Ya-Sin · Makki · ayah 54 of 83

Ya-Sin 36:54

فَٱلْيَوْمَ لَا تُظْلَمُ نَفْسٌ شَيْـًٔا وَلَا تُجْزَوْنَ إِلَّا مَا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ

“So today [i.e., the Day of Judgement] no soul will be wronged at all, and you will not be recompensed except for what you used to do.”

Saheeh International

Essence

On that Day nobody receives anything but their own deeds handed back, and not one good thing is shaved off.

A reflection

Fairness we cannot manage in one kitchen

A mother tries to divide the chores fairly between three children. The eldest says he does more because he is older. The middle one says the youngest gets away with everything. The youngest cries because the bins are heavier than the dishes. By Sunday evening she has made a rota, a chart and a points system, and everyone still feels cheated.

Perfect fairness is beyond us, even in one kitchen. We cannot see everything, weigh everything, remember everything. Our justice is always approximate.

The ayah describes a justice that is not. Fa-al-yawma lā tuẓlamu nafsun shayʾan: so today no soul will be wronged in anything. One commentator notes that "soul" here covers every soul, righteous or wicked. And shayʾan, in anything, means not the least amount.

An early commentator spells out what that means in practice. Allah will not withhold from a soul the reward of any good it did. He will not load it with the burden of another. He will repay every soul what it earned of good, and punish it only for what it committed.

That is where the ego bows. Every one of us is sure, deep down, that we have sometimes been treated unfairly. We suspect we would judge better if we were in charge. The ayah describes the only court in which no one will be able to say that. Every grievance will be weighed exactly.

There is rest in surrendering to that. You do not have to keep score of every slight. You do not have to win every argument about who did more. The One who will weigh it all does not miss anything, and does not tip the scale.

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.