As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 59 of 182

As-Saffat 37:59

إِلَّا مَوْتَتَنَا ٱلْأُولَىٰ وَمَا نَحْنُ بِمُعَذَّبِينَ

“Except for our first death, and we will not be punished?"”

Saheeh International

Essence

The deniers said 'nothing but our first death'; in the Garden the same words return, meaning one death was all there would ever be.

A reflection

The deniers' slogan, turned inside out

In Ad-Dukhān, the Quran quotes the deniers of resurrection. Their creed fits in one line: in hiya illā mawtatunā al-ūlā wa-mā naḥnu bi-munsharīn. There is nothing but our first death, and we will not be raised (44:35).

Now read this ayah: illā mawtatanā al-ūlā wa-mā naḥnu bi-muʿadhdhabīn. Except our first death, and we will not be punished.

The words are almost identical. The similarity data marks the two ayat as closely related. But they mean opposite things.

For the deniers, 'nothing but our first death' was a ceiling. Death is all there is. After it, nothing. For the man in the Garden, 'only our first death' is a floor that has been removed. Death happened once. It will never happen again. After it, everything.

One commentary even suggests the believer says this partly within his companion's hearing. It would be a rebuke to what he used to claim: that there is nothing beyond the death of this world. The companion's slogan comes back to him, from the other side, with its meaning reversed.

This is one of the Quran's quiet ways of answering an argument. It does not always refute a slogan with a counter-slogan. Sometimes it lets the same words be spoken again by the people who turned out to be right. They say them in the place where the truth became visible.

It is worth asking which version of that sentence we live by. Is our first death a wall at the end of everything? Or a door we pass through once?

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.