Fatir · Makki · ayah 7 of 45

Fatir 35:7

ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ شَدِيدٌ ۖ وَٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ لَهُم مَّغْفِرَةٌ وَأَجْرٌ كَبِيرٌ

“Those who disbelieve will have a severe punishment, and those who believe and do righteous deeds will have forgiveness and great reward.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Two destinies in one breath: severe punishment for those who deny, and for believers who do good, forgiveness first, then a great wage.

A reflection

The righteous are promised forgiveness first

Read the second half slowly. The people described are the best kind: they believe, and they do righteous deeds. What are they promised first? Not a reward. Forgiveness.

One commentary spells out the logic in a line. Forgiveness for whatever sins they had; a wage for whatever good they did. The ayah assumes that its righteous people have sins to be forgiven. Their faith and deeds sit beside real failings, and Allah names the cure for the failings before the reward for the deeds.

The Prophet ﷺ said it more plainly still, in a hadith found in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. No one's deeds will bring him into Paradise. They asked: not even you, Messenger of Allah? He said: not even me, unless Allah wraps me in His grace and mercy. In al-Bukhari's wording he added: so aim straight, and draw near.

Picture a carpenter's apprentice in his first year. He cuts a dovetail badly on a cabinet ordered by a customer, and does not notice. That evening the master quietly re-cuts the joint before delivery. On Friday he still hands the boy his full week's wage. Both gifts are real. The second would mean little without the first.

This ordering protects two kinds of people. It protects the anxious, who think a single stain disqualifies them; the ayah's best people have stains too. And it protects the proud, who treat their record as a ticket. Even the best record arrives needing to be forgiven.

So when you do good, do it fully, as the hadith says: aim straight and draw near. But never hold your deeds out as payment. Hold them out as a servant's effort, and ask first to be forgiven.

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.