one thing with her whole body: an afternoon on his balcony, tea going cold, nothing urgent. It is the plainest wish in the world, and it is now the one thing she cannot have.

Wa-ḥīla baynahum wa-bayna mā yashtahūn: a barrier is set between them and what they desire. The early commentators list what that desire is. Faith that would be accepted. Repentance. A return to the world to do things differently. The obedience they now wish they had given. Another early view says it is the world itself: wealth, family, the bloom of life, taken from them at death. One great commentator settles it calmly. There is no contradiction. They were cut off from their pleasures in this world, and from what they begged for in the next.

Notice the verb the ayah uses for that wanting. Yashtahūn is from shahwa, the self leaning towards what it wants. It is the same leaning that once pulled them away from faith. Now it pulls towards faith, with all its old force. Nothing has changed in the appetite. Only what it is pointed at has changed, and the season for it has closed.

That is the quiet horror in the ayah. The thing they desire at the end was free for decades. Faith cost them a sentence and a change of direction. Repentance was open every night. They wanted other things more, until wanting other things was no longer possible.

So the question it puts to a living reader is not frightening. It is practical. What will you want most when wanting no longer buys anything? Whatever that is, it is still within reach today. The woman on the plane would tell you to book the flight now.

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.