As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 44 of 182

As-Saffat 37:44

عَلَىٰ سُرُرٍ مُّتَقَـٰبِلِينَ

“On thrones facing one another.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Seventeen ayat ago, people faced each other to accuse; here, the same root seats people face to face for ever, with nothing between them but friendship.

A reflection

Facing someone to blame, facing someone to love

Two cars touch at a junction. Both drivers get out and stand facing each other across the bonnets. Their faces are a foot apart, and everything in them is accusation. Across town, two old friends sit facing each other at a café table, a foot apart, laughing. The distance is the same. The facing is not.

The word in this ayah is mutaqābilīn: facing one another. It comes from the root q-b-l, and one lexicon says every word of that root goes back to one thing facing another. The same root appeared seventeen ayat earlier, in the Fire scene: wa-aqbala baʿḍuhum ʿalā baʿḍ, and they turned towards one another, accusing (37:27). Here it returns in a different form for the people of the Garden.

The surah is making a point with a single root. Turning to face someone is not good or bad in itself. Everything depends on what you bring to the face you turn to. The people in the Fire faced each other with blame. The people in the Garden face each other with nothing to hide and nothing to settle.

The lexicons preserve a phrase for the opposite condition. Of a man lost in his affairs, the Arabs said he had no qibla and no back: no direction to face at all. The followers in the Fire scene were exactly that. They had faced their leaders, their idols and their appetites, and found nothing there.

It is a quiet question for any of us. When I turn to face the people closest to me, what do I bring? An account to settle, or a welcome? The root is the same either way. The difference is the heart behind the face.

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.