As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 33 of 182

As-Saffat 37:33

فَإِنَّهُمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ فِى ٱلْعَذَابِ مُشْتَرِكُونَ

“So indeed they, that Day, will be sharing in the punishment.”

Saheeh International

Essence

After all the blame, the verdict is a single word, partners: they shared the error, and now they share what it earned.

A reflection

Those who gave Him partners become partners

The Arabs lived by partnership. Two men might own shares in one well, one field or one slave. A shirk was a share. A sharīk was a partner: the thing belonged to both, and neither had it alone.

The last word of this ayah is mushtarikūn: sharing, partaking together. It comes from that same root, sh-r-k. And it is impossible to miss the echo. These are the people who committed shirk. They took what belongs to Allah alone, worship, trust and hope, and handed shares of it to idols and leaders. On the Day, they are given exactly the word they lived by. They are mushtarikūn, partners, in the punishment.

The lexicons record another use of the same letters. A sharak was a hunter's snare. The partnership these people built in the world turns out to have been that too. They thought they were sharing power. They were sharing a trap.

The Quran draws its own picture of shirk elsewhere. One slave is owned by quarrelling partners, each pulling him a different way. Another belongs wholly to one master (39:29). The followers in this passage lived like the first slave, owned in shares by idols, chiefs and appetites. Now the partnership is complete, and it is the worst one imaginable.

There is a strange justice in the way language returns here. The surah does not need to explain why this is their end. The word explains it. What you made partners in this life, you will be partnered with in the next.

It is worth asking, then, what we are quietly sharing our hearts with. The things that take a share of our worship today are the things we will one day be partnered with.

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.